Angels Lose on Oakland Grand Slam : Baseball: McGwire’s blast knocks California out of first place, 8-5. Edmonds’ 23-game hitting streak also comes to an end.

OAKLAND â€”  The hits stopped for Jim Edmonds Friday night. This time, the ball hit gloves instead of bleachers, fences or green grass as the Angels lost to Oakland, 8-5, before a paid crowd of 12,111 at the Oakland Coliseum.

Worse for the Angels than the end of Edmonds’ 23-game hitting streak, the second-longest in club history, was that they blew a 4-1 lead and fell out of a first-place tie with Texas.

Mark McGwire’s two-out grand slam off Lee Smith in the ninth inning won it for Oakland.

Spike Owen and Greg Myers seemed to have bailed the Angels out with two doubles in the ninth inning. Owen barely missed a home run with his one-out double off the right-field fence off reliever Dennis Eckersley, but the ball was short of going over by perhaps two feet.

After Edmonds struck out, Myers doubled inside the first-base bag and into the corner to score Owen, giving the Angels a 5-4 lead. Myers has proven to be a tough out for Eckersley, getting three hits in four at-bats.

Smith (0-2) came in to pitch the ninth and struggled for the second consecutive outing.

Wednesday at Texas, Smith’s major league-record streak of earning saves in 19 consecutive appearances ended in the Rangers’ three-run ninth inning. His streak of 19 scoreless innings in a row also ended in the 9-8 loss.

For the first time during his streak, Edmonds failed to get a hit before the sixth inning.

He grounded out in the first inning, struck out in the third, grounded out in the fifth, lined out in the seven, then struck out again in the ninth with Owen on second.

The Angels led, 4-3, as Oakland came to bat in the seventh, then appeared to come apart at the seams.

First, second baseman Damion Easley dropped Terry Steinbach’s pop up, resulting in a two-base error.

After Angel starter Shawn Boskie retired the next two batters, Manager Marcel Lachemann decided to replace Boskie with Troy Percival. It seemed like an odd move considering Boskie, a veteran, might have been better suited to face Rickey Henderson, one of the great leadoff hitters in major league history.

Henderson sent a sinking line drive to left that Rex Hudler dived to reach but couldn’t catch and Steinbach scored the tying run easily.

Neither Easley nor Hudler was in Lachemann’s original lineup, but Garret Anderson and Tony Phillips each experienced tightness in their hamstrings and couldn’t start.

Percival managed to avoid further trouble in the seventh and eighth and the score remained tied, 4-4, going into the ninth.

The expected pitchers’ duel between Boskie and Oakland starter Steve Ontiveros never materialized, mainly because Ontiveros failed to uphold his end. There wasn’t much wrong with Boskie’s performance.

Ontiveros went into the game with a three-game winning streak and a 0.86 earned-run average in his past three starts.

But the Angels had runners on base in each of the five innings Ontiveros pitched and he struggled to maintain control.

Unlike Thursday’s 20-4 romp over Texas, the Angels couldn’t knock in enough of those runners, however. They simply couldn’t seem to get the one timely hit they needed to knock out Ontiveros and turn the game into a runaway.

Still, he only lasted five innings, giving way to Dave Leiper to begin the sixth. Ontiveros, who won seven of his last nine starts before Friday, gave up six hits and four runs with three walks.

In the first inning, J.T. Snow hit his 10th home run of the season, his eighth bases-empty homer, and the Angels led, 1-0. They added two more runs when McGwire let Snow’s grounder bounce through his legs and into right field for his 10th error this season.

Snow’s bloop single drove in another run in the fifth as the Angels built a 4-1 lead.

Oakland scored on Henderson’s run-scoring single in the third and Geronimo Berroa’s two-run homer in the bottom of the fifth.