ANGELS CAN'T BEAT 'EM, CAN'T JOIN 'EM.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Monday will go down as the most discouraging night of the Angels' season. One of the top 10, anyway.

The first-place Texas Rangers came to Edison Field looking strangely vulnerable to the last-place Angels. The Rangers were on a six-losses-in-nine-games slide and trying to digest the undignified image of their 55-year-old pitching coach breaking a hip rollerblading in the stadium parking lot. The Angels were on a four-game winning streak more or less coinciding with the return of shortstop and clubhouse conscience Gary DiSarcina and the overdue announcement of manager Terry Collins' contract extension.

This would be the start of the Angels' scramble back into the American League West race after two months of weak hitting, injuries and . . . more injuries.

Somebody, somewhere, dared to mention the possibility of a three-game sweep, which would have put the Angels 3-1/2 games out of first, a stone's throw even if Todd Hundley were the thrower.

And then reality hit Anaheim like a 500-foot home run as Chuck Finley got brave and challenged the Texas hitters with fastballs.

Nine to 1, Rangers out-machoed 'em again. Now they've outscored the Angels here 34-4 dating back to the decisive three-game series last September. Any wonder only 20,000 Angels fans show up for these things?

``We had a lot of momentum, a lot of confidence going for us. We thought we had a chance to make up some ground,'' Finley said after losing to Mike Morgan, the craftier veteran, on Monday. ``Tonight we got pushed back to the end of the line.''

The next afternoon the Angels dressed for game 2 of the most pivotal series of the midseason muttering about how Monday's was just one game in 162.

``You're going to have some like that,'' Collins said with a shrug.

But this was more than that.

This was a loud reminder that there's a class standout in the Angels' division - and it's not the Angels.

The Angels' immediate task is to get out of dead last. Their next job is to send a faith healer after right fielder Tim Salmon (sprained left wrist, out since May 4) and center fielder Jim Edmonds (right shoulder surgery, out since opening night); ``no timetable'' for the return of either, according to Collins.

Their next order of business should be to move the Rangers out of the AL West.

Ballplayers are big on self-reliance, and in that spirit the Angels will tell you that if they take care of their own game the division title will take care of itself.

If they really think so, their eyes must be spinning too fast after Monday's mugging to look hard at the Rangers.

Every time I see the Rangers, I wonder why this team isn't more than 10 games over .500, where they stood before Tuesday night's game, and why they can't get past round one of the playoffs, which the club with the most .500-plus seasons (seven) in the AL this decade failed to do in '96 and '98.

The heart of their batting order - Ivan Rodriguez, Rusty Greer, Juan Gonzalez and Rafael Palmeiro - shames any opponent.

If their nine hitters Monday and Tuesday duplicated their best major-league seasons, they'd have a lineup averaging .307, 24 homers, 94 runs and 97 RBI.

Gonzalez hit his first-inning homer off Finley with a swing as casual as one of Fred Couples' warmups.

It's frightening to think what these guys could do with a complete team.

``Unfortunately we haven't been as consistent as we'd probably like to be,'' said Todd Zeile, the Rangers third baseman who hit 31 homers for the Dodgers in 1997 before being bundled in the Mike Piazza trade.

The past 17 games have included two three-game winning streaks and losing streaks of four, four and two games.

More unfortunately, the Rangers are weighted down by their infield defense and their starting rotation, in both cases the league's worst.

(The team was 43-33 after Monday; the bullpen was 17-3; you do the subtraction.)

Vulnerable? Yeah, the Angels might have thought so, catching them as they have in the midst of a grinding month that finds the Rangers playing 26 of 32 games on the road before the All-Star break.

Then came Monday, Gonzalez's easy 2-iron, nine Rangers runs against the Angels' putative ace, and the sight of fans fleeing into the Orange County darkness after the fifth inning.

Rangers manager Johnny Oates had an encouraging word for those Anaheim fans who might get the idea Texas is unbeatable.

``Tell them to contact the Yankees fans - 'cause we can't beat them,'' Oates said.

But meanwhile, here in the West, Angels fans might be right.