ANGELS SHUT OUT YANKEES FOR THE SWEEP : ANGELS 2 NEW YORK 0.

Byline: Joe Haakenson

The Angels arrived in New York earlier this week for their three-game series against the defending World Series champion Yankees looking like a 98-pound weakling about to confront the neighborhood bully on the playground.

The Angels returned home Thursday night after completing a three-game sweep, including their second consecutive shutout, 2-0, before 26,702 at Yankee Stadium.

It wasn't something anybody could have expected, particularly with the Angels bruised, battered and beaten going into the series. They were coming off a three-game sweep at the hands of the Red Sox and had lost six of seven. They learned Wednesday that Tim Salmon will be lost for five weeks with a wrist injury. And they found themselves facing a team that won 125 games last season.

However, the Angels responded in the first game with a boost from the offense (nine runs), then turned it over to the pitchers. Chuck Finley did the job Wednesday with eight scoreless innings, but Finley routinely beats the Yankees.

Thursday it was Omar Olivares' turn.

Olivares (4-3) pitched 6-2/3 innings, got relief help from Scott Schoeneweis, Shigetoshi Hasegawa and Troy Percival (eighth save) and the Angels got their first three-game sweep of the Yankees at Yankee Stadium since May 18-20, 1984.

Olivares did not strike out a batter and walked six - ``sounds kind of unreal, huh?'' Olivares said - but got big outs when he needed them, the biggest coming in the fifth when he got Paul O'Neill to hit into a 4-6-3 double play with the bases loaded and one out.

The Yankees had not been shut out in 56 consecutive games, including the last 12 games of the 1998 season and 13 postseason games. But the Angels did it twice in a row, throwing 19 consecutive scoreless innings going back to the eighth inning of the first game of the series.

``You don't shut the Yankees out two times in a season, let alone two times in a series,'' Angels manager Terry Collins said. ``We've got to enjoy this. One thing we can get out of this right now is we know if we do the little things and pitch, we can beat anybody. Even if we don't have our best players out there.''

Mo Vaughn's seventh homer of the season off Yankees starter Hideki Irabu (1-1) gave the Angels a 1-0 lead in the sixth, and Andy Sheets drove in the only other run of the game with a sacrifice fly in the seventh.

In the clubhouse after the game, though, there was no celebration. Vaughn made sure of that.

``When you come to Yankee Stadium, a place with tremendous tradition, you've got to rise,'' Vaughn said. ``There are hostile crowds, a hostile environment. But we have do the same thing we did here all the time. We play the Yankees well and everybody else like (junk). That's what's got to stop. I don't understand letdowns.''

The Angels open up a three-game series against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays tonight and Vaughn said he wants to see the same intensity he saw the past three nights in the Bronx.

``This series is something to look back on and remember how things should be,'' Vaughn said. ``We played great here, but how we come out (tonight) is what's important. I'll stress that on the plane ride and in the clubhouse.''

Percival recorded saves in all three games, allowing only one baserunner (hit batsman) and getting six strikeouts in the three games. He set the Yankees down in order in the ninth Thursday even though he was not at full strength.

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Photo

Photo: Angels centerfielder Garret Anderson (sliding) snags a fly ball in N.Y. for the out.

Ron Frehm/Associated Press