Angels Attempt to Put Collapse Behind Them

They were a team that had the dubious distinction of blowing an 11-game division lead in just 35 days. They also were a team that successfully fought back to make up a three-game deficit in the last five days of the season.

The Angels, still loaded with young hitting talent, hope they learned something from their 1995 season, which ended with a 9-1 loss in a one-game playoff with Seattle for the AL West title.

Shortstop Gary DiSarcina, who was out of the lineup with a thumb injury during the late-season collapse and back in it for the dramatic finish, thinks the Angels will profit from their experiences.

“If I have one lasting memory of the season, it’s the way we played our last five games,” he said. “We had five days left and we were down three games. If we lost one, we were out.

“We beat Seattle and then we needed to sweep Oakland, a team that had been kicking us around, and we swept Oakland. We played our best baseball of the year, and I think we have a lot of pride in that. That was the team I was playing with when I got hurt.

“We could have pretty easily thrown in the towel. But I think we played our hearts out. None of our younger players, like myself, had been through something like a pennant race before, and it kind of hardened us to it, gave us tougher skins.”

Said center fielder Jim Edmonds, like DiSarcina an AL All-Star last season: “I think it would have been a lot different if we hadn’t come back and caught Seattle. That gives us a good place to start this season.”

The Angels could be one of the better hitting teams in the league. Their young outfield--left fielder Garret Anderson, 23, Edmonds, 25, and right fielder Tim Salmon, 27--stacks up with the best in baseball.

Anderson hit .321, with 16 homers and 69 RBIs and finished second in the AL Rookie of the Year voting to Minnesota’s Marty Cordova. Edmonds batted .290 with 33 homers and 107 RBIs. Salmon hit .330 with 34 homers and 105 RBIs.

The Angel infield also has some good hitters--first baseman J.T. Snow batted .289, hit 24 homers and drove in 102 runs, and DiSarcina hit .307, with five homers and 41 RBIs.

The Angels also have added Randy Velarde, signed as a free agent after spending nine years with the New York Yankees, to their infield. Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann plans to use Velarde, who had been a utility player, as a regular and install him in the leadoff spot.

Lachemann, beginning his second full season as the Angels’ manager, says hitting will be no problem.

“We’re going to score runs, maybe not as many as last year, but we’re still going to score a lot of runs,” he said. “I think the big thing is how well we pitch, starters, everybody. That’s the main factor in how this club does.

“We have the capability of having a good pitching staff, but we have to do it. We didn’t pitch well the last part of the season when we were in the slump. As a team we didn’t pitch well, and that’s what you need. Pitching stops slumps.

“I think we have a pretty good offensive division now, and I think it’s going to come down to pitching.”

Chuck Finley, Mark Langston and Jim Abbott, who returned to the Angels during last season, give them an impressive trio of starters. Finley was 15-12 last year, Langston 15-7 and Abbott went 5-4 in 13 starts after going 6-4 with the Chicago White Sox.

Lee Smith, who had 37 saves last year, and Troy Percival, who had a 1.95 ERA in 62 appearances, are the Angels’ top relievers.

Lachemann, like the players, hopes the final five regular-season games last season show the type of team the Angels have.

“They fought back to force the tie and I think most of the players consider that an indication of what kind of character this team has, as opposed to the slump,” he said.

Lachemann plans to try to keep the players fresher than last year by giving them days off as the season wears on.

“I don’t even know if it’s so much physical, I think it becomes mental,” he said. “Just to sort of get away from it for a day, although you’re still there. And maybe watching from the bench gives you a different perspective of the game, too.”