Give Edmonds Assist as Smith Saves the Day : Angels: Relief ace bounces back in 6-5 victory over Indians. Center fielder ends game by throwing out Sorrento at second.

The boos started as soon as the Angel bullpen gate swung open in the top of the ninth inning Tuesday night. They were even more pronounced when Lee Smith was introduced as the new Angel pitcher against the Cleveland Indians.

Two strikeouts and one great throw by center fielder Jim Edmonds later, Smith helped turn those jeers into wild cheers, as the Angels held on for a 6-5 victory over the Indians before a paid crowd of 42,468 in Anaheim Stadium.

Smith, who was 0-4 with an 18.78 earned-run average and three blown saves in his previous nine appearances, opened the ninth by striking out Manny Ramirez.

He then caught Jim Thome looking at a low inside fastball for strike three, which brought the crowd to its feet and seemed to restore faith in a closer who had saves in his first 19 save opportunities but had faltered of late.

Smith then jumped ahead of Paul Sorrento, 1-and-2, before Sorrento lined an apparent double up the gap in left-center. But Edmonds fielded the ball near the warning track, turned and fired a perfect throw to second baseman Damion Easley, who applied the tag for the game’s final out.

Second-base umpire Mike Reilly initially motioned Sorrento safe, but Sorrento’s foot--as replays showed--never reached the bag, and Reilly called him out, giving Smith his 23rd save and the Angels a seven-game lead in the American League West.

There were still lines at Anaheim Stadium ticket windows an hour into the game, the highly anticipated pitching duel between the Angels’ Chuck Finley and Cleveland’s Orel Hershiser and a playoff preview-type matchup of the league’s top two teams attracting walk-up sales of 15,048.

But those filing in late in the third inning missed Hershiser completely. The Angels knocked the former Dodger right-hander out after 2 1/3 innings, battering him for five runs on five hits.

Included in the barrage was Garret Anderson’s second-inning homer, a 429- foot shot that caromed off the facade of the wall behind the center field fence, only a few feet short of Bo Jackson’s 1989 All-Star game homer.

The Angels have now homered in 14 consecutive games, four shy of the team record of 18, set in 1982. Anderson, who has six homers in his last 12 games, added an RBI single to give the Angels a 4-3 lead in the third and bring to an end Hershiser’s shortest outing since Aug. 16, 1991, when he lasted only an inning against Houston.

Finley didn’t last too much longer. Or look that much better. The left-hander, who was removed following the second inning of his last start in Toronto after taking a line drive off his right heel, struggled through 5 1/3 innings, giving up four runs on eight hits and walking four.

But he had six strikeouts, two of which left five Indians on base and one that moved him ahead of Mike Witt and into second place on the Angels’ all- time strikeout list. Finley now has 1,290 strikeouts.

Cleveland catcher Sandy Alomar had an RBI single in the second to tie the game, 1-1, and Herbert Perry’s two-run double tied the game at 3 in the top of the third.

Anderson’s RBI single and Damion Easley’s sacrifice fly put the Angels ahead, 5-3, in the third, and Edmonds’ RBI single, which extended his hitting streak to 11, off reliever Albie Lopez scored Gary DiSarcina to make it 6-3.

Finley, who struck out Omar Vizquel with the bases loaded in the second and Albert Belle with runners on first and second in the fourth, ran into more trouble in the sixth when Dave Winfield singled, Alomar walked and Vizquel, after three strikeouts, doubled to left to make it 6-4.

But right-hander John Habyan replaced Finley and got Baerga to line out to second and Belle to ground out to short, ending the inning and preserving the Angels’ two-run lead.

Habyan was pulled after giving up a seventh-inning, bases-empty homer to Thome, a blast that landed in the back of the Indian bullpen and pulled Cleveland to within 6-5.

Left-hander Bob Patterson got pinch-hitter Paul Sorrento to pop out and walked Winfield, prompting Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann to replace Patterson with right-hander Troy Percival, who struck out Alomar looking to end the seventh and held the Indians scoreless in the eighth.

The game was delayed for several minutes in the seventh when a fan climbed about 20 feet up the left field foul pole, which brought him a loud ovation and an eventual police escort out of the stadium.