EDMONDS SAVES HIS PAIN FOR OPPONENTS.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Loosening up physically and mentally before the Angels' pennant-drive game with the Seattle Mariners Saturday night, Jim Edmonds pointed up at the inflated ``No. 26'' jersey on top of the concession stands beyond left field and asked teammate Pep Harris, ``Think I can throw a ball off that thing?''

They were standing in center field during batting practice, staring at this weird monument 200 feet away, some sort of tribute to Angels founder and 26th man Gene Autry. ``You probably can't,'' Harris said. ``No, you probably can.''

It took a couple of tries, but he did it. ``Hit Gene Autry right on the arm,'' Harris laughed later.

Jim Edmonds isn't bound by the usual constraints, physical and mental.

He'll bounce off outfield walls, bury himself in the turf in pursuit of fly balls. He'll throw a ball to the rim of the stadium on a dare.

And in a September when Angels all around him are slumping, turning a four-game lead over the Texas Rangers on Aug. 26 into a two-game deficit Saturday, Edmonds refuses to be dragged down with them.

Night after night, the center fielder rises above this ballpark-wide funk. One man can't carry a team, but if anybody were doing it right now it would be him.

``In the last week,'' manager Terry Collins was saying in the dugout, ``without him, we might have been shut out three or four times.''

The night before, the Angels lost to Seattle 5-3, and Edmonds scored or drove in all three runs, hitting his 24th homer of the season. The night before that, the Angels lost in Texas 7-6, and Edmonds drove in half their runs, hitting his 23rd homer.

His weekly averages, starting with the last week of August, go .391, .368, .381 and .421. The rest of the Angels are batting .216 this week, and the pitching, forget about it.

We'll bore you with more numbers only because Edmonds cares about them so much. He told writers recently exactly how many of his fly balls at Edison Field would have been home runs but for the 10-feet-higher wall in right field: seven.

He has already set a career high for hits (175) and the big reason is that he has set a career low for days spent on the disabled list (0).

It's the first time he has avoided a major injury in a 162-game major-league season.

``He's the one guy we've been lucky with,'' said Collins, who began the night without Darin Erstad and Dave Hollins, with Tim Salmon limping and with speculation swirling about the arm of closer Troy Percival.

The Colorado Rockies' Larry Walker told Edmonds once, ``If you want to have a big year, you've gotta stop running into walls and diving for balls.''

Which had been Edmonds' stock in trade. The only way he could have topped some of his ESPN moments last season would have been to actually knock down a wall.

Edmonds tried to save himself - and the walls of the American League - a little wear and tear this season.

``There's been a couple of times where I probably could have caught a ball but I slowed up so I wouldn't hit the wall,'' he admits.

Still, between his own aggressive instincts and the new concrete backing on the Edison Field wall, he managed to hurt his ribs, just not enough to go on the DL.

It's up to Collins to tick off the list of minor injuries Edmonds has played through just to get to September: ribs, back, arm, wrist.

Now he's having the September of his life. And wondering if he'll get his first shot at October. He won't if other Angels don't follow his lead.

``I don't like our position (in the AL West race) as well as I did a week ago,'' Edmonds said. ``But we have to deal with it. And we're running out of time.''

Why do some guys slump in July, as Edmonds did, and others in September? He doesn't try to figure it out, afraid of jinxing himself, he says.

He knows one thing that helped him stay strong all the way to September: hitting the weights a little more, hitting the wall a little less.

Through the years, a player learns what works for him, said Edmonds, 28.

As we talk in the clubhouse, Edmonds sits and rubs his left elbow, the one that nailed the inflatable Gene Autry a few minutes earlier. He's in a little pain, just not enough to keep him out of the lineup.

Another lesson?

``I'm also learning,'' he said, ``not to throw the ball out of the ballpark.''