Royals trip up Angels

Earth to Angels: Welcome back.

A near ethereal 11-game stretch that featured eight victories, three of them walk-off wins, a series of dramatic comebacks and a handful of games in which the Angels simply bludgeoned the opposition ended with a thud Monday night.

The Kansas City Royals, who have the worst record in the American League, and right-hander John Thomson, a 33-year-old journeyman who hadn’t won a big league game in more than a year, knocked the Angels off their emotional perch with a 5-3 victory, ending the Angels’ four-game win streak.

For once, the Angels didn’t get the big hit late in the game -- Casey Kotchman flied out with runners on first and third to end the sixth inning, and the Angels failed to score after Orlando Cabrera drew a lead-off walk in the ninth.

For once, all the breaks did not go the Angels’ way -- they appeared to have Jason LaRue cut down at the plate in the second inning, but LaRue knocked the ball out of catcher Mike Napoli’s glove, an error that cost the Angels two runs.

For once, there was no spark at the top of the order -- Reggie Willits was 0 for 4 and is now 0 for 9 in the last two games.

“The way the offense has been playing,” pitcher John Lackey said, “my goal was to stay out there for a while and let the guys come back and win it at the end.”

Lackey, despite a rocky start, stayed out there for eight innings, giving up five runs -- three earned -- and seven hits, striking out seven and showing no ill effects of the shoulder tendinitis that pushed his start back a day.

But that comeback never materialized.

“You don’t want to pick too many silver linings out of a loss, but John pitched much better as the game went on,” Manager Mike Scioscia said. “He got stronger, he had good command and gave us a chance to win.”

The game was lost during the Royals’ four-run second, an inning that so infuriated Lackey that when Esteban German flied to center for the third out, the right-hander let out a primal scream and expletive that could be clearly heard in the press box.

“That’s not the first time that’s happened,” Lackey said, “and it won’t be the last.”

Was Lackey (10-5) mad at himself or how the inning unfolded?

“A combination of things,” he said.

Consecutive one-out singles by Alex Gordon, Ryan Shealy and LaRue made it 1-0, and after Tony Pena struck out, Joey Gathright was hit by a pitch to load the bases. David DeJesus stroked a run-scoring single to right, and Vladimir Guerrero fired a one-hop throw to the plate that Napoli was able to glove about shoulder height.

But LaRue slid hard into Napoli’s mitt and jarred the ball loose for the third run. The ball squirted to the backstop, allowing Gathright to race home with the fourth run.

“I didn’t make the play,” Napoli said. “I probably should have went in with two hands, but I tried to swipe the tag. I just dropped the ball.”

Guerrero, who has 16 hits in 27 career at-bats (.593) against Thomson, doubled in the bottom of the second and scored on Howie Kendrick’s sacrifice fly to make it 4-1.

But the Royals pushed the lead to 5-1 in the third when Billy Butler singled, Gordon was hit by a pitch, both advanced on a balk -- the fifth of Lackey’s six-year career -- and Butler scored on Shealy’s groundout.

Kendrick’s single, Kendry Morales’ RBI double and Napoli’s sacrifice fly pulled the Angels to within 5-3 in the fifth, but Thomson, who won for the first time since May 24, 2006, blanked the Angels in the sixth and seventh, and Joakim Soria (scoreless eighth) and Octavio Dotel (scoreless ninth) closed out the game.

“Don’t be deceived by their record,” Scioscia said of the Royals. “They have a lot of young talent; they play the game hard.”

mike.digiovanna@latimes.com