Tuesday, April 2, 2002
San Francisco Giants at Los Angeles Dodgers
recap | boxscore
Cleveland Indians at Anaheim Angels
recap | boxscore
ANAHEIM, California -- After just two games, the Cleveland Indians already miss Roberto Alomar at second base.
Troy Glaus scored the go-ahead run after Ricky Gutierrez dropped Bengie Molina's soft liner in the sixth inning as the Anaheim Angels posted a 7-5 victory over the Indians.
Cleveland traded Alomar to the New York Mets in exchange for five players on December 11. The Indians replaced one of the best second baseman ever with the capable Gutierrez, who played only shortstop with the Chicago Cubs last season.
The Angels forged a 4-4 tie with two runs in the fifth inning before putting runners at first and third with two out in the sixth. Molina hit a soft liner off reliever David Riske (0-1), but Gutierrez dropped the easy out and Glaus scored for a 5-4 lead.
"I just dropped it," Gutierrez said. "There's not much to say about it, I should have caught it. It just drifted back away from me."
Glaus added a two-run double in the seventh and Troy Percival worked around a leadoff homer in the ninth to record his first save.
Anaheim's Ben Weber (1-0) recorded the victory, allowing only one hit in two innings in relief of starter Kevin Appier, who was making his first start with the Angels.
Appier, who was acquired via trade from the Mets on December 28, surrendered four runs -- two earned -- and four hits while walking four in five innings.
"I think (Appier) battled," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. "His pitch count was extraordinarily high in the fifth inning, but he made some good pitches and we didn't help him much with that error. He kept us in the game and I think we'll see him get a lot more inning as the season progresses."
"I didn't really think I threw all that bad," Appier said. "(The Indians) made things really tough, they did a good job working counts and taking pitches. It was a really their super discipline at the plate that got me in trouble."
Tim Salmon hit an RBI double off Cleveland starter C.C. Sabathia in the first inning. But Omar Vizquel reached Appier for an RBI triple in the third and scored on a single by Ellis Burks for a 2-1 lead.
After the Angels tied it in the third on Darin Erstad's run-scoring grounder in the third, Burks delivered another RBI single off Appier in the fifth and Jim Thome followed with a sacrifice fly for a 4-2 cushion.
Sabathia walked Adam Kennedy with two out in the fifth before Eckstein single to right-center field. Erstad followed with a double down the right field line, scoring Kennedy and Eckstein to forge a 4-4 tie.
"We gave them all the runs," Indians manager Charlie Manuel said. "C.C. had good stuff, but he got in trouble on the Kennedy (walk). Eckstein and Erstad followed with big hits."
"Each time our team put up a run, I need to come back and put up a zero and I didn't do that," Sabathia said. "I made a couple of bad pitches to Eckstein. I should've stayed with the hard stuff against him and I didn't."
Eckstein had two singles, a triple, scored three times and recorded two of Anaheim's five stolen bases.
"Tonight we battled back with seven runs against not only a pretty good pitcher, but a good pitching staff," Scioscia said. "I thought we ran the bases well. It isn't always a stolen base, but running the bases aggressively that is going to lead to the manufacturing of runs. We did a good job of that."