ANGELS, ORTIZ TAKE STEP BACK ANAHEIM LOSES MOMENTUM IN LOSS TEXAS 6, ANGELS 3.

Byline: Gabe Lacques Staff Writer

ANAHEIM - Win one, lose one. Win one, lose one. Repeat 80 times.

And there, in a nutshell, is the first half of the Angels' season.

Monday night, fresh off a sweep of the pesky Dodgers and with the pitching-poor Texas Rangers in town, the Angels had a chance to build on the momentum of the weekend and make up ground on American League West rivals Oakland and Seattle, who battled each other in the Bay Area.

Instead, starter Ramon Ortiz battled himself and a strike zone he did not find consistently. The defense did him no favors. And the lineup succumbed far too easily to Texas starter John Thomson, who breezed through seven innings of the Rangers' 6-3 victory at Edison Field.

The loss knocked the Angels (40-40) back to .500 for the 18th time this season, with tonight's game marking the halfway point. Other than a perfect outing from reliever Francisco Rodriguez, who continued his recent resurgence, the Angels' first crack at Texas (31-50) in this four-game series was a dud.

It didn't look that way on paper. Ortiz (9-6) had won five consecutive starts, providing a modicum of consistency to a starting rotation desperately in need it. He also was 10-1 lifetime against Texas.

Thomson, meanwhile, lugged a 6.05 ERA into the game and had won just one of his previous seven starts.

No matter. Thomson (5-9) held the Angels to three hits over seven innings. He retired the first nine Angels before Jeff DaVanon's leadoff home run in the fourth, and then faced the minimum number of batters after that entering the seventh, when Garret Anderson's two-run homer brought the Angels within 4-3.

Thomson's last batter was Troy Glaus, the powerful third baseman who could easily tie the game with one swing. He never got out of the batter's box, squibbing a ball in front of the plate that catcher Einar Diaz scooped up. He tagged out Glaus, who disgustedly tossed his helmet and batting gloves aside.

Alex Rodriguez's two-run homer off Ben Weber in the eighth gave the Rangers a 6-3 cushion.

It was Ortiz who immediately put the Angels in a 3-0 hole, and put at least two runners on base in every inning he worked. He was gone after 4 1/3 artless innings, walking four, giving up eight hits and leaving with a 4-1 deficit.

Ortiz did not appear comfortable with home-plate umpire Mark Wegner's strike zone. In the second, he walked Rodriguez and fell behind 2-0 to Rafael Palmeiro. That prompted Mike Scioscia to visit Ortiz, who got Palmeiro to pop out. But he never did find a rhythm.

``It didn't look like Ramon got his groove at all,'' Scioscia said. ``He wasn't as locked in as he had been. You have to realize the challenge isn't the ump or the zone. The challenge is getting hitters out.''

Ortiz tried, to no avail, to shrug off what he felt was a tight strike zone.

``You throw a lot of good pitches, but he doesn't call them,'' Ortiz said. ``But if the umpire doesn't give a pitch to you, you have to keep it going the whole way. There's nothing you can do.''

Gabe Lacques, [phone]

gabe.lacques(at)sgvn.com