Angel Attack Finds Punch

DETROIT — The Angels got their offense off disability, for a day anyway.

Bengie Molina and Juan Rivera had two healthy cuts. Darin Erstad and Vladimir Guerrero roamed the basepaths using aggressive instinct rather than baseball logic. That put the Angels up early and allowed the pitching staff to cruise through an afternoon.

John Lackey handled that, pitching 7 2/3 innings in a 9-3 victory over Detroit in front of an announced 23,107 in Comerica Park on Sunday.

“That’s how we play when we’re at our best,” said second baseman Adam Kennedy, who had two hits and scored the first run in a six-run third inning. “That’s how we have played and been successful since [Manager] Mike Scioscia got here. But you have to be hitting to do that stuff.”

That had been the Angels’ problem in May. The pitchers have carried the team through a 17-game stretch, with starters who have pitched at least seven innings 12 times and relievers who chewed up hitters as if they were playing Pac-Man.

Angel batters, though, seemed more like spectators during that stretch. Sunday was only the eighth time in those 17 games that the offense produced more than three runs.

The Angels were hitting .204 in May before the game and had scored only 16 runs in the previous seven games, losing five. They shook out of those doldrums by matching their biggest inning this season, scoring six runs against Nate Robertson (1-3), with Molina driving in three on a bases-loaded double.

An inning later, Rivera hit a three-run home run -- the first by an Angel designated hitter this season -- for a 9-0 lead.

Suddenly, questions from recent weeks evaporated. An offense that had not scored more than five runs since April 23 seemed fairly potent.

“To tell you the truth, we weren’t worried about that,” Molina said. “It’s a 162-game season. What we got to do right now is individually do our part.”

Erstad and Guerrero did their parts, putting some life into the offense by ignoring baseball’s conventional wisdom on the basepaths.

Guerrero ended an 0-for-10 streak with a single to drive in Kennedy for a 1-0 lead. It was his first run batted in since May 4, an eight-game drought that was his longest since going 10 games without an RBI to finish 2003. Erstad, who had reached on a fielder’s choice, took third.

Garret Anderson followed with a grounder to first baseman Carlos Pena and Erstad decided to risk a play at the plate. He just beat the throw of a surprised Pena. Guerrero, not to be outdone, gambled and went to third, slipping in under the tag. He scored on Orlando Cabrera’s single.

Call it aggressive or call it fortunate, Erstad and Guerrero ran the Angels into a big inning.

“The last four or five games, I thought we were getting more quality at-bats,” Scioscia said. “We got big hits today. Big two-out hits.”

Molina and Rivera both struck with two outs.

Molina drove a 0-and-2 pitch into the left-field corner, clearing the bases. Rivera hit a 2-and-1 pitch from reliever Matt Ginter into the left-field seats. And the Angels became the last team in the league to get a home run by a designated hitter.

“We haven’t been worried about the hitters,” said Lackey, who gave up three runs and eight hits. “We knew they would come around. Today was good for them.”