Angels Lost in a Mays

MINNEAPOLIS —  Somewhere in New York this morning, a phone rings. Brian Cashman, the general manager of the Yankees, answers. The caller is George Steinbrenner, and the conversation is not pleasant. Explain, Steinbrenner bellows, why I paid $33 million for starting pitchers that could not do to the Angels what somebody named Joe Mays did to them Tuesday.

After the Angels treated Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Mike Mussina and David Wells like so many batting practice pitchers in the first round of the playoffs, Mays put the Angel bats to sleep Tuesday.

In what he called the “game of my career,” Mays handcuffed the Angels on four hits over eight innings, lifting the Minnesota Twins to a 2-1 victory in the first game of the best-of-seven American League championship series.

The Angels hit .129 Tuesday. They hit .376 against the Yankees and their decorated--and highly compensated--starters.

“It doesn’t matter what the names are,” Angel first baseman Scott Spiezio said. “It matters where they throw the ball. Those guys were giving us pitches to hit.”

The next pitch Mays gives the Angels to hit will be the first. If he never wins another game, he can tell the grandkids about this one.

He did not walk anyone. He did not give up an extra-base hit. The Angels managed four singles, three hit to the opposite field and one off the glove of the second baseman.

He got 13 of his 21 outs on ground balls. The only hit after the third inning was a ground ball, that infield single. The Angels scored their only run on a ground ball, an unearned run on a ball that rolled through the legs of Minnesota shortstop Cristian Guzman.

Who is this Mays guy? He got shellacked by the Oakland Athletics in the division series, and he sat out much of this season because of an elbow injury. But the Angels remember him well from last season, when he pitched a five-hit shutout in Anaheim and made the All-Star team.

“It’s not like he’s an anonymous guy,” Angel designated hitter Brad Fullmer said. “He was their best pitcher for a lot of last season.”

He was the best pitcher on the field Tuesday, despite a valiant effort from Angel starter Kevin Appier. He dodged a flurry of bullets in his five innings, giving up five hits and three walks but only two runs.

But for one unfortunate pitch by Appier, the teams might still be playing, and Mays might have been a footnote to the game.

The Twins scored one run in the second inning, on a sacrifice fly, but only because Appier threw a wild pitch that allowed Torii Hunter to advance from second base to third. From second base, he would not have scored on the fly ball.

The Angels tied the score in the fourth inning, when Adam Kennedy scored on that ground ball through the legs of Guzman.

The Twins scored the winning run in the fifth inning, on a double by Corey Koskie. Without that wild pitch, it’s a 1-1 tie.

Angel Manager Mike Scioscia could push no buttons Tuesday. The Angels, so successful with their stolen bases and hit-and-run plays and sacrifice bunts all season, could not use their favorite plays because they never got the leadoff runner on base.

“We had a tough time pressuring them the way we wanted to,” Scioscia said.

And even when the Angels thought they caught a break, that blew up in their faces too.

At the end of the eighth inning, when Mays had retired 13 consecutive batters and thrown 98 pitches, Minnesota Manager Ron Gardenhire asked Mays whether he could pitch the ninth.

Closer Eddie Guardado was warming up. “I can try to finish it, or Eddie can,” Mays said.

Gardenhire said he would have let Mays finish had he said, “Yeah, I want it.” But Mays, mindful of a little tightness in his arm in the eighth, decided honesty was the best policy.

So the Angels had been spared another inning of Mays. Guardado struck out Darin Erstad, then walked Tim Salmon. Scioscia finally got to push a button, bringing in Chone Figgins to run for Salmon.

If the right-handed Mays had still been pitching, Figgins would certainly have tried to steal second base, which would have put the tying run into scoring position. But the left-handed Guardado baffled the rookie runner, who could not decipher Guardado’s move and kept breaking back to first base when the pitcher threw home.

“We just couldn’t get enough of a read to feel good about him going,” Scioscia said.

Garret Anderson flied out and Troy Glaus struck out looking, ending the game and leaving the Angels to explain their mysteriously vanishing offense.

There was no emotional letdown after the Yankee series, the Angels insisted. The noise in the Metrodome was no problem. “I’ve heard it louder. I’ve been here for Vikings-Packers,” Erstad said.

Just a great night for Mays, the Angels said, and what can you do? He dominated not by sheer speed but by his ability to put any of his three pitches on the corners of the plate, every time.

“Typically, guys don’t control their off-speed stuff like that,” Salmon said. “He just didn’t make any mistakes.”

The Twins improved to 13-2 in postseason play beneath their home dome. In order to avoid a 2-0 deficit in the series, the Angels must beat the Twins here and beat Rick Reed, another right-hander who succeeds not by velocity but by location.

“When you locate three pitches, it’s tough to hit no matter how hot you are,” Fullmer said. “We’ll come back tomorrow and hope we get some mistakes.”