ANGELS FIND SWING SCIOSCIA'S PREGAME PEP TALK PAYS OFF IN OAKLAND ANGELS 5, OAKLAND 2.

Byline: Joe Haakenson Staff Writer

OAKLAND - The number of productive hitters in the Angels' lineup has been so minimal lately they wouldn't qualify to ride in the car-pool lane.

All the hitters - productive and otherwise - squeezed into manager Mike Scioscia's tiny office in the visiting clubhouse at the Oakland Coliseum before Thursday's game against the Oakland A's. He held the meeting to lift their confidence, which had been jolted by a seven-game losing streak.

Whatever was said seemed to work, as the Angels responded with a 5-2 victory in front of 12,719, avoiding a four-game sweep by the A's. The five runs and nine hits weren't staggering, but they were a big accomplishment for a team that had been shut out in three of its previous four games.

Troy Glaus, Garret Anderson and Orlando Palmeiro each had two hits, Darin Erstad had a key, two-out, RBI single and Adam Kennedy drove in a run with a fielder's choice.

Glaus had the big hit, a two-out, two-run homer in the third off A's starter Gil Heredia (4-7). It was Glaus' 22nd of the season.

Angels starter Ismael Valdes (5-4), out since June 14 because of a sore shoulder, gave up two runs and four hits in five innings to get the win. Shigetoshi Hasegawa, Mike Holtz, Al Levine and Troy Percival (20th save) combined to pitch the final four innings.

The Angels have a way to go before they can be considered serious playoff contenders. They entered the day 11 games behind wild-card leader Boston and realize August and September will be meaningless if they play poorly in July.

``My feeling was this was the biggest game of the year,'' Erstad said. ``Every game from here on is important. We put ourselves in this situation. There's no room for lapses now.''

The key to the game came in the third inning when the Angels got the kind of break they simply haven't gotten this year. The A's led 1-0 when Erstad hit a fly ball to deep right-center field with one on and two outs.

A's right fielder Terrence Long reached the warning track in time to make a play on the ball, but he dropped it for an error. David Eckstein was running from first on contact and scored easily as Erstad stopped at second.

Glaus followed with his homer to center field for a 3-1 lead.

``If you look at our offense last year, pretty much every break went our way,'' Erstad said. ``This year we're not getting many breaks and we're not swinging well. Put those two together and it doesn't look very good.''

Valdes escaped big jams in the third and fourth innings with minimal damage. In the third, the A's loaded the bases for Miguel Tejada with two outs. Tejada, who homered earlier in the game and has five homers in his past six games, ripped a sharp grounder up the middle that Valdes was able to knock down. He retrieved the ball and threw Tejada out.

In the fourth, Valdes gave up a single to Long and a double to Eric Chavez, giving the A's runners at second and third with none out. But he held the A's to one run in the inning on Billy McMillon's RBI groundout and kept the lead at 3-2.

Because he had 20 days between starts, Valdes came out after five innings and 81 pitches.

``Actually it was pretty weird,'' Valdes said. ``I lost a little bit of control. My ball was moving a lot. Twenty days is a lot of time without pitching, but I think I did pretty good today.''

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Photo:

Troy Glaus (25) is congratulated by Angels teammate Darin Erstad after his two-run homer in the third inning Thursday.

Ben Margot/Associated Press