ALCS REFLECTS TEAMS' SPIRIT.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

ANAHEIM - The Angels say they look in the mirror and see the Twins. The Twins say they look in the mirror and see the Angels. These teams are that similar in style and spirit.

``They keep fighting back, just like we do,'' Darin Erstad said admiringly after Anaheim and Minnesota split the first two games of the American League championship series in Minneapolis. ``When we were up 6-0 (Wednesday) night, I don't think any of us thought it was over.''

So when the Angels were up 1-0 for most of Friday night, in a game balancing on close plays and closer calls, you can imagine what they thought - and what they didn't allow themselves to think.

On cue, the Twins came back to tie the game, breaking through against Jarrod Washburn in the seventh inning. Whereupon, right in character, the Angels came back to win it 2-1 on Troy Glaus's home run in the eighth.

This morning, is there a crack in the mirror?

We're about to find out, beginning when John Lackey faces Brad Radke tonight, if the Twins are as tough as the Angels believe.

We're about to find out, in a game they have to have, if the Twins are as tough as the Angels, period.

If the Twins had won Friday, I'd be writing the same thing about the Angels.

This was a backbreaking kind of game to lose, after which the loser was bound to toss and turn, thinking about the little things that were done and not done.

If the Angels had lost, they were going to wonder about left-field umpire Ed Montague's ``foul'' call on an Erstad line drive that replays showed hit the line in the fifth inning. And left fielder Garret Anderson's half-hearted chase after the Jacque Jones double off the wall that knocked in Dustan Mohr with the tying run. And shortstop David Eckstein's sputtering throw to the plate on that big play. And pinch-runner Chone Figgins' snap decision to stay at third on a wild pitch that let Eckstein go from first to second in the seventh. And home-plate umpire Brian Gorman's ``out'' call a minute later when Figgins tried to dive home on Erstad's ground ball on catcher A.J. Pierzynski's swipe tag. And Anderson's hard luck on a night when he drove a second-inning home run through the heavy air but missed three homers by a total of maybe 10 feet.

All the ways this one tried to wriggle away from the Angels.

Because the Twins lost, they're going to wonder how Washburn kept getting himself off the hook, in all those innings when a run was a hit away. And how Alex Ochoa, the ninth-inning defensive replacement for sore-legged Tim Salmon in right field, made manager Mike Scioscia look so brilliant by making that lunging catch of Doug Mientkiewicz's leadoff line drive. And how Anderson was able to bail himself out for his earlier questionable play by diving to make a game-ending catch of Pierzynski's blooper.

All the ways this one did get away from the Twins.

``You go in (to the game) thinking if we can hold them to two runs, we'll be all right,'' Mohr said of the Angels, who were leading the playoffs in runs scored with 6.3 a game.

Mohr paused for a what-can-you-do? shrug.

If the Twins are as resilient as everybody says, they'll come back again today.

``We were down before we ever got to this point,'' Jones said of the club that wasn't sure it would even play this season. ``Neither team's going to quit.''

The Twins are down 2-1 in the first-to-four series against the Angels.

The Angels think they know what to expect from the Twins.

``They were down 2-1 to Oakland,'' Eckstein said of the first-to-three division series that Minnesota came back to win. ``I expect this to be the same. They have so much fight in them.''

We'll see.

The Angels showed how tough they are Friday night, winning a game that kept trying to slip away.

Are the Twins really as tough?

Time to look in the mirror.