Rangers rally against Weaver, Downs to beat the Angels, 9-5

If there’s been one constant to the Angels this season, it’s been inconsistency.

Twice they’ve had winning streaks of five or more games. And three times they’ve had losing streaks that long.

They’ve gone into hitting streaks and fallen in hitting slumps.

But through all the ups and downs, there were two things on which the Angels could depend: the right arm of Jered Weaver and the left arm of Scott Downs.

Sunday night, in perhaps the Angels’ biggest game of the summer, both came up lame, allowing the Texas Rangers to rally for a 9-5 victory that pushed the Angels three games behind the first-place Rangers in the American League West, one game further back than when they arrived in Texas on Friday.

Only now they have three fewer games in which to make up the deficit. The Rangers took two of three in the series.

Pitching on three days’ rest for the first time in his career, Weaver had one of his worst outings of the season, giving up a seven runs and a season-high eight hits in six innings. He also walked a season-high four batters.

Weaver left the game with the score tied, 5-5, after giving up three consecutive hits to start the seventh. The Angels then turned to Downs, who has had 25 appearances in which he hasn't allowed a hit this season, stranding 21 of 25 inherited runners.

That lasted all of one pitch Sunday when Josh Hamilton greeted him by singling in the go-ahead run. The Rangers made it 8-5 a couple of batters later on a two-run pinch single from Endy Chavez, then tacked on an eighth-inning insurance run on Elvis Andrus' single.

For the next month the Angels and Rangers will be watching each other on the scoreboard since they don’t meet again until the final three games of the season. And the paths they’ll be following to that final series have wildly different degrees of difficulty, with the Angels seemingly enjoying the easier schedule.

Although the Angels will play 26 games in 28 days before seeing the Rangers again in Anaheim, the six teams they’ll meet have a combined winning percentage of .467. And just one -- the Yankees, who come to Angel Stadium for a three-game series next month -- currently has a winning record.

The Rangers, meanwhile, have two fewer games and two more off days than the Angels, but the five teams they’ll meet have a .509 winning percentage. And just two -- Oakland and Seattle -– have losing records.

What’s more, the Rangers, who have lost seven of their last 11, could enter the season’s final weeks missing two of their biggest offensive threats.

Third baseman Adrian Beltre, who has 20 homers and 76 runs batted in, has been on the disabled list with a sore left hamstring for three weeks, and outfielder Nelson Cruz, who leads the team with 28 homers and 84 RBIs, came up lame running out a sixth-inning double Sunday. He'll have an MRI test Monday.

The Angels, who once led 4-1, took a 5-4 lead into the decisive seventh thanks to Howie Kendrick's fifth-inning home run, his fifth homer in his last six games.

Earlier the Angels scored on Bobby Abreu's RBI single in the first, and Abreu scored in the third when he doubled and came home on Mark Trumbo's double. The other two runs scored on singles by Jeff Mathis in the second and Vernon Wells in the third.

The Rangers got their first run in the second when Yorvit Torrealba hit a two-out solo home run off Weaver, and got even in the third when they scored three times, on Andrus' RBI triple and a two-run home run from Hamilton.

MORE:

Angels-Rangers box score

Angels' gamble and hit jackpot against Rangers

Russell Branyan cuts it too close for comfort for Peter Bourjos

-- Kevin Baxter, from Arlington, Texas

Photo: Angels starting pitcher Jered Weaver turns away from the plate as Rangers left fielder Josh Hamilton rounds third base after hitting a home run in the third inning Sunday. Credit: Tim Heitman / US Presswire

Offensive Angels aim to move closer to Rangers

The Angels have a chance to shave another game off the Texas Rangers' lead in the American League West on Sunday when they send ace Jered Weaver to the mound in Arlington, Texas.

Pitching, however, is no longer the Angels' strong suit. During a recent hot spell that has seen them win seven of eight games the Angels have been producing out of the batter's box too, homering in 17 of their last 18 contests -- including five home runs Saturday. In their last seven games, the Angels have batted .339, averaged 7 1/2 runs a game, collected at least 10 hits in each game and are batting .414 with runners in scoring position.

"It feels good," Manager Mike Scioscia said. "You have to be able to pressure teams every inning. You're only able to do that when your offense gets deep. In the last probably two weeks we've gotten deeper. Where at times we were trying to fill nine spots with maybe four guys swinging the bats well, now we've got probably 10 or 11 people on the offensive side, guys that we can get into the lineup.

"And that's a good feeling."

The Angels entered Sunday trailing Texas by two games with 30 games to play.

