K-ROD GETS KO'D BY OAKLAND RODRIGUEZ WILD, BLOWS LEAD IN ANGELS' LOSS OAKLAND 7, ANGELS 6.

Byline: Gabe Lacques Staff Writer

OAKLAND - Francisco Rodriguez, who straddles the line between unhittably nasty and effectively wild, teetered over it Sunday night and ended up with his first loss in a regular-season game.

Rodriguez, the Angels' record-setting rookie reliever, was entrusted with a one-run lead against the Oakland Athletics. But after two walks, two wild pitches, three broken bats, one strategical breakdown and one well-placed bloop into right field, Rodriguez had a loss and the A's had a 7-6 victory that capped off a three-game sweep at Network Associates Coliseum.

Rodriguez, handed a 5-4 lead in the bottom of the seventh, didn't do himself any favors by throwing eight balls in his first nine pitches, resulting in walks to Jermaine Dye and Erubiel Durazo. But as he gradually regained command of his renowned fastball and slider, he nearly worked his way out of the mess.

Ultimately, however, his stuff was almost too nasty, his pitches moving too much.

``A lot of my pitches were right in the middle, and then boom, they move,'' said Rodriguez, who won five postseason games last autumn but lost Game 5 of the World Series when a wild pitch moved the winning run into scoring position. ``I was just trying to keep the ball in the zone, but I couldn't find my rhythm or my release point.''

Rodriguez said he felt this way twice last fall, once during a division series game against the New York Yankees and again against Minnesota in the American League Championship Series. The difference between now and then, he said, was that the Yankees and Twins were swinging at his pitches.

Sunday, the A's were mostly content to let Rodriguez get himself into trouble.

After the two walks, he