Angels finally tame Fenway

BOSTON -- There was another bullpen meltdown involving the Angels in Fenway Park on Thursday, with hitters wearing down relievers with patient at-bats and a late lead evaporating.

Only this time, it was the Boston Red Sox who were flattened at the end.

Down by two in a stadium they’ve struggled in, against the team that eliminated them from the 2004 and 2007 playoffs, the Angels rallied for four runs in the seventh inning en route to a 7-5 victory over the Red Sox, giving them their first series win in Fenway since July 28-30, 2006.

Down 3-1 in the seventh, Erick Aybar drove in a run with an infield single, Chone Figgins tied the score with a run-scoring single and Gary Matthews Jr. added a two-run single to give the Angels a 5-3 lead.

The Angels tacked on key insurance runs in the eighth and ninth for their first back-to-back wins at Fenway since May 15-16, 2003.

“This gives you little bit of a taste of what we’re like and how we compete when we’re healthy,” said Matthews, who hit an RBI double in the eighth. “That’s the key, staying healthy, so when that time rolls around, we give people a different look than we did last year.”

Matthews didn’t need to define “that time.” He was talking about the playoffs and last October, when an Angels team decimated by injury and illness was swept by Boston and outscored, 19-4, in the division series.

Fenway Park is no Shangri-La for the Angels, who have won only 16 of 41 games since the start of 2000 in what the locals like to call “America’s Most Beloved Ballpark.”

Though the Angels don’t attach more significance to any one regular-season game or series, and they scoff at any suggestion they are snake-bit in this park, they know the road to the World Series will probably wind through Yawkey Way.

Which makes Thursday’s victory and the series win, even though it came against a Boston team hampered by injury and illness, important.

“We’ve struggled here, and for us to come back like that and scratch out a win is awesome,” said Joe Saunders, who gave up three runs and seven hits in six innings to improve to 4-0. “It’s a big confidence boost when we come back here, knowing we can come back against those guys.”

They did it by essentially morphing into the Red Sox for a day, grinding out at-bats, driving up pitch counts and drawing nine walks, two that keyed their seventh-inning rally.

Justin Masterson, called up from double-A Portland, gave Boston six superb innings in his big league debut, giving up one run and two hits, one of them Mike Napoli’s fifth-inning homer.

He left with a 3-1 lead, but the normally reliable Sox bullpen collapsed in the seventh, as three relievers -- Javier Lopez, Manny Delcarmen and Hideki Okajima -- combined to throw 52 pitches.

Casey Kotchman led off with a walk, and Maicer Izturis singled to center. Boston Manager Terry Francona summoned Delcarmen, who walked Napoli on four pitches to load the bases and gave up Aybar’s single, which made it 3-2.

In came Okajima, who gave up Figgins’ single to right, which made it 3-3. Matthews followed with a two-run single to center for a 5-3 lead and took second when Coco Crisp bobbled the ball.

Okajima walked Vladimir Guerrero intentionally to load the bases but escaped further damage when he struck out Garret Anderson and Torii Hunter and got Kotchman to pop to short.

Matthews’ RBI double made it 6-3 in the eighth, and Izturis’ sacrifice fly made it 7-3 in the ninth, runs that proved huge when reliever Scot Shields gave up a two-run home run to David Ortiz in the bottom of the ninth, pulling the Red Sox to within 7-5.

But Francisco Rodriguez got Manny Ramirez, who torched the Angels closer for a prodigious walk-off home run the last time the two met, in Game 2 of the division series here last October, to fly to deep center for his ninth save.

“Funky things happen here,” Matthews said. “Big Papi hits a home run off Shields, and you’re thinking, ‘Gosh, hurry up and get those three outs, and let’s get out of here.’ But we got it done.”

--

mike.digiovanna@latimes.com