Angels Still Laboring for Berth

ARLINGTON, Texas —  Good morning, Angel fans. Get any sleep last night?

This isn’t really happening, you think. The Angels aren’t really collapsing again. But your heroes were one victory away from the playoffs four days ago, and they’re still one victory away this morning.

The Angels suddenly went flat Tuesday, and at this rate the champagne they’ve been carting around America for a few days will go flat too.

After a 2-1 loss to rookie Joaquin Benoit and the Texas Rangers, Angel Manager Mike Scioscia closed the clubhouse doors and told his players to stop pressing, to stop fighting themselves, to stop worrying about the playoffs. Worry about the little things, such as getting a hit with a runner in scoring position, and the big picture will come into focus by itself.

“What we’re lacking right now is the feeling and the excitement of being the team that’s going to win the World Series,” batting coach Mickey Hatcher said. “I don’t see that motivation.”

Major league officials never bothered to flip a coin to decide the site of a potential one-game playoff between the Angels and Boston Red Sox, but look here: The Red Sox won their fifth consecutive game Tuesday, as the Angels lost their third in a row. If the Red Sox win all five remaining games--and if the Angels lose all five, the teams will tie for the American League wild-card playoff berth.

The Seattle Mariners are still alive too, with five games left. They must win all five, including three in Anaheim starting Friday.

The pressure mounts with every day that the Angels fail to clinch, and the Red Sox start 21-game winner Derek Lowe tonight. The Mariners start crafty veteran Jamie Moyer.

The Angels hope to start Ramon Ortiz, who has a cut on the little finger of his pitching hand. And the Angels face Kenny Rogers, who once pitched a perfect game against them.

Closer Troy Percival, a member of the 1995 team that staged the mother of all Angel collapses, said there is no comparison between that team and this one.

“Nothing went right that year,” he said. “We didn’t pitch well. We didn’t play well. Right now we’re just not getting runners across the plate. When we do that, we’ll be fine.

“This team is nothing like the one in ’95. It’s going to get it done.”

If the problem is a split focus between clinching a playoff berth and winning the division title, that problem is about to disappear, perhaps today. If the Oakland Athletics win tonight and the Angels lose, the A’s clinch the American League West championship.

“The first thing would be to win a game,” first baseman Scott Spiezio said, “and take it from there.”

Said Scioscia: “The fact that it’s so close, sometimes it’s like a carrot dangling at you. Some guys might start to press.”

There is plenty of evidence. The Angels were hitless in six at-bats with men in scoring position Tuesday, and they’re two for 21 in the last three games.

Second baseman Adam Kennedy, given two chances to drive in a run with a hit or sacrifice fly, struck out both times. Center fielder Darin Erstad committed his first error in 245 games Tuesday; the Angels have made at least one error in three consecutive games for the first time since June. On an intentional walk, reliever Brendan Donnelly nearly threw ball four to the backstop.

Even Scioscia’s instincts, so uncannily successful this season, were off Tuesday. Scioscia used three pinch-runners, none of whom tried to steal. The one Angel who did, Spiezio, was thrown out on a busted hit-and-run.

Not everything went wrong for the Angels. Garret Anderson homered, and Kevin Appier held Texas to two runs over six innings.

Scioscia seldom holds meetings, and Kennedy said he didn’t knock over any chairs in this one. He advised his players to shrug off the pressure, to forget the weight of history, of clinching the Angels’ first playoff berth in 16 years.

So far, easier said than done.