White Sox Get Unraveled by Angel Homers

On a comfortable Thursday night at Anaheim Stadium, the Angels played long ball to cool the hottest team in baseball.

Three-run home runs by Chili Davis and Jack Howell, before a crowd of 31,892, powered the Angels to an 8-5 victory over the Chicago White Sox, who had lost only once in 12 previous games since the All-Star break.

So, who’s hotter now?

The Angels, who also got a two-run double from Wally Joyner, have won seven of their last eight games to improve their best-in-the-majors record to 61-39 and increase their lead in the American League West to 1 1/2 games over the second-place Oakland Athletics, who did not play Thursday.

After 100 games last season, the Angels were 49-51 and trailed the rampaging A’s by a dozen games.

“What makes us efficient offensively is hitting (the ball) over the wall,” said Angel Manager Doug Rader, whose team has won 21 of the 25 games in which it has hit two or more home runs.

The homers by Davis and Howell were the 94th and 95th of the season for the Angels, who lead the major leagues in home runs, and made a winner of rookie left-hander Jim Abbott.

Given a 5-0 lead by the Angels in the first inning, Abbott lasted into the eighth, allowing 10 hits and three earned runs in a pedestrian effort before getting relief help from Greg Minton and Bryan Harvey.

Abbott (9-6) walked only one and struck out three but admitted later that he wasn’t especially sharp.

His victory, though, seemed almost assured from the start.

The Angels, whose seven-game winning streak ended Wednesday when they lost to the Athletics, 9-5, at Oakland, scored five times in the first inning for only the second time this season and the first time since May 17--when they scored all their runs in the first inning of a 5-0 victory over Roger Clemens and the Boston Red Sox.

Melido Perez of the White Sox, who had won four of his previous five starts, needed 35 pitches just to get out of the inning.

After Claudell Washington led off with a single through the right side, Perez struck out Johnny Ray, then walked Devon White.

Joyner, who has hit in 12 of 13 games and has driven in at least one run in 11 of those games, followed with a line drive into right-center field that eluded right fielder Ivan Calderon.

The ball rolled to the wall, and Washington and White scored easily.

Perez, who had allowed only four earned runs in his previous three starts, walked Brian Downing before Davis lifted a 3-and-2 pitch over the wall in right field.

The ball barely cleared the glove of the leaping Calderon, giving Davis his 14th home run and third in four games. Until Monday, when he cleared the fence off reliever Gene Nelson in the seventh inning of a 5-4 victory over the A’s, Davis hadn’t hit a home run since July 1.

“He’s certainly swinging the bat much better,” Rader said of Davis, whose home run Monday ended an eight-for-61 slump.

Davis credits a wider stance.

“I feel like I’m doing the splits out there,” said Davis, who has seven hits in his last 11 at-bats. “I did it to make my hands work harder.”

Not to mention opposing pitchers and outfielders.

Perez escaped further damage, retiring nine straight batters and 15 of 16 before running into trouble again in the sixth.

With one out, he walked Downing and Davis before giving up a two-out home run to Howell, whose drive reached the general-admission seats beyond the wall in right field.

Howell’s home run, his third in four games, was his 15th of the season, his 11th in the last 34 games, and gave the Angels an 8-2 lead.

“I’m feeling a lot more comfortable,” said Howell, who had only four home runs through his first 53 games. “I’m trying to stay in my zone. I’m feeling more relaxed up there.”

The White Sox scored twice in the third inning, when Dave Gallagher singled through the right side, Fred Manrique bounced a double over Howell’s head at third base, and Harold Baines lined a two-run single through the middle, sending a shudder through Abbott.

In the eighth, Chicago scored two more runs after Manrique walked and Baines doubled off White’s glove in center field, chasing Abbott. An infield single by Carlton Fisk scored Manrique, and a force-out by Dan Pasqua scored Baines, cutting the White Sox’s deficit to 8-4.

A one-out triple by Ozzie Guillen and a run-scoring single by Gallagher in the ninth chased Minton and brought on Harvey, who struck out Manrique and got Baines to fly out, ending the game.

Angel Notes

A seventh-inning single by Ozzie Guillen of the White Sox extended his hitting streak to 17 games, equaling Don Mattingly of the New York Yankees and Robin Yount of the Milwaukee Brewers for the longest streak in the American League this season. . . . Johnny Ray of the Angels, who had hit in 15 straight games, went 0 for 4. . . . The starting time for the Angels’ game against the Oakland Athletics Aug. 12 at Anaheim Stadium has been changed to 12:20 p.m. to accommodate NBC-TV, which will televise it as its Game of the Week. . . . Of Chili Davis’ 14 home runs, four have been hit with two runners on base and 10 have been hit with nobody on base.