Angels’ hits still not coming

No knock on Maicer Izturis -- he’s a valuable utility player, a switch-hitter who can play three infield positions -- but it’s a good indication of how badly the Angels are struggling and how banged up they are that the light-hitting Izturis, who has all of seven home runs in 228 big league games, was batting third Wednesday.

Minus the team’s usual No. 3 hitter Vladimir Guerrero (bruised right wrist) and .327-hitting second baseman Howie Kendrick, who was put on the 15-day disabled list because of a broken bone in his left hand, the Angels’ offense went from feeble to impotent in a 3-0 loss to the Oakland Athletics in McAfee Coliseum.

If the season is a marathon, the Angels have already hit Heartbreak Hill.

They closed their worst trip in six years with their sixth straight loss and eighth in nine games, managing five hits against A’s starter Dan Haren and relievers Justin Duchscherer and Huston Street.

They were outscored, 44-16, on the trip, going 1-7 against Cleveland, Boston and Oakland, the first time they’ve been held to one win on a three-city trip since finishing 1-8 at Seattle, Texas and Oakland in September of 2001. The Angels scored six runs in six games and have five hits or less in four of their last five games.

The Angels are batting .216 with 19 runs in their last 10 games, an average of 1.9 a game. They’re batting .152 with runners in scoring position during the stretch and .197 with runners in scoring position on the season.

“There’s no secret ingredient,” center fielder Gary Matthews Jr. said, when asked what it will take for the Angels to snap out of their funk. “You can’t just go out and sacrifice a chicken, throw on some snake oil, and all of a sudden you’ll start piling up the runs. It doesn’t work like that. You’ve got to have a solid approach, do things consistently, and things will turn around.”

Stringing two hits or a hit and a walk together would be a good start. The Angels did neither Wednesday, going three-up, three-down five times and mustering one scoring threat, putting runners on first and third with one out in the sixth.

But Izturis chopped a ball back to Haren, who threw out Reggie Willits at home, and Garret Anderson, the veteran cleanup batter who is two for 24 in the last six games and has two runs batted in for the season, popped out to third.

“For a string of games, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen us struggle so much in total offense,” Manager Mike Scioscia said. “We’re as stagnant as I’ve seen. The guys in the lineup are the guys we’re counting on. They were doing it the first week of the season, but right now, the faucet’s been turned off. We’ve got to keep inching forward, keep moving along. This can turn around in a hurry, but it’s frustrating.”

The Angels don’t have much power to begin with -- they have two home runs in their last 10 games -- and with Guerrero and Kendrick sidelined, they were virtually punchless Wednesday.

But they thrived with little pop in 2005 because they led the American League with a .296 average with runners in scoring position, and they survived for much of 2006 because they hit .274 in those situations.

Over the last six games, though, the Angels have four hits in 38 at-bats (.105) with runners in scoring position.

“We’ve been terrific over the last couple years with runners in scoring position, and right now, that part of it is really soft,” Scioscia said.

“A lot of guys aren’t getting good looks at the plate and squaring the ball up, so when those situations arise, we haven’t applied much pressure. Some guys start gripping the bat a little tighter, trying to do too much, and it becomes counterproductive.”

mike.digiovanna@latimes.com

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RESULTS

at New York 9, Cleveland 2: Kei Igawa limited the Indians to a pair of runs over six innings, and Jason Giambi homered for the Yankees. A night after Chase Wright won, 10-3, in his big league debut after getting an 8-1 lead in the second, Igawa (1-0) was handed a 6-2 lead in the third.

* Boston 4, at Toronto 1: David Ortiz homered and Tim Wakefield gave up four hits in seven innings for the Red Sox. Wakefield (2-1) struck out four, walked three and lowered his ERA to 1.35. The 40-year-old knuckleballer has allowed only three earned runs in 20 innings.

* at Chicago 6, Texas 0: Jim Thome homered twice -- giving him 477 for his career -- and Jermaine Dye hit a two-out grand slam in the fifth off Rangers starter Kevin Millwood (2-2).

* Minnesota 5, at Seattle 4: The Twins held on for the win when Luis Castillo threw out Adrian Beltre at the plate to end the game. The Mariners’ Felix Hernandez recorded just one out before leaving the game and was charged with three runs.

* Kansas City 4, at Detroit 3 (10 innings): John Buck hit a leadoff homer in the 10th inning and Kansas City rallied past Detroit to end its six-game losing streak. Gil Meche did not allow an earned run in eight innings for the Royals, who fell behind, 3-0, in the sixth.

* Baltimore 6, at Tampa Bay 4: Erik Bedard won his third straight start and Kevin Millar hit a tiebreaking double for the Orioles. Millar’s fifth-inning double off Gary Glover (0-1) gave Baltimore a 4-3 lead.

* at Oakland 3, Angels 0: Dan Haren earned his first win of the season and Eric Chavez drove in two runs for the Athletics.

From the Associated Press