Angels gain at M’s expense
SEATTLE – Garret Anderson and the Anaheim Angels made sure they remained focused against the lowly Seattle Mariners.
Anderson hit a three-run homer to back Kelvim Escobar’s seven strong innings, leading the Angels to a 5-1 win Monday night.
“Anything we can get nowdays is good,” said Anderson, who added that the Mariners beat Boston twice in a four-game series.
“You can’t look at them as a team that’s not making the postseason,” he said. “They’re going out there to do the best they can. They’re trying to beat us.”
The Angels moved 4 1/2 games behind idle Boston in the A.L. wild-card race, but they couldn’t make up any ground on Oakland, which kept its two-game lead over Anaheim in the division with a 7-6 victory in 10 innings over Texas at home Monday night.
“It’s going to be a dogfight right to the end,” Angels catcher Bengie Molina said of the Oakland-Anaheim battle for the division championship.
“We’re just trying to win our games, that’s all,” Molina added.
Seattle’s Ichiro Suzuki went hitless — 0-for-4 with a walk — for the third time in four games, but still is on pace for 262 hits, which would break the 84-year-old major league single-season record of 257 set by Hall of Famer George Sisler.
Suzuki was asked if he was feeling the pressure of trying to catch Sisler.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s the first or the 700th at-bat of the year, there is always going to be pressure,” he said. “It doesn’t matter who you are, you’re going to have pressure.”
Suzuki is hitting .154 (4 for 26) lifetime against Escobar.
Escobar (10-10) became a double-digit winner for the fourth time in his career, but lost his shutout bid when Jose Lopez homered with two outs in the seventh.
Scot Shields got two outs in the eighth, and Francisco Rodriguez got the final four outs for his 12th save in 19 chances.
Lopez, Seattle’s 20-year-old rookie shortstop, hit his fifth homer of the season.
Cha Seung Baek (1-3), a rookie making his third major league start, pitched seven innings and allowed five runs and eight hits.