Angels apply a little heat to Rangers with 6-5 victory

The calendar said late June, but the intensity on the field felt like late September.

Erick Aybar scored from first on Howie Kendrick’s hit-and-run single to right field in the first inning, the featherweight of an Angels shortstop diving headfirst into the shin guard-covered left leg of Texas catcher Matt Treanor to reach the plate.

Rangers leadoff batter Elvis Andrus upended Angels catcher Jeff Mathis with a hard take-out slide to prevent a double play and keep a rally alive in the fifth.

Angels center fielder Torii Hunter, shaded toward left-center field, made a 120-foot dash into the right-center-field gap, riding his aging but still able legs to catch Julio Borbon’s eighth-inning drive, saving two runs.

The Angels scored four two-out runs in the sixth inning and held on to beat the Rangers, 6-5, at Angel Stadium on Tuesday night, and if the opener of a three-game series is any indication of the American League West race, it’s going to be a dogfight between these teams.

“The Rangers look good,” Hunter said, after the Angels trimmed Texas’ lead to 3½ games. “Offensively, defensively, pitching-wise, those guys are the real deal. We know that. We see that.”

Texas has a history of starting fast and fading in the summer heat, but there is a sense among the Angels that these Rangers have a little more staying power.

“They’re playing great baseball; they’re pitching well, and they’re crushing the ball,” said pitcher Joe Saunders. “The way they’re playing now, they’re the team to beat.”

The Angels did just that Tuesday night, riding Joel Pineiro’s solid six-inning, three-run, eight-hit effort, which gave the right-hander his fifth straight win, Bobby Abreu’s clutch two-out, three-run double in the sixth, and Hunter’s catch in the eighth.

Closer Brian Fuentes then buzzed the heart of the Texas order in the ninth for his 14th save, striking out Ian Kinsler and Vladimir Guerrero, the former Angels slugger who had homered in his previous at-bat, and retiring hot-hitting Josh Hamilton on a grounder to shortstop.

“Fuentes is a good closer; he showed today that he has the ability,” Abreu said of the oft-criticized left-hander. “He faced three really tough guys, especially Vladdy, who is hot.”

Indeed, Guerrero, in his first game in Angel Stadium as a Ranger, showed there is plenty of lightning left in his bat. He singled in the first, hit a sacrifice fly in the third and turned viciously on Kevin Jepsen’s 95-mph fastball in the seventh, lining it over the wall in center for his 16th homer and pulling Texas within 6-5.

“That was a bullet,” Hunter said of Guerrero’s homer. “Vladdy looked good. He looks slim, too. That homer was smoked. He’s still got it, man.”

So does Hunter, a nine-time Gold Glove winner who some think has lost a step. With two on and one out in the eighth, Hunter ran about as far as an outfielder can go for a ball to rob Borbon.

“When the ball went into the air, I was like, ‘Feet, don’t fail me now,’” Hunter said. “I was pretty pumped up. I felt like I was 25. Afterward, my body let me know I’m 34.”

Sometimes it’s not how fast you are, but how efficiently you get from Point A to Point B.

“He got a great jump, and his route was as clean as it could be,” Manager Mike Scioscia said of Hunter. “It takes a special center fielder to make that play, and he made it look easy.”

The Angels trailed, 3-2, in the sixth when Kevin Frandsen singled with two outs, took second on a wild pitch and scored on Mathis’ single.

Aybar singled to left, and reliever Darren Oliver, who entered with a 1.27 earned-run average in 32 games, walked Kendrick and hung a full-count breaking ball to Abreu, who belted it into the right-field corner for a three-run double.

mike.digiovanna@latimes.com

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