No Real Angels in the Outfield

TORONTO — You knew the Angels would eventually lose a baseball game, just like you knew Tiger Woods would eventually lose a golf tournament, but what a way to go.

Ed Sprague’s routine fly ball to start the 11th inning dropped between right fielder Tim Salmon and center fielder Jim Edmonds for a gift triple, and reliever Rich DeLucia walked in the winning run, as the Toronto Blue Jays defeated the Angels, 4-3, Sunday before 28,180 in the Skydome.

“[Stuff] happens,” Angel third baseman Tony Phillips said. “That’s baseball. We’re not robots out there. We screw up every now and then. If we were robots, it wouldn’t be much fun to watch . . . and you guys [reporters] wouldn’t have a job, either.”

The Blue Jays did everything they could to give the game away--closer Mike Timlin balked in the tying run with two outs in the top of the ninth, and Orlando Merced lost track of how many outs there were and was easily doubled off first on Joe Carter’s 10th-inning fly ball.

But the Angels, playing the part of gracious guests, refused to accept Toronto’s charity, and in the 11th inning they became donors, the result being the end of their four-game win streak and their second loss in 13 games.

Sprague opened the 11th with a fly ball toward right-center, a drive that was tailing toward Salmon but could have easily been caught by Edmonds, who made a spectacular, lunging, over-the-shoulder catch of Sprague’s second-inning shot to the wall in center.

Both outfielders called for the ball, but at the last moment Edmonds stopped, yielding to Salmon, and Salmon stopped and looked toward Edmonds, expecting the center fielder to make the catch.

The ball bounced high off the Skydome turf, and Salmon jumped up and down in frustration before realizing someone had better chase the ball. Sprague had a stand-up triple, and Angel Manager Terry Collins elected to intentionally walk Carlos Delgado and Ruben Sierra to load the bases.

With the infield in and the outfield shallow, Benito Santiago worked the count full before drawing the walk, which scored pinch-runner Juan Samuel. It marked the third time in May the Blue Jays won with a bases-loaded walk, and the second time DeLucia walked in the winning run in extra innings.

But DeLucia was not to blame, Edmonds said.

“It’s my fault,” said Edmonds, who had three of the Angels’ six hits. “If the ball’s hit to straight-away right field and I drop it, it’s my fault. It’s my job to control the outfield.”

Salmon said both outfielders called for the ball, and both thought the other would catch it.

“It wasn’t a hard play, it was just a fly ball,” he said. “We usually have good communication out there and know where each other’s at. You can’t dwell on it because we’re both good outfielders. It’s just one of those freak things that happened at a terrible time.”

It wasn’t the only bizarre occurrence Sunday. The Skydome was a veritable house of horrors, and both managers probably viewed the game at times through the fingers covering their eyes.

Collins had to cringe when, after Luis Alicea’s two-run triple off Toronto starter Pat Hentgen in the second, the Angels failed to score again with a runner on third and one out.

And it was difficult to stomach Carlos Garcia’s potential double-play grounder up the middle in the fourth scooting under shortstop Gary DiSarcina’s glove for an RBI single, capping a two-run inning.

Toronto Manager Cito Gaston had to shake his head after Timlin started his motion, stopped and re-started in the ninth, allowing Garret Anderson to trot home with the tying run on the balk.

Blunder No. 2 came in the 10th when Merced took off from first on Carter’s fly ball to right and was practically to third before realizing there was one out, turning a potential rally into an inning-ending double play.

Then came the fateful 11th, when two of the game’s better outfielders turned Sprague’s fly ball into the eventual winning run, a wacky turn of events that affirmed the slogan on the T-shirt Timlin wore after the game.

“About This Time Every Year,” the shirt read, “Strange Phenomena Occur.”