NOTES : Hudler Sparkles in TV Career

America, give your coffee machines the week off. For a different kind of pick-me-up, just tune into ABC’s “Good Morning America,” where the always-amped Rex Hudler is providing reports from the American League championship series.

“They wanted to add some life to the show,” said Hudler, the former Angel utility player who spent 1997 with the Philadelphia Phillies. “But they told me, ‘Hud, we know you’re excited, but you’ve got to slow down a little.’ ”

“Good Morning America” was turned on to Hudler in the last week of the season, when the show did a piece on how the Phillies were handling their awful season.

Hudler was interviewed for the story, and the show’s producers liked him so much they asked him to do analysis from the Yankee-Indian division series.

“I was at Jacobs Field for Game 4, and that was the first time I’ve ever interviewed a player,” Hudler said. “I worked [Cleveland third baseman] Matt Williams’ bald spot, I interrupted players while they were eating their postgame spread . . . it was awesome.”

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Scott Erickson, who gave up only four hits in eight scoreless innings of Game 1, will start Game 4 for the Orioles, and Manager Davey Johnson is leaning toward starting right-hander Scott Kamieniecki, who did not pitch in the division series, in Game 5.

Johnson does not want to start Jimmy Key on three days’ rest, and if the series should go seven games, he would have his best two pitchers, Mike Mussina and Erickson, for Games 6 and 7.