ANDERSON SEEMINGLY LEFT IN AN AWKWARD POSITION.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

ANAHEIM - Should Garret Anderson have been put in that position? Should one of the great Angels of all time have been put in the position to be something like a playoff goat? Should he have been in left field, playing shallow, as the Yankees' All-Cleanup Hitters lineup was taking its cuts?

On such questions a team's World Series hopes sometimes hang, as Mike Scioscia and the Angels were reminded Tuesday night in a 4-2 loss in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series.

``I don't think any left fielder makes that play,'' Scioscia said afterward.

But you have to wonder if this game turns out different if it's Juan Rivera playing left instead of Anderson, or if Anderson is playing deeper, or if Anderson gets a better jump.

We're talking about the moment when Robinson Cano's bases-loaded line drive is screaming toward the fence in the decisive first inning.

Anderson fought knee and back problems late in the season. He skipped four of the five games to rest after the Angels clinched the division championship. He played in the field in only one of the past 12 games, serving as designated hitter when he did compete.

It is not second-guessing to speculate that Anderson wasn't perfectly healthy Tuesday night. The Daily News' position-by-position matchups featured in Tuesday's paper listed Rivera in left and Anderson at DH, citing the latter's injuries.

Is Anderson 100 percent?

``Yeah,'' Scioscia said after the game in his office.

The manager said he and his coaches talked about this very lineup question but went with Anderson in the field, Rivera at DH, to give themselves ``more options for moves late in the game.'' They might also have noticed stats showing Anderson hits better when he's playing the field than when he's the DH.

Anderson went 0 for 4 at the plate Tuesday. And he couldn't make the play the Angels needed.

Two outs, bases empty, Bartolo Colon throwing nothing but strikes in the first, Jason Giambi yanked a 1-1 pitch over first baseman Darin Erstad for a single. Gary Sheffield cast a line drive over second baseman Adam Kennedy for a single. Hideki Matsui lined the Yankees' third straight single to right, and third-base coach Luis Sojo held Giambi at third - good move since Vladimir Guerrero threw a one-hopper to the plate.

The count on Cano, the Yankees' Rookie of the Year-candidate second baseman, went from 0-2 to 2-2. Then Cano, a left-handed hitter, sliced a drive the other way.

Anderson ran back, tracking the wall over his right shoulder, holding his glove in the air, hoping for a friendly gust of wind. He was Barry Bonds chasing Troy Glaus' game-winning double in Game 6 of the World Series in 2002.

Cano's shot skipped once on the grass short of the warning track, hit the wall and came back to Anderson. The bases cleared, it was 3-0 Yankees, and Colon was slapping his glove with his pitching hand in frustration.

Anderson (Kennedy High of Granada Hills), not an enthusiastic interview in the best of times, hadn't made himself available to reporters in the clubhouse within 40 minutes of the game's final out. Teammates faced the questions he should have fielded.

Colon said he wasn't surprised the 14-home-run-hitting Cano showed such opposite-field power. It was Colon, of course, who said of the Yankees, ``To me, they're all cleanup hitters.''

Ron Roenicke, the Angels coach who positions outfielders, said Anderson was shallow for good reason. With the bases loaded, he wants to be able to catch the would-be single.

``I think he's running all right,'' Roenicke said. ``I think the rest he's had the last week has helped him. When it's up in the air, Garret can catch almost anything. If a guy drives the ball, he (the hitter) deserves it.''

By the second inning it was 4-0 Yankees. Colon sharpened and held New York to two more hits through the seventh, but Mike Mussina and four relievers were enforcing silence in the Angels and 45,142 fans, the largest playoff crowd in the ballpark's recent history.

The fans went home thinking about the bases-loaded, two-out double that might have been caught. Wishing they could go back to when the 33-year-old Anderson, the Angels' all-time leader in hits and RBI, was a postseason hero, the man tripling home the winning runs in Game 7 of the World Series.

Instead, this felt like the first game of that 2002 postseason run, the game in New York where Scioscia invited hard questions by failing to call on Troy Percival as a lead got away. If the Angels are good, this series turns out like that one.

Until tonight the question hangs in the air like a catchable flyball. Should Garret Anderson have been put in position to fail?