Juiced Up, the Angels Pour It On : Baseball: They sweep the Tigers in doubleheader, 6-4 and 13-6, and take the four-game series against Detroit.

By MIKE DiGIOVANNA

July 17, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

DETROIT — Angel utility player Rex Hudler walked into Tiger Stadium Sunday weighing 200 pounds. He departed after the Angels’ doubleheader sweep of Detroit weighing 192 pounds, but with a greater appreciation for modern medicine.

It might have been “the longest day of my life” for first baseman J.T. Snow--it took the Angels 6 hours 6 minutes to defeat the Tigers, 6-4 and 13-6, in front of an announced crowd of 21,186, and that was with the second game being called after eight innings because of rain.

Hudler thought it might be the last day of his life. He left the second game in the eighth inning, came down with a severe case of the shakes in the clubhouse and couldn’t walk. Then he passed out in the trainers’ room.

“I was in bad trouble and didn’t even know it,” said Hudler, who had three hits on a day when temperatures reached the mid-90s.

Hudler was suffering from heat exhaustion and, according to trainer Ned Bergert, was “on the edge of going to the third [and most extreme] level” of heat-related trauma, heat stroke.

But Terry Lock, the Tigers’ team physician, pumped two IVs of a sugar-water solution into Hudler and within an hour the usually bubbly veteran was practically bouncing off the clubhouse walls.

“I’m back to life, it’s beautiful, man,” Hudler said. “They got some fluids in me, I chilled off, and now I feel great. I’m ready for another game. I feel wonderful. I can’t wait to do it again tomorrow.”

Hudler was about as juiced up as the Angels’ offense as he boarded the team bus for Cleveland, where baseball’s best team, the American League Central-leading Indians, will play host to the game’s most surprising team, the West-leading Angels, in a two-game series beginning tonight.

After staging a dramatic, four-run, eighth-inning rally for a come-from-behind victory in the first game Sunday, the Angels bombed the Tigers for 19 hits in the second game. It’s the first four-game, Tiger-Stadium sweep in Angel history.

The Angels last swept the Tigers in a four-game series in Anaheim in 1989. It also marked the Angels’ first doubleheader sweep since May 19, 1988, when they took two in Baltimore.

Center fielder Jim Edmonds went five for 10 with two home runs, six runs batted in and four runs on the day. Rookie left fielder Garret Anderson went five for eight with two homers, five RBIs and four runs.

Right fielder Tim Salmon was four for eight, and Snow keyed a five-run first inning in the second game with a three-run homer.

Starter Chuck Finley (8-7) went seven innings to gain the victory in the first game, with Lee Smith getting save No. 22. Rookie reliever Mike James (1-0) pitched three scoreless innings to gain his first major league victory in the second game.

“It was a tough day, a long day, a real hot and humid day,” Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann said. “But these were really good wins for us.”

The Angels won the second game with power--they had 13 hits in the first three innings and four homers in the game.

But they won the first game with precision. Trailing, 4-2, going into the eighth, they put together what might have been their six best consecutive at-bats of the season, with the highlight being . . . a walk.

A recap:

* Hudler leads off and is hit by a pitch.

* Edmonds, a left-handed hitter, goes the opposite way against left-handed reliever Brian Bohanon, slapping an outside fastball down the left-field line for an RBI double to trim the deficit to 4-3.

* Salmon, facing right-handed reliever Joe Boever, tries to hit to the right side to move Edmonds to third. He does--and winds up with a single to right, with Edmonds stopping at third.

* Snow falls behind, 0-2, and begins fouling off Boever pitches. He works the count to 3-2, fouls off two more pitches, then draws a walk to load the bases.

* Anderson, facing left-handed reliever Buddy Groom, drills a ball down the right-field line for a three-run double and a 6-4 lead.

* Rod Correia falls behind 0-2 but still manages to slap a grounder to second, advancing Anderson to third with one out.

“The key to that was Snow’s walk--he was down, 0-2, and they thought they had him, and then he gets on to load the bases,” shortstop Gary DiSarcina said. “That whole stretch showed that good things happen when you try to do things for the team.”