Angels Can’t Take It Slow

The softer Seattle left-hander Jamie Moyer threw, the harder the Angels swung, and the harder they swung, the more they flailed. Moyer may be 42 and armed with a fastball his catcher could receive barehanded, but he can still make hitters look silly. He gave up three runs and five hits in six innings Tuesday, striking out five, and leading the Mariners to a 5-3 victory in front of an Angel Stadium crowd of 38,667 that probably included a good number who figured they could make solid contact off Moyer, given the chance.

But it’s one thing to see a 65-mph curve ball from a box seat. It’s a little different when you’re standing in the batter’s box and Moyer is pinpointing his pitches, changing speeds and feeding off a hitter’s aggressiveness by expanding the strike zone just beyond the batter’s reach.

“It’s like he has ESP, and before he lets go of the ball he can tell what a hitter is thinking and tweak his pitches a bit,” said Angel first baseman Darin Erstad, who doubled in three at-bats against Moyer. “He just knows how to win. He’s always given us trouble.”

Seattle scored five runs in the first two innings off Angel starter Kevin Gregg, Richie Sexson’s three-run homer in the first highlighting the early outburst, and Moyer made it stand up, even though he gave up solo home runs to Steve Finley in the fourth and Vladimir Guerrero in the fifth.

Throwing errors by Mariner shortstop Wilson Valdez and second baseman Bret Boone in the sixth enabled the Angels, who were trailing, 5-3, to put two on with one out.

But catcher Jose Molina swung through three consecutive pitches that registered 73, 73 and 72 mph on the speed gun, and second baseman Chone Figgins swung through a 69-mph full-count changeup in the dirt.

“That was Ball 4 -- he helped me out a bit,” Moyer said of Figgins’ strikeout. “I kind of smothered the ball on that one. But it’s his job to swing the bat.”

Molina, who was starting for only the third time this season, showed patience in his first two at-bats, drawing walks off Moyer, but that wasn’t the case in the sixth.

“I tried to do too much with one swing of the bat instead of waiting and relaxing, like I did my first two at-bats,” Molina said. “I haven’t played in a long time and was trying to help the team.”

Erstad has a .194 career average against Moyer, who is 3-0 with a 3.00 earned-run average.

“It’s way more of a mental game -- you have to think along with him and that can drive you nuts,” Erstad said. “He sets you up, and you’re trying to set him up. The key is, you have to swing at strikes and lay off his [other] pitches. He’s killed me. I’m probably the wrong guy to ask.”

Molina and Figgins also struck out swinging against Seattle reliever Ron Villone with a runner on second to end the eighth, and the Angels failed to capitalize in the seventh, when Robb Quinlan flied to right with two on to end the inning.

The Angels stayed within striking distance, thanks to some stellar relief work by Chris Bootcheck (3 1/3 scoreless innings), Esteban Yan (2 1/3 scoreless innings) and Scot Shields (a scoreless ninth) but could not climb out of the hole Gregg, normally a middle reliever, put them in.

Gregg was filling in for the injured Kelvim Escobar, who made a rehabilitation start for triple-A Salt Lake on Tuesday night and is expected to join the Angel rotation Sunday. Gregg walked the first two batters in the first, gave up Sexson’s homer and a solo homer to Raul Ibanez. Ichiro Suzuki singled, stole second, took third on Molina’s error and scored on Adrian Beltre’s single in the second to make it 5-0.

“I was trying to be too fine,” said Gregg, who will return to the bullpen later this week. “I was trying to throw everything on the black instead of trusting my stuff and letting the defense do its work.”