Angels’ leading men pull off a dramatic win

In a reversal of sorts, the thunder came first and the lightning later.

With an erratic hot-weather system causing booming thunder -- the kind not caused by plastic sticks -- Howie Kendrick ended the game with fireworks by getting an infield single to score Garret Anderson for a 7-6, 10-inning victory over the Texas Rangers on Friday.

The Angels (80-54) eclipsed the Boston Red Sox by percentage points for the league’s best record heading into the final month of the season. The holder of that title at the end of the season gets home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

Kendrick’s infield base hit off reliever Frank Francisco came after the Angels experienced a rarity: a coughed-up, late-inning lead.

But it concluded with the Angels’ fifth consecutive win and ninth walk-off victory of the season, and it came on the heels of an emotionally charged sweep of Seattle that Manager Mike Scioscia said the team can’t rest on.

“We have to win and whatever happened in that Seattle series doesn’t affect anything,” he said.

The only thing it might have affected is the reeling Mariners, who lost their seventh consecutive game to fall 6 1/2 games behind the Angels in the AL West.

In a bend-but-don’t-break effort, starter Joe Saunders was peppered with singles -- he gave up nine -- and hampered with suspect defense during five-plus innings of work.

“They were making him work,” Scioscia said. “He made some good pitches early to strand some runners, but he made a lot of pitches to get through five innings.”

With a two-run Angels margin, Nelson Cruz hit a solo home run off Justin Speier in the eighth inning and Sammy Sosa blooped a single off Francisco Rodriguez to score Michael Young and even it at 6-6 in the ninth. It was only Rodriguez’s fifth blown save of the season.

Darren Oliver (2-0) pitched a perfect 10th inning for the victory.

The runs against Speier and Rodriguez negated a two-run homer by Anderson off Rangers starter Vicente Padilla in the fifth inning that itself negated a costly Vladimir Guerrero miscue.

With two on and two out and the Angels leading, 4-3, Guerrero muffed a routine fly ball in the fifth inning off Cruz’s bat. Guerrero stuck his glove out and the ball bounced right out, allowing two Rangers to score.

“The ball drifted,” Scioscia said. “It was up there high, but Vlad just missed it.”

It was Kendrick who got the Angels on the board in the second inning, his double scoring Kendry Morales and Maicer Izturis to tie the score at 2-2.

The Angels took the lead in the fourth when Casey Kotchman ended an 0-for-14 slump by knocking in Izturis with a sharp single.

While staff aces John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar rely on dominating pitches, Saunders saunters by on precision and control.

Early on, that control found the Rangers’ bats.

Saunders dodged trouble in the first inning after allowing a leadoff double to Ian Kinsler by rebounding to strike out Sosa and Marlon Byrd.

The Rangers scored twice in the second inning on three consecutive hits. But Saunders got out of the jam without more damage by getting Sosa to ground out with the bases loaded.

In a season where he found steady rotation time due to the injury-beset Bartolo Colon and the erratic Ervin Santana, Saunders might not be trying for simply a rotation spot.

He might now be auditioning to take the mound in a playoff series. But Saunders doesn’t want to look that far down the road.

“We just need to take it one game at a time and try to go out there and win every game,” he said.

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jonathan.abrams@latimes.com