Angels Bedeviled by One Bad Pitch

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. —  With a full count, two out and a runner on second base in the 10th inning of a tie game Saturday, Angel reliever Kent Mercker wanted to throw a changeup in the dirt to pinch-hitter Bubba Trammell.

If Trammell chased the pitch, he probably would strike out or ground out. If he took ball four, what was the harm? First base was open, and Mercker could go after No. 9 batter Miguel Cairo, who was hitting .167 against left-handers.

Mercker’s pitch never hit the dirt, though. It was up. How far up, Mercker couldn’t exactly recall.

“I think it was thigh high,” Mercker said. “It landed in someone else’s lap, so it was high enough.”

Indeed, Trammell whacked Mercker’s pitch into the left-field bleachers for a two-run home run that lifted the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to an 11-9 victory over the Angels before 22,042 in Tropicana Field.

One day after the Angels pounded Tampa Bay for six homers, it was the Devil Rays who broke out the tape measure. They scored all of their runs on homers, including two by Fred McGriff and one by Jose Canseco that supplanted Angel third baseman Troy Glaus’ Friday night blast as the longest homer in Tropicana Field history.

Canseco’s three-run shot against Angel starter Ramon Ortiz in the fifth inning hit a catwalk, about 105 feet above center field, and would have traveled an estimated 472 feet, two more than Glaus’ homer.

Dave Martinez also homered in the first, and the combined estimated distance of Tampa Bay’s five homers was 2,050 feet.

But this game really came down to a matter of inches.

The score was tied, 6-6, with two on and two out in the seventh inning when Angel reliever Shigetoshi Hasegawa thought he struck out McGriff looking with a 2-and-2 waist-high fastball that started inside and appeared to tail over the plate.

But McGriff arched back as he took the pitch, and home-plate umpire Paul Emmel called it a ball. McGriff had already hit a fourth-inning, two-run homer against Ortiz--who gave up six runs and five hits in six innings--and he lofted Hasegawa’s next pitch into the right-field seats for a three-run shot and a 9-6 lead.

“There’s nothing I can say that’s going to change that call,” Angel catcher Matt Walbeck said. “He made a good pitch . . . what are you gonna do? You can’t turn back the clock.

“Humans get fooled. It was a great pitch. Sometimes calls are made that you question. Baseball is a funny game.”

The Angels wiped the grins off Devil Ray faces with a run in the eighth on Benji Gil’s run-scoring single and two in the ninth to tie the score.

Adam Kennedy led off the ninth with a walk, stole second and scored on Mo Vaughn’s one-hopper that bounced over McGriff’s head at first for a single.

After Tim Salmon and Garret Anderson flied out, Tampa Bay third baseman Vinny Castilla fielded Glaus’ broken-bat grounder and threw wildly to second, allowing pinch-runner Keith Johnson to advance to third. Orlando Palmeiro beat out an infield single for an RBI and a 9-9 tie.

McGriff opened the 10th with a single against Mercker and was replaced by pinch-runner Tony Graffanino, who moved to second on Castilla’s slow roller to short. Mercker struck out John Flaherty, and then it was time for first-year Angel Manager Mike Scioscia to make some tough decisions.

Troy Percival was warming in the ninth, and Scioscia could have gone to his closer, “but it would have to be a real special circumstance to bring him into a tie game on the road,” Scioscia said. “You’re asking a lot of him to do that.”

He considered walking Trammell intentionally to face Cairo, but Trammell was hitting .200 (two for 10) against left-handers, and Scioscia thought Mercker’s off-speed pitches would match up well against the free-swinging Trammell.

“I’d do it again,” Scioscia said. “Merck did a great job, but one pitch got away from him.”

Mercker liked the strategy too, “because in my mind, Trammell is gonna be hacking, and that usually plays right into my hands,” he said. “That’s the perfect guy for me.”

It just wasn’t the perfect pitch.

“I was trying to bounce it in the dirt, hit the plate,” Mercker said. “Anything but wood.”