Angels Slip Back Down

It took the Texas Rangers less than an inning Monday to match what the Dodgers had accomplished in three weekend games at Edison Field: score two runs.

And by the conclusion of the Rangers’ 6-3 victory over the Angels, a pitching staff that had thwarted its offensively challenged Southern California rival during a three-game sweep wasn’t looking quite so superb.

Ramon Ortiz, trying to win his sixth consecutive start in June, did not get by the fifth inning, and reliever Ben Weber gave up a late two-run home run to Alex Rodriguez as the Angels (40-40) slipped to .500.

Less than 24 hours after appearing on the verge of a move back into postseason contention, the Angels reverted to the form that has characterized a second-rate first half of a season that finds them languishing in the American League West, 12 1/2 games behind first-place Seattle -- and seven games behind Boston in the wild-card race. They committed three errors and managed only six hits against the AL’s worst pitching staff.

Ortiz (9-6) gave up eight hits and four runs -- three earned -- over 4 1/3 innings, his shortest outing since May 4. In his five previous starts, Ortiz had yielded eight walks over 32 innings. But he tied a season high Monday with four walks and appeared flustered by what he perceived as home plate umpire Mark Wegner’s small strike zone.

“The umpire missed a lot of pitches today, but there’s nothing I can do,� Ortiz said. “I throw a lot of good pitches, but he don’t call [strikes].�

Manager Mike Scioscia visited Ortiz in the second inning in an attempt to calm the excitable pitcher, and the trip to the mound paid off as Ortiz retired Rafael Palmeiro to escape a two-on, two-out jam. But Ortiz gave up a home run to Mark Teixeira an inning later as Texas extended its lead to 3-0.

“It didn’t look like Ramon got into his groove at all,� Scioscia said. “He was not as sharp as we’ve seen and was behind in the count.� Texas didn’t exactly throttle Ortiz for its two first-inning runs -- they both scored on sacrifice flies -- but the Rangers set the tone by collecting three hits and getting two more baserunners via walks.

“He was just missing everything middle-up, and they took advantage of it early on,� catcher Bengie Molina said. “Once he got his pitches down, he did better.�

The Rangers would have added at least two more runs in the third had umpires not reversed a call made when Einar Diaz blasted a pitch into the left-field stands. Third base umpire Gary Cederstrom initially ruled it a two-run homer, but Scioscia bolted from the dugout to argue that the ball had hooked foul. The umpires discussed the play and ruled that the ball had indeed landed foul.

Ranger third base coach Steve Smith, who protested the reversal, was ejected, and Doug Glanville, who would have scored had the home run stood, was sent back to first base. Deprived of what would have been his third homer of the season, Diaz then flied out.

Jeff DaVanon got the first of three hits the Angels mustered off John Thomson over seven innings when he hit Thomson’s first pitch of the fourth into the right-field stands to make it 3-1.

But Ortiz was finished an inning later when the Rangers scored an unearned run largely attributable to errors by third baseman Troy Glaus and second baseman Adam Kennedy. Reliever Francisco Rodriguez entered to defuse a bases-loaded, one-out mess and finished with four strikeouts over 2 2/3 electric innings. But Weber allowed Texas to extend its lead to 6-3 in the eighth when he gave up Alex Rodriguez’s 20th homer.

The meltdown rendered Garret Anderson’s 12th home run of June, a two-run shot to right in the seventh that had trimmed the Angels’ deficit to 4-3, to merely a statistical footnote. Anderson, who turned 31 Monday, was one short of tying the franchise record for homers in a month.