BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT : ANGELS : Langston Dances Around Arm Questions

It was a simple question to pitcher Mark Langston: Is your arm healthy? The answer wasn’t so simple.

“I’ve got two more starts, I’ll do whatever it takes,� said Langston, who gave up seven runs and nine hits in Friday night’s 8-3 loss to the Rangers. “I’ve just got to execute, make my pitches.�

But is there any pain, any lingering soreness from the elbow and shoulder tendinitis that bothered you in July?

“I feel I can still do my job, like I can contribute,� Langston said. “I feel I have some fight left.�

Manager Marcel Lachemann said Langston had tendinitis in the biceps area. Langston seems determined to live down the “gutless� label that former manager Dick Williams tagged on him a few years ago. He has been ineffective in his last two starts, giving up 14 runs and 16 hits in losses to Kansas City and Texas, but he doesn’t use a sore arm as an excuse.

He has two more scheduled starts this season, Wednesday at Seattle and Oct. 1 against Oakland on the last day of the season. He’ll make the second one only if the Angels are still in the American League West or wild-card race. He plans to make both.

“I’m going to do whatever it takes, whatever I can,� Langston said. “You can roll over and die or keep fighting. I’m not giving up.�

*

Lachemann said before Saturday night’s game that Andy Allanson, who was in the starting lineup for the second night in a row, might catch the Angels’ remaining seven games because he “does a good job handling pitchers and catching games, and right now that’s more important than hitting.�

Allanson’s first-inning performance may have landed him back on the bench, though. He couldn’t stop a ball in the dirt that was ruled a wild pitch, enabling Otis Nixon to advance to second, and he misplayed a pitch into a passed ball that allowed Mark McLemore to advance to third and Will Clark to second.