ANGELS LOOK LIKE OCTOBER REGULARS.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

ANAHEIM - Except for the short pants in the stands and the stunted shadows on the infield and the full scroll of out-of-town scores on the outfield wall, that was October at Edison Field on Sunday.

That was October, and those were the Angels looking just as comfortable in it as the New York Yankees.

They battled for 4 hours, 47 minutes in front of a sellout crowd Sunday afternoon, and for 4 hours, 46 minutes and 59 seconds the Angels showed they belong with the opponent that every would-be member of the baseball elite judges itself against. If the Angels run into the Yankees again in the fall, they'll have every right to say they can beat them.

The Angels lost 7-5 in the 12th inning, but you have to look at the whole game, the whole series against the Yankees and the whole recent 20-game stretch against other American League playoff contenders.

``Overall,'' Tim Salmon said correctly afterward, ``you can't be too disappointed with it.''

The one moment when the Angels looked like pretenders instead of contenders Sunday came in the climactic top of the 12th, after Scot Shields walked the bases loaded with two out and Alfonso Soriano beat out an excruciatingly slow roller that second baseman Adam Kennedy scooped desperately to stretching first baseman Scott Spiezio. As umpire John Hirschbeck signaled safe and Rondell White scored the go-ahead run, Spiezio slumped dejectedly on his left elbow, neglecting to throw the ball to the plate as Jorge Posada steamed toward a second run.

Spiezio's loss of poise might have been damning if the plays it most resembled in baseball history hadn't been turned in by two well-seasoned postseason performers. David Cone let a run score while he argued a play in a long-ago New York Mets regular-season game. Chuck Knoblauch made the same blunder in a long-as-long-ago Yankees playoff game.

Occasional bone-headedness does not disqualify a man from October.

Yes, the most anticipated stretch of the Angels season ended badly with the Yankees finding a way to win an uncanny game that started out as a 5-5 slugfest after two innings of Ramon Ortiz and David Wells, and then shifted into a pitching duel among 10 relievers.

But as the Angels flew to Detroit on Sunday night to begin a three-city trip, they should have felt more confident than they did three weeks ago.

They split the Yankees series 2-2, winning 2-1 Thursday behind Jarrod Washburn and the full force of the Angels bullpen, winning 4-3 Saturday night when Salmon's eighth-inning home run bailed out Troy Percival, and showing similar grit Sunday by wiping out first- and second-inning deficits.

They ended a sadistic schedule of games against playoff contenders Minnesota, Oakland, Seattle, Boston and New York with a 12-8 record, including an 8-4 mark against the division-leading Twins, Mariners and Yankees.

``We've shown ourselves we can beat those teams,'' Salmon said.

Which they needed to show themselves after going 3-11 and 3-4 in stretches against the American League contenders this season.

Certainly, manager Mike Scioscia won't let the Angels get caught looking back or looking ahead. If they trip up against Detroit, Chicago and Toronto, all their good work against Minnesota, Oakland, Seattle, Boston and New York will have meant nothing. By Sunday sundown, their margin for error in the wild-card race was none, down after Boston defeated Texas to move into a first-place tie with the Angels.

Scioscia brushed off questions about the 20-game stretch that suggests the Angels (65-45) fit among the league's elite, something they've tried repeatedly to prove throughout the Los Angeles-California-Anaheim franchise's 42 seasons.

``Our confidence level is very high, no matter how we did in this stretch of games that you guys put a lot of stock in,'' Scioscia said to reporters. ``I like the way this team lines up. I like the way we get after it. We're championship-caliber.''

They sure are, said the Yankees' Joe Torre, manager of four consecutive pennant winners, who's always looking for the next challenger.

``They're a very good team. They're very aggressive. They execute fundamentally. They play well defensively. They have a lot of parts that go well together. And they have a closer, a dominant closer (Percival),'' Torre said.

You can see a team like that playing for the pennant. You can see October from here in August. Picture the sun lower in the sky, wool sweaters instead of tank tops and a Sunday afternoon when Anaheim vs. New York is the only game on the scoreboard.