The lineups:

Angels

CF -- Peter Bourjos

2B -- Howie Kendrick

DH -- Bobby Abreu

RF -- Torii Hunter

1B -- Mark Trumbo

LF -- Vernon Wells

3B -- Alberto Callaspo

SS -- Erick Aybar

C -- Jeff Mathis

P -- Jered Weaver

Texas Rangers

2B -- Ian Kinsler

SS -- Elvis Andrus

CF -- Josh Hamilton

3B -- Michael Young

RF -- Nelson Young

DH -- Mike Napoli

1B -- Mitch Moreland

C -- Yorvit Torrealba

LF -- David Murphy

P -- Colby Lewis

-- Kevin Baxter reporting from Arlington, Texas

Little League final delayed by rain

The Little League World Series final between Ocean View from Huntington Beach and Japan, scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Pacific time Sunday, has been delayed by rain.

It is now scheduled to begin at noon and will be shown on ABC.

-- Eric Sondheimer

Rugby World Cup 2011: All bets are off as jitters grip New Zealand and hope fills England and Australia

Crikey! Just as I thought it was becoming easier to predict the likely finalists for RWC 2011, along comes this weekend to blow many hopes, beliefs and fallacies out of the water. Only a fool would part with big money to bet on a winner (even though, as we all know, pre-Cup form does not necessarily mean much come the play-offs).

Take New Zealand. They would have woken up Sunday morning as the ‘land of the long black cloud’. Their early-season form has deserted them, and while their defeat to South Africa could be written off as their B team, their Tri-Nations loss to Australia in Brisbane is likely to cause serious self-doubt.

Entirely outplayed for the first 40 minutes – the Wallabies’ commitment was brilliant – the All Blacks should not be flattered by the final score. Many of their top players looked tired and well off the pace, and Graham Henry and his wise men have a massive task on their hands to turn their belief around.

They may just have to clutch at straws – and there’s a good one in looking at Tri-Nations history. The All Blacks won the tournament in 1999, 2003 and 2007 – only to fall flat at the World Cup. This year they won’t go into the tournament as champions, red-hot favourites or with bags of complacency. All good omens?

As for the Aussies, full marks to you. Your tight five were ok, your back-row magnificent and your backs created and exploited gaps, along with stellar defence. I suspect England – who think they have the Wallabies’ number after two successive victories – will face a possible clash with great unease.

So what about England? I make the victory over Ireland their best performance of the year. Lots still to work on, sure, but there was steel and grit in their game. Ireland stepped up considerably from their three-week horror show, but still England kept them try-less while scoring  two themselves.

Even the midfield – generally acknowledged to be England’s area of weakness – looked more than solid. I’m still not sure they have what it takes to smoke the Southern Hemisphere big guns, but on this showing they’ll fairly easily top their group and approach the knockout stage with great belief. And, as omens and portents go, England won the World Cup on the back of winning the Six Nations in 2003.

All bets are off and my only prediction will be that Romania or Namibia are not going to win this.

And then some random remarks after Saturday – and please let me know how you saw the weekend unfold:

* What a shocker for back-row forwards. Ireland’s David Wallace ruled out of RWC and Jamie Heaslip injured, New Zealand’s Kieran Read and Adam Thomson in serious RWC doubt, England’s Nick Easter and Tom Wood sidelined for Dublin but seemingly okay to travel to New Zealand and Hendre Fourie did not last long. Who’d want to be a 6, 7 or 8 given the ferocity at the breakdown nowadays?

* After keeping a close eye on Wayne Barnes (Aus-NZ) and Nigel Owens (Ire-Eng) and their colleagues, I have this horrible fear that match officials – rather than a brilliant kick or try – could overly influence tight matches in New Zealand. Both were guilty of substantial inconsistency at times and getting a few key calls incorrect. Hope they all have a proper workshop before September 9!

* Martin Johnson may just need to have a quiet word with his team over discipline (and not for the first time). Chris Ashton sin-binned (admittedly paying the price for team-mates’ repeated offending), Courtney Lawes’ stupid barge and Manu Tuilagi’s take on David Wallace – even if missed by the touch judge – was a shoulder charge rather than a legal arm-binding tackle (not that this ws the cause of Wallace’s injury). Any of them could be very costly in a close affair. 

* Why do British commentators struggle with pronouncing Samoan names? It’s Manu Tuilagi, not Tuilangi. Just as it was Tana Umaga, not Umanga. Easy to practise … the ‘a’ is pronounced similar to when you’re at the doctor, have a wooden spatula pressing down your tongue and have to say ‘aaahhh’.

* And finally, while we’re on commentators, thank God this World Cup is not hosted by Australia. That way the whole world bar the Aussies will be spared having to listen to Oz commentary. They can be funny and witty at times, but they’re blinkered and one-eyed to the extreme. Their non-stop carping at real and perceived All Black transgressions was already irritating, but then to stay mum when the Wallabies do exactly the same is simply biased. Lord, how I still miss Bill McLaren.

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