Angels More Than Happy to Accept Gifts From A’s

It hasn’t been all rest and rehabilitation for the Angels, but the Oakland Athletics appear to have arrived at the right time.

Behind the Angels, a poor showing in their first interleague experience. Ahead of them, a grueling 12-games-in-12-days road trip to Texas, Seattle and Colorado. So who better to fill that gap than the team with the worst record in the American League?

The Angels scratched out a 5-3 victory in front of 24,481 Saturday, their third consecutive against Oakland. The A’s haven’t exactly rolled over, but they did lend a hand Saturday with three errors. Two came in the seventh when the Angels scored the go-ahead runs.

The Angels took it from there, as Mike James struck out Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco with two runners on in the eighth. Troy Percival worked the ninth for his seventh save.

“These are the games we have to win,” Garret Anderson said. “These are games in our division, where we have a chance to pick up games in the standings. The more we pick up now, the easier it will be.”

The A’s made it easier Saturday.

Starter Ariel Prieto appeared to have finished off the seventh inning when Tony Phillips looked at a third strike. But the ball bounced away from catcher Brent Mayne, who threw wildly to first.

Darin Erstad followed with a hit-and-run single. Dave Hollins, who will leave the team any day when his wife goes into labor, lined a ball down the right-field line. Phillips easily scored and, when Canseco bobbled the ball, so did Erstad.

What chance the A’s had left ended in the eighth, when James struck out McGwire and Canseco.

“We didn’t get many hits, we had to get couple breaks,” Manager Terry Collins said.

The Angels also got one from home plate umpire Don Denkinger in the sixth. Salmon doubled and was on third when Jack Howell hit a shallow to center. Salmon decided to test the arm of center fielder Jason McDonald and was called safe. Replays showed Mayne tagged Salmon before he touched the plate.

But the Angels’ biggest break was drawing the A’s after going 1-5 in interleague play.

“Any time you can get on a roll before a road trip, it’s a good sign,” Howell said. “You want to be healthy and you want to have good starting pitching.”

The Angels are one-for-two in those areas, with Erstad and Jim Edmonds hurting and a flu bug making the rounds.

Pitching, though, hasn’t been a problem. Rookie Jason Dickson, who went six solid innings, the team’s third quality start in three games.

Dickson wasn’t sharp, but lasted until giving up successive singles to Matt Stairs and McGwire to start the seventh. Dickson gave up 10 hits and the A’s had runners in scoring position often. Only once did they come up with a big hit.

Stairs doubled with runners on first and second, scoring Mark Bellhorn, in the third. After McGwire was hit by a pitch, Canseco flied to right, scoring Jason Giambi.

Dickson got plenty of help behind him, most of it coming in the fifth inning.

After Stairs singled, Anderson took a home run away from McGwire, leaping at the fence to catch a towering fly ball. Anderson robbed George Williams of a home run Friday. Gary DiSarcina then fielded a Canseco grounder and caught Stairs--who had moved to second on McGwire’s fly out--straying too far off the base. DiSarcina ended the inning with a leaping catch of a Dave Magadan line drive.

Prieto, the top starter on the American League’s worst pitching staff, walked five, struck out five and gave up only two hits through six innings. He also walked five and that got him in trouble. He walked Hollins and Salmon with two outs in the first. Anderson then tripled into the right-field corner for a 2-0 Angel lead.

Anderson, who had few extra base hits during the first two months of the season, now has 46 runs batted in.

“I’m not a 30-home-run hitter, but I have 46 RBIs with two home runs,” said Anderson, who is .301 with runners in scoring position. “That shows that I’m a clutch hitter. I’m getting hits with people in scoring position.