Night Belongs to Smith and the Andersons : Baseball: Reliever gets another save, starter is sharp in return, and outfielder gets an assist in Angels' 3-2 victory.

Night Belongs to Smith and the Andersons : Baseball: Reliever gets another save, starter is sharp in return, and outfielder gets an assist in Angels’ 3-2 victory.

By MIKE DiGIOVANNA

June 21, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

ANAHEIM — It was as if Angel pitcher Brian Anderson was placed in a cryogenic freeze for six weeks and defrosted for Tuesday night’s game against the Kansas City Royals.

Anderson, out since May 5 because of a strained left biceps, picked up almost exactly where he left off, allowing one run in 6 1/3 innings to lead the Angels to a 3-2 victory over the Royals before an announced crowd of 15,100 in Anaheim Stadium.

Lee Smith pitched a scoreless ninth for his 18th save in 18 consecutive appearances, breaking his major-league record of 17, set with St. Louis in 1993. But credit left fielder Garret Anderson with an assist.

Anderson threw out Pat Borders at the plate to end the seventh inning and made a lunging, backhand snag of Gary Gaetti’s drive just in front of the left-center field wall for the first out in the ninth.

“That was a great play and was pretty much atypical of the way we’ve been winning a lot of games this year,” Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann said. “We just caught the ball well, and Brian Anderson was outstanding. You could see he was a little tired in the seventh, but he gave us a great effort.”

The last time Anderson, a left-hander, took the Anaheim Stadium mound he cruised through four innings against Seattle, allowing four hits and no runs.

But Anderson felt a twinge in his arm after delivering a pitch in the fifth and was immediately pulled. What was believed to be a minor injury turned into a four-week stay on the disabled list and two-week rehabilitation stint at Class-A Lake Elsinore.

Anderson’s stamina may not be in midseason form, but he had command of his fastball, slider and changeup and his control was excellent. He gave up only three hits, walked one and struck out one. The Angels backed him with single runs in the second, third and fifth innings.

“My whole game is to get ahead of people and throw strikes, and that’s what I was able to do,” said Anderson, who threw 89 pitches, one less than Lachemann’s 90-pitch limit. “Overall, I’m very pleased.”

Anderson ran into trouble in the seventh when he walked Phil Hiatt with one out and gave up a single to Pat Borders.

Lachemann went to his bullpen for set-up man Troy Percival, who got pinch-hitter Wally Joyner to ground to the hole at second, where Spike Owen made a nice, sliding stop and threw to first. Hiatt scored on the play, making it 3- 1, and Borders advanced to second.

Pinch-hitter Keith Lockhart then slapped a single to left. Garret Anderson caught the ball on one hop and fired a one-hopper to Fabregas, who made the catch and applied the tag on Borders for the final out of the inning.

The Royals pulled to within 3-2 in the eighth when Percival walked Coleman, who stole second and third, and scored on Edgar Caceres’ groundout.

It appeared Gaetti, whose two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth beat the Angels on May 13, would put the first blemish on Smith’s 0.00 earned-run average, but Anderson’s catch snuffed out the Royals in the ninth.

What did Smith think when the ball left Gaetti’s bat?

“Double,” he said. “I didn’t see Garret catch the ball. But I didn’t see the ball hit the ground, either. . . . I didn’t think it would go out because it had so much top spin. If it didn’t, Garret would have had to have been in the NBA to catch it.”

Royal starter Mark Gubicza was coming off perhaps his best outing of his 11-year career, a one-hit shutout of Oakland last Thursday, but the Angels roughed him up for nine hits in 6 1/3 innings.

Carlos Martinez reached on an error in the second, Fabregas singled and Tony Phillips’ two-out double to right scored Martinez for a 1-0 lead. Jim Edmonds led off the third with a single, advanced to third on Tim Salmon’s single and scored on Snow’s double-play ball for a 2-0 lead.

The Angels made it 3-0 in the fifth when Edmonds singled to center with two outs and scored on Salmon’s RBI double to right-center, Salmon’s first extra-base hit and RBI since June 12.

Chili Davis (strained left hamstring) missed his first game of the season and is listed as day-to-day, but Brian Anderson gave the Angel pitching staff a shot in the arm.

“He’s a big part of the team and has been from day one,” Lachemann said. “We went to spring training with three pitchers we were very comfortable with, and to lose him after two games was tough. We missed him a lot.”