Angels Take an Early Eight-Count in Loss

DETROIT —  No eight-run rally in the final four innings was going to mollify Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann, who was seething after a 12-9 loss to the Detroit Tigers before a crowd of 11,641 in Tiger Stadium Tuesday night.

“That was a very, very poor excuse for major league baseball,” Lachemann said after the Tigers, baseball’s worst team, scored eight runs on four hits, three walks and two Angel errors in the first inning. “The fans should ask for their money back.”

How ugly was it?

Angel starter Jason Grimsley (5-7) lasted seven batters, giving up two doubles, two singles, three walks and seven runs, six earned. He threw 31 pitches, 13 for strikes.

“I asked the umpire for a mulligan,” catcher Don Slaught said. “He kind of laughed.”

Jim Abbott replaced Grimsley with the bases loaded in the first and induced Brad Ausmus to hit a one-hop, potential double-play ball to third baseman George Arias, who booted it for an error.

Andujar Cedeno then grounded to the left of second baseman Randy Velarde, but the ball nicked off his glove for an error as two more Tigers scored.

“What should have been a four-run inning,” Lachemann said, “turned into eight.”

Abbott pitched a strong five innings, giving up four hits and one earned run, a performance Lachemann said would likely earn him a spot back in the rotation while the erratic Grimsley moves to the bullpen.

But when leg cramps forced Abbott out after the fifth, reliever Jeff Schmidt responded with a Cliff Notes version of the Grimsley story, walking three of the five batters he faced and giving up Mark Lewis’ three-run home run, which provided Detroit’s margin of victory.

“He couldn’t get anyone out,” Lachemann said.

Even the Angels’ rally was a bit of an eyesore. Yes, Chili Davis hit a two- run homer in the sixth, and Tim Salmon had an RBI double in the seventh, and Todd Greene collected the first major league hit and runs batted in with a two-run single in the eighth.

And, yes, Jack Howell hit a two-run homer in the eighth, his Angel club record-setting fourth pinch-hit homer of the season. But the Angels’ five-run eighth included two dropped infield popups, one by Cedeno, the Tiger shortstop, and one by second baseman Fausto Cruz, which allowed Jim Edmonds to score all the way from first.

“Sure, we scored some runs and got some hits, but that [game] was not what baseball is all about,” Lachemann said after the Angels fell nine games behind the Texas Rangers. “It’s about executing, and doing the fundamental things right, and we were very poor tonight.”

It was such a demoralizing evening that even Rex Hudler, the Angel super sub who is the embodiment of the team-player concept, was second-guessing Lachemann’s decision to start him at first base over J.T. Snow for the second consecutive game.

Hudler was playing against Tiger left-hander C.J. Nitkowski because of Snow’s .178 average against lefties, but Hudler, who has little experience at first, made an error in the fifth inning and dropped a foul popup near the rail in the eighth.

“We’ve got a Gold Glover who can hit, sitting on the bench. . . . put a real first baseman in there,” Hudler said. “I appreciate him trying to get me at-bats, but he’s already overplayed me this year. I don’t need at-bats. I missed a couple of plays I could have had. . . . I’m not J.T. Snow, that’s for sure.”

No one is sure who the real Jason Grimsley is. Is it the right-hander who is 5-1 with a 3.69 earned run average in Anaheim Stadium this season? Or the one who is 0-6 with a 9.80 ERA on the road?

“There’s no explanation,” Lachemann said of Grimsley’s road woes, which have contributed to the Angels having the second-worst road record (18-34) in the league. “The mound is still 60 feet 6 inches from the plate, the plate is the same size. . . . those things don’t change.”

Grimsley now has a 7.59 ERA during the first three innings, and he has failed to last more than four innings in five starts.

“He was outstanding [warming up] in the bullpen--he was hitting the glove with everything,” Slaught said. “But he didn’t get any breaking balls over, and the more pitches he missed, the more things snowballed.”