As a Matter of Fact, Angels’ Time Has Arrived

What goes around comes around and what goes up must come down and every dog has its day and nothing lasts forever and to every thing there is a season.

Now, can we please get a grip?

Fact: The Angels and the Toronto Blue Jays played a baseball game at Anaheim Stadium Tuesday evening.

Fact: The Angels won, 14-0.

Fact: That makes the Angels 5-1 against the Blue Jays this season.

Fact: The Angels are 37-27 and lead the American League West on the Fifth of July by one game.

Fact: The Blue Jays are 23-38, in last place in the American League East and trail the Boston Red Sox by a baker’s dozen.

Fact: The Angels are sending four players to next week’s All-Star game in Texas.

Fact: The Blue Jays are sending one.

Fact: The Angels lead the American League in runs and RBIs.

Fact: The Blue Jays are 12th in runs, 12th in RBIs, 13th in hits, 12th in team batting average and 12th in team earned-run average.

Fact: Chuck Finley, Tuesday’s Angel starter, won for the seventh time in nine decisions. In those seven victories, the Angels have scored 71 runs for Hard Luck Chuck. In the last two, the Angels have scored 34.

Fact: The Blue Jays, who haven’t scored nearly enough in many games lately, are winless in their last four, 3-12 in their last 15, 7-21 on the road and 9-20 since May 31.

Fact check:

Tuesday’s date again?

July 4 . . . or April 1?

“This might be the year of the underdog,” said Finley, who was once 0-4 and is now 7-6 and Arlington-bound and as stunned by it as anyone.

Contrast and compare.

The Blue Jays, champions of the last two World Series, still defenders of the trophy by virtue of the Great Implosion of ‘94, can still send Cito Gaston out to home plate with a lineup card that begins: White . . . Molitor . . . Alomar . . . Carter . . . Olerud .

“You look at their record,” Finley said, “and you can’t understand what’s going on over there. You get Alomar out, you’ve got Carter next. You get Carter out, you’ve got Olerud next. They’ve still got Devo leading off . . .

“You look at their lineup and it’s just like New York’s. You go down it, name by name, and you go, ‘Wow!’ ”

Then Finley looks around his own clubhouse.

There’s Jim Edmonds. Twenty-five for barely a week. Less than 180 games in the majors. Heading to the All-Star game with a .300 average and a just-culminated 23-game hitting streak.

There’s Gary DiSarcina. A .242 career hitter before 1995. Still less than 500 games in the majors. Heading to the All-Star game to back up Cal Ripken with a better batting average, more home runs and more RBIs than Ripken.

There’s rookie Garret Anderson. Three more hits Tuesday. There’s light-hitting Jorge Fabregas. Another run-scoring single Tuesday. There’s J.T. Snow. Three-for-five with four RBIs, bringing him 48 for the season.

“It’s amazing,” Finley said before lowering his voice an octave as he grapples with this strange new reality.

“We’ve got a very good team right now.”

The names might not add up, but the numbers do. The last time Finley started, in Texas last Thursday, the Angels won, 20-4. Another turn in the rotation and it’s 14-0.

Four Angels in the All-Star game?

“After these last two starts,” Finley mused, “they ought to take the whole team and stick it in the All-Star game.”

A couple years ago, that almost happened to Toronto. The Blue Jays, very nearly, were the American League All-Star team. Now, they have one representative, the bare minimum--Roberto Alomar, who has made headlines not for the men he’s driven in, but for the women stalkers he has (so far) successfully avoided.

Gaston claims to be at peace with the fallout this season. “When you know why it’s happening, it’s easier to take,” Gaston said. “Injuries and lack of pitching. That makes it easier to take.”

Explaining the Angels is somewhat more problematic.

“I thought we had a pretty decent team coming out of spring training,” Finley said, “but our offense has been a real surprise to me. I don’t know what Rod [Carew, Angel hitting coach] has these guys drinking. If you’d have told me I’d get 20 runs one start and 14 the next, I’d have said, ‘Yeah, right.’ ”

The year of the underdog?

The half-year, at any rate.

The Angels will take it. First on the Fourth beats fourth any time, any place, any day of the week. As the Angels can tell you.