Angels dig way out of early hole

SEATTLE -- It’s tough enough beating the Seattle Mariners on even terms. Tuesday night, the Angels did it with a 6-foot-2, 185-pound anchor -- oh, wait, that’s Ervin Santana -- tied to their legs.

The erratic right-hander put his team in a five-run, first-inning hole, but the Angels slugged their way out of it and then some, erasing the deficit by the fifth inning and busting the game open with four eighth-inning runs for an improbable 10-6 victory over the Mariners in Safeco Field.

Dustin Moseley answered Manager Mike Scioscia’s 911 call to the bullpen in the first and threw 5 1/3 scoreless, two-hit innings, as the Angels won for the second time this season after overcoming a five-run deficit and opened a four-game lead over Seattle in the American League West.

Kendry Morales, filling in capably for injured first baseman Casey Kotchman, capped a three-hit night with a run-scoring double, and Vladimir Guerrero capped a four-hit game with a two-run single, the biggest hits of an eighth-inning outburst that ended a 6-6 tie.

The decisive rally started like two earlier rallies -- with a walk, this one by Gary Matthews Jr. against reliever Brandon Morrow. Matthews stole second base and scored the go-ahead run on Morales’ double off the left-field wall.

Howie Kendrick flied to right, and Jeff Mathis struck out, but Reggie Willits walked, Orlando Cabrera single+d to load the bases and Guerrero, facing right-hander Rick White, laced a two-run single to left field to make it 9-6. Maicer Izturis capped the rally with a run-scoring single to right field.

The Angels wiped out the early deficit with a run in the third inning, two in the fourth and two in the fifth, and they took a 6-5 lead in the seventh when Mathis walked, took second on Willits’ sacrifice bunt -- which came on a 1-and-2 pitch -- and scored on Guerrero’s two-out double to left-center field.

But the Mariners countered in the seventh inning, when Yuniesky Betancourt hit a one-out double against Justin Speier and scored on Ichiro Suzuki’s single to center field to make it 6-6.

Four innings earlier, the Angels’ comeback began with a walk and a flare, Kendrick leading off the third inning with a walk and Mathis following with a soft single to right field. Kendrick took third on Mathis’ hit and scored when right fielder Jose Guillen’s throw bounced past third baseman Adrian Beltre for an error.

With two outs in the fourth inning, Matthews drove his 17th home run of the season to right-center field, against starter Jeff Weaver, and Morales followed with his third homer, to right field, to make it 5-3.

Mathis led off the fifth inning with a double and took third on Willits’ fly to right field. Cabrera grounded a run-scoring single to center field, Guerrero ripped a double to right-center field, advancing Cabrera to third base, and Garret Anderson, against left-hander Eric O’Flaherty, hit a sacrifice fly to center field to make it 5-5.

Santana threw 23 pitches against the Mariners. Much like his assessment of the reporters who cover the Angels, a group he felt compelled to publicly rip last week, they were “all bad, all bad, all bad.”

Suzuki led off the first inning with a triple to right-center field, Jose Vidro walked on four pitches and Guillen ripped a two-run double to right-center field. Raul Ibanez walked and Beltre lined a two-run triple into the right-field corner.

Richie Sexson grounded to first base, Beltre holding, but Kenji Johjima lined a run-scoring single to left field to make it 5-0. Scioscia, in an effort to give his team even a remote chance for victory, had no choice but to pull Santana in favor of Moseley.

Santana’s line: one-third of an inning, four hits, every one of them hit hard, five earned runs, two walks and no strikeouts. It matched the shortest outing of his career.

It will probably be Santana’s last start of the season. Santana, who was demoted to triple-A Salt Lake with a 5-11 record and 6.22 earned-run average July 18, won his rotation spot back with a 6 1/3 -inning, one-run, four-hit effort in Boston on Aug. 17.

But Santana regressed Thursday, giving up five runs and eight hits in six innings of a 5-4 loss to Toronto, and Tuesday’s pasting, combined with Moseley’s rescue, is expected to prompt Scioscia to replace Santana in the rotation with Moseley.

mike.digiovanna@latimes.com