An Angel Easter Egg

All the excitement, all the anticipation and all the hype that surrounded your new and improved Angels? Gone, in about 10 minutes.

The Angels rolled a dud out there on opening day, a thoroughly unsuspenseful 6-0 loss to the Cleveland Indians Sunday before a sellout crowd of 42,697 at Edison Field and a national television audience. The Indians scored four runs in the first inning, and Cleveland ace Bartolo Colon was so dominant in his five-hit complete game that there wasn’t much else for the Angels to do the rest of the evening except remind themselves that pennants are not lost with 161 games left to play.

“You can’t jump to conclusions off this game,” Angel outfielder Tim Salmon said.

The Indians jumped to a lead so quickly that Angel pitching coach Bud Black found himself visiting the mound before starter Jarrod Washburn had gotten anyone out. This was fortunate for ESPN2, which had put a microphone on Black for the game. This was not so fortunate for the Angels, fired up after months of touting the blessings of the additions of Kevin Appier, Aaron Sele and Brad Fullmer, the retention of Darin Erstad and Troy Percival and the subtraction of Mo Vaughn.

The first five batters of the game went walk, single, single, single and single. The air rushed out of the proverbial balloon.

“Everybody was so excited and pumped up for the first game of the season and, before we even have a chance to bat, we’re down 4-0,” Washburn said.

“It’s all on me. I put us in a hole right away. It deflates a team.”

It’s not all on Washburn, but he did not help his cause by walking the leadoff hitter, Matt Lawton. Omar Vizquel then cued a blooper inside the right-field line, and Salmon came up throwing to second base. Unfortunately for Washburn and the Angels, shortstop David Eckstein positioned himself to cut off a throw to third, so Salmon’s throw sailed past the infield, untouched, for an error.

Lawton scored on the error. Ellis Burks singled, and Jim Thome flared a single into left field, scoring Vizquel for a 2-0 lead. “Bloopers happen,” Washburn said.

Travis Fryman singled, loading the bases. Ricky Gutierrez grounded into a third-to-home-to-first double play, and Washburn was one out away from escaping with minimal damage. With an open base, and with strikeout-prone Russell Branyan on deck, Washburn threw a 2-0 changeup to Milton Bradley.

Bradley singled home two runs, the Indians led, 4-0, and Washburn was kicking himself for throwing his third-best pitch to Bradley instead of pitching around him.

“I didn’t approach that very well, with Branyan coming up,” Washburn said.

Bloopers do indeed happen, and Washburn pitched pretty well after the first inning. Angel catcher Bengie Molina said Washburn threw better Sunday than he had all spring.

And, although Washburn was making his first opening day start, no one detected any jitters during that rocky first inning.

“These things happen,” Black said. “Everything gets magnified because it’s opening day.”

In that case, Colon ought to be a civic hero today in Cleveland, a baseball-crazy town gripped by angst after the departures of Roberto Alomar, Juan Gonzalez and Kenny Lofton. None of that matters if the other team doesn’t score, and Colon allowed only one runner to get as far as third base.

He walked one and struck out six. He threw about as many pitches in nine innings as Washburn threw in five--98 for Colon, 91 for Washburn--and he threw a 98-mph fastball in the ninth inning.

“He was like Nolan Ryan out there,” Salmon said. “He was doing whatever he wanted.”

That included throwing breaking balls for strikes, which stunned and befuddled Angel hitters who were busy failing to catch up to all that heat.

“He started out breaking out with other stuff,” Salmon said. “That surprised me.”

Said Cleveland Manager Jerry Manuel: “That’s the way I imagine him pitching--he used all of his pitches, mixed in some breaking balls, threw fastballs on both sides of the plate. He was aggressive.”

The Angels were deflated at first, and a bit disappointed after the game, but they were not overly depressed.

There wasn’t much they could do about this one but offer a tip of their collective cap to Colon.

In six career starts at Edison Field, he is 4-0 with a 1.88 earned-run average.

The Angels will play another 161 games. They will not face Colon in all of them.

“Fortunately not,” Salmon said, “or we’d all be out looking for new jobs.”