Angels Get Official Dispatch

Let the Tim Salmon Love Fest begin.

All that was separating the retiring outfielder from a proper send-off in his last week as an Angel was the team’s playoff elimination, which would allow Manager Mike Scioscia to rest his regulars and insert the seldom-used but-still-popular Salmon in the lineup for a farewell tour.

Closure finally came Tuesday night, swiftly but not painlessly, when Texas rocked Kelvim Escobar for five runs in the first two innings of a 5-2 victory over the Angels that, combined with Oakland’s 12-3 win at Seattle, clinched the Athletics’ first American League West title since 2003 and ended the Angels’ two-year reign atop the division.

“It’s over,” second baseman Adam Kennedy said. “We gave it a shot, but we just dug ourselves too big a hole. It’s disappointing.”

Though they were officially eliminated Tuesday, the season was essentially lost in April and May, when an offense minus the injured Juan Rivera and Maicer Izturis and with an ailing Casey Kotchman and struggling Jeff Mathis hit .245 as a team, had a sub-.300 on-base percentage and averaged 4.1 runs in the first 45 games.

The combination of a soft lineup and some shoddy defense, with a dash of ineffective pitching by Jeff Weaver and a pinch of shaky relief, left the Angels 11 games under .500 (17-28) and 6 1/2 games behind division-leading Texas on May 22.

Behind a resurgent offense fueled by Rivera and Izturis, the Angels got hot in July, going 19-7 and moving into first place, half a game ahead of Oakland, on July 28.

But the A’s went on a tear in early August and built a 6 1/2 -game lead over the Angels by Aug. 16.

The Angels have a very respectable 42-27 record since the All-Star break, but the A’s have been even better -- 46-23 -- during that span.

“The bottom line is they’ve been incredible since July 1,” Scioscia said of the A’s. “Their offense fueled their second-half run, they play great defense, and they have terrific pitching. On the defensive side, we struggled all year, and early in the year, our offensive chemistry was non-existent.

“We’ve played good baseball lately, but just not quite as good as Oakland has. Our bad baseball earlier in the year was a little worse than theirs, and our good baseball wasn’t quite as good as theirs. They earned it.”

The one constant for the Angels all year, Scioscia said, was “terrific pitching,” but even that failed them Tuesday night. Escobar, who had one of his best games of the season (seven shutout innings in a 3-0 win) on Sept. 20 in Kansas City, had one of his worst games against the Rangers.

After Michael Young’s one-out infield single in the first inning, Mark Teixeira crushed a 3-and-1 fastball into the right-field seats for his 30th home run of the season and a 2-0 lead.

The Rangers strung together four hits to open the second -- Mark DeRosa’s single, Ian Kinsler’s double, Rod Barajas’ run-scoring single and Nelson Cruz’s run-scoring single -- before Gary Matthews grounded out. Young’s run-scoring single capped the three-run rally and knocked Escobar out.

Hector Carrasco pitched brilliantly in relief, giving up three hits in 5 1/3 shutout innings, but the Angels managed only one run against starter Robinson Tejeda, on Garret Anderson’s fifth-inning single, and one against Ron Mahay on Rivera’s eighth-inning homer.

Like much of this season, the Angels failed in the clutch -- they put two on with one out in the fourth inning and failed to score, and mustered only one run after putting the first two runners on in the fifth.

“It’s very disappointing that we didn’t reach our goal of getting to the playoffs,” Escobar said. “We have to come back next year, fix some things and do a better job. We didn’t play very well in May, and that made it difficult for us.

“Since July 1, we’ve had one of baseball’s best records, but we have to be more consistent all year long.”

mike.digiovanna@latimes.com