Time Runs Out for Angels, and Loss Finishes a Six-Pack

BOSTON —  Timing on this trip has been everything for the Angels.

They caught Tampa Bay in a downward spiral and won three games. They slipped in and out of Baltimore, got some clutch hits and lived a charmed life for two more victories.

Then it was on to Boston with a six-game winning streak, the last five on the road. . . .

Boy, Tampa Bay and Baltimore sure were nice.

What was waiting for the Angels at Fenway Park was more than 21,557 fans Wednesday. The Red Sox have feasted at home and, lately, on the road as well. Their 8-4 victory was just another in that string.

The Angels have played well. The Red Sox have won 15 of 17 games and are 11-2 at home.

There is hot and there is smokin’.

John Valentin cranked two home runs--the eighth multiple home run game of his career--off Angel starter Allen Watson. The first tied the game, 1-1. The other followed a perfect bunt by Nomar Garciaparra and erased a 3-1 Angel lead in the fifth inning.

Then came the Red Sox’s late-inning rush, and the Angels’ winning streak was history.

“Everything is going their way,” said Watson, who went 5 1/3 innings, giving up four runs, and took the loss. “Garciaparra makes the perfect bunt. He’s not that type of guy. He hits 30 home runs and drives in 100 runs. You don’t think he’s going to bunt. We weren’t expecting it.

“Valentin fought off some real good pitches, got a hanging pitch and he hits it out. I was throwing pretty hard. I had a good fastball. It was two mistakes to one guy and three runs.”

That’s the way the Red Sox do math these days.

They came home from Anaheim, after having lost three in a row to the Angels, and beat Seattle with a seven-run ninth inning on April 10. They have mowed down pretty much everyone since, picking up eight victories in their last at-bat.

They didn’t wait that long Wednesday. A four-run seventh inning, which started with Jim Leyritz’s bases-empty home run and was finished off by a two-run triple by Garciaparra, broke open a 4-3 game.

“Even though we were down, 4-3, that’s nothing in this yard,” Manager Terry Collins said. “You can’t allow them to have big innings. Big innings kill you and that’s what we allowed.

“You don’t run off 15 of 17 without being on a good roll, and they have a good team. When they’re swinging good, they’re tough to beat. All I know, when it was 3-1, you got to stay away from big innings. You got to go out and make pitches and make them get base hits to beat you.”

The Red Sox did just that. The Angels had chances at big innings, but stranded six of seven runners in the last four innings.

A one-out double by Darin Erstad chased starter Tim Wakefield in the seventh. Dave Hollins and Jim Edmonds hit the first pitches they saw from reliever Derek Lowe for ground outs. The Red Sox escaped with a 4-3 lead.

“What did Hollins do? He hit the ball hard,” Collins said. “That’s all I ask. If we faced 27 pitches in a game and we hit the ball hard 27 times, I could care less.”

Garret Anderson also hit a first pitch, hooking it around the right-field foul pole for a two-run homer in the third inning. It gave the Angels a 3-1 lead, and the game seemed to be slipping into a familiar pattern for them.

The Angels’ pitching and defense, along with some timely hitting, got them a sweep in Tampa Bay. In Baltimore. they built early leads and made big plays when needed, such as Anderson robbing Harold Baines of a game-tying home run Tuesday.

Such things were beyond their grasp in Fenway.

Mike Benjamin’s looping single ticked off Gary DiSarcina’s glove to score Darren Lewis in the fifth inning for a 4-3 lead. Edmonds, whose spectacular catch at Kansas City last season still gets plenty of air time, chased Garciaparra’s ball onto the warning track, only to watch it glance off his glove.

“That’s what happens when you lose,” Edmonds said. “They gave us opportunities to score runs and we didn’t. We gave them opportunities to score runs and they did. It’s pretty simple. They beat us.”