Angels Break Through in 10th to Beat Tampa Bay

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. —  Through six innings Sunday, it looked as if the Angels might end up on the wrong end of a no-hitter by Tampa Bay Devil Ray no-name Ryan Rupe. In the bottom of the eighth, the Angels were on the verge of losing the game.

Two innings later, the Angels were shaking hands after a 4-0, 10-inning victory over Tampa Bay, an oddity-filled shutout that left a Tropicana Field crowd of 22,522 rubbing its eyes and gave the Angels their fourth victory in six games.

And all it took was:

* Nine shutout innings by ace Chuck Finley, whose strikeout of Herbert Perry in the seventh was the 2,000th of his career. What will Finley do with the game ball from his milestone whiff? “I’ll probably rub it up against my 500 bone chips,” he said.

* A rare Finley pickoff of Dave Martinez at first in the eighth inning--the left-hander, who acknowledges his pickoff move “is not one to start an avalanche out there,” nabs a runner every leap year or so.

* Mo Vaughn’s 10th-inning broken-bat dribbler through the vacated shortstop hole on a play that looked like a hit-and-run but wasn’t.

* Garret Anderson’s first career hit in seven at-bats off Devil Ray closer Roberto Hernandez, a run-scoring single that snapped a scoreless tie in the 10th.

* A questionable decision by Tampa Bay Manager Larry Roths-child, who pulled Rupe after nine innings even though the 24-year-old right-hander had baffled the Angels with his funky arm angles, pinpoint fastballs, sliders and changeups and had thrown only 87 pitches.

* A gaffe by Tampa Bay catcher Mike DiFelice, who overran third on Kevin Stocker’s eighth-inning double and was tagged out by Jeff Huson, the second time in four days the Angels have benefited from a baserunning mistake.

Yes, it’s safe to say the Angels didn’t have this one all the way.

“We caught a few breaks today, but we’ll take it,” Vaughn said. “We swung the bats well the [previous] two days [17 runs on 30 hits] and got shut down today, but if you scratch out wins in games like these, they help you out. This is the kind of game you can build on.”

It’s the kind of game that probably left Rothschild tossing and turning Sunday night. Rupe, a 1998 sixth-round pick who pitched Class-A ball last summer, gave up only one hit--Darin Erstad’s bloop to shallow right-center in the seventh--in nine innings, striking out eight and walking none in his fourth big-league start.

But Rothschild, saying he “wasn’t going to take a chance” with Rupe, pulled him in favor of Hernandez, who leads the major leagues with 15 saves.

“I knew after nine innings I was taking him out,” Rothschild said. “I know he hadn’t thrown a lot of pitches, but it was the first time he has gone nine innings.”

Said Angel Manager Terry Collins: “You’re never glad to see Roberto Hernandez come into a game.”

Said Vaughn: “We were glad to see Rupe go.”

Randy Velarde walked to open the 10th and took off for second, getting a great jump. As Stocker, the Devil Ray shortstop, broke for the bag, Vaughn hit a grounder off the end of his bat to left-center, moving Velarde to third.

Did Vaughn notice Velarde running and try to slap a ball through the hole?

“No, I’m not that good, and if you saw my first three at-bats [strikeout, groundout, strikeout] you’d know that,” Vaughn said. “I just hit the ball where it was pitched.”

Anderson slapped a two-strike pitch into left for a single to drive in a run. After Matt Walbeck’s bunt forced pinch-runner Tim Unroe at third, Perry, the Tampa Bay third baseman, threw low to first on Chris Pritchett’s grounder for an error, allowing Anderson to score.

Huson’s hit-and-run single scored Walbeck, Andy Sheets capped the rally with a sacrifice fly, and Troy Percival retired the side in order in the bottom of the 10th.

“To me, you don’t bring your closer into the game in a non-closing situation,” Vaughn said. “Hernandez is one of the top closers in baseball, he has been for a long time, but he’s always better when his team is ahead.

“It’s a different mentality when the game’s tied. It’s a tough call by the manager, but I feel the closer’s job is to get three outs, not four.”