ANGELS NOTEBOOK: ORTIZ SOLID FOR FOURTH WIN THANKS TO FABREGAS.

Byline: Gordon Verrell Staff Writer

ANAHEIM - Ramon Ortiz won Sunday for just the second time in nearly two months, covering nine starts. According to Angels manager Mike Scioscia, a good deal of the credit goes to catcher Jorge Fabregas.

``Ramon was fine today,'' Scioscia said, ``and Jorge did a great job getting him back on track when he started to waver.''

Which wasn't hard to do, said Fabregas.

``He has amazing stuff,'' Fabregas said of Ortiz, who improved to 4-4 with his 7-2 win over the Kansas City Royals. ``But he needs to keep it down. When he keeps his pitches down he's almost unhittable.''

Ortiz pitched 7 2/3 innings, the longest he's gone this season. The only slip was the 1-1 pitch he threw to the Royals' A.J. Hinch in the third inning, which Hinch belted for his third home run.

``Ramon's got to pitch inside,'' Scioscia said, ``and the home run was on an inside pitch. But it didn't scare him off. It's all part of the growing pains. Don't forget, Ramon's had only 30-some (37) big-league starts.''

--Top draft forecast: Donny Rowland, the Angels' director of scouting, said Sunday he and his staff are ready to go - finally - in Tuesday's major-league amateur draft, adding, ``I think we can do very well in this draft.''

The Angels have five selections among the first 89 players - Nos. 13 and 33 in the first round, No. 57 in the second and Nos. 81 and 89 in the third.

``From Jan. 15 until now, we've been going nonstop, and this (draft day) is the fruition of all that work,'' said Rowland, who will be the Angels' point man in the selection process for the second year in a row after serving five years in the New York Yankees' scouting department and, before that, 10 years in the Detroit Tigers' organization as a player, minor-league instructor and scout.

His first season in Anaheim went well. Rowland oversaw the Angels' selections of two of the top pitchers in the 2000 draft, Joe Torres and Chris Bootcheck, and two of the top 26 position players, catcher Jared Abruzzo and shortstop Tommy Murphy.

Rowland said the focus this year will be on ``high-return players. ... There's no reason to go for anything else. If we miss, we're going to miss going for the gold.''

The Angels' game plan, Rowland said, will be to go for the best player available, no matter the position, and he has four ``high-end group'' players in mind. He declined to say who they are, other than two are pitchers and two are position players, explaining he doesn't want to tip the club's plans to other organizations.

It is believed two of the four are Colt Griffin, a high school pitcher in Kilgore, Texas, who reportedly has registered 100 mph on the radar gun, and Casey Kotchman, son of longtime Angels minor-league manager Tom Kotchman.

Rowland said the Angels have interest in Long Beach State shortstop Bobby Crosby, but he declined to say whether Crosby was among his ``high-end group'' of four.

--Streak stretched: Shortstop Rey Sanchez singled to left in his final at-bat to extend his hitting streak to 21 games, the longest current hitting streak in the majors and the sixth-longest in Royals history. Hall of Famer George Brett has the longest hit streak by a Royal, 30 games.