ANGELS NOTEBOOK: ANGELS GETTING WELL VS. NON-WEST TEAMS.

Byline: David Felton Staff Writer

ANAHEIM - The Angels' recent success obviously is good news for manager Mike Scioscia. After beginning the season a franchise-worst 6-14, the Angels have won 12 of their last 14 to pull within 6 1/2 games of first-place Seattle in the American League West standings before Saturday night's game.

The team has even moved ahead of Oakland to for second place.

Scioscia, however, has been around long enough to know it's too early to think about standings and who's ahead of whom.

``Our challenge isn't any different,'' Scioscia said before Saturday's game. ``We have to worry about our own club. The standings, hopefully, will take care of themselves.

``It's too early to do all that scoreboard watching and standings watching.''

The bulk of the Angels' victories have come against teams from outside the AL West. Anaheim is 12-4 against the AL Central and East and 6-12 vs. the West.

Thirteen of the Angels' first 16 games were played against Seattle and Oakland, both of which qualified for the postseason last year. Many of those games were played without Troy Glaus (suspension), Scott Spiezio (suspension), Troy Percival (injury) and Darin Erstad (injury). Scioscia believes early-season results could have been quite different with those players in the lineup.

``For the first 20 games we didn't have our full contingent,'' he said. ``I'm not going to blame the schedule. We played some good teams and we didn't get it done, but I'm not going to blame the schedule.''

--Left to his own devices: Second baseman Adam Kennedy hit his first two home runs of the season Friday, just the second time he's hit more than one homer in a game. He had four hits in the game to tie a career high and raised his season average 28 points to .286.

It was his second homer that was perhaps his most significant at-bat. His sixth-inning solo shot off Mike Porzio was the first of his 18 career homers to come off a left-hander.

``(Kennedy) has had problems hitting left-handed pitching,'' said Scioscia, who has spelled Kennedy with Jose Nieves in spots this season against lefties. ``But there's nothing that says Kennedy won't play against left-handers, especially if he hits like he did (Friday) night.''

Kennedy took his big night in stride.

``I don't know (whether I was surprised), but it's not something I set out to do,'' he said.''

--Bench mark: Reserve outfielder Julio Ramirez came off the bench to hit his first major-league home run Friday. That made him the first Angel to hit his first homer in the majors as a pinch hitter since Damian Easley on Sept. 20, 1993.

``Julio showed us something, coming off the bench,'' Scioscia said. ``That's what (the reserve) position calls for. He has power. He has all the tools - power, arm and speed.''

Ramirez's three RBI Friday were also a career-high, and he has five RBI in his last two games.

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ANGELS vs. CHICAGO (see text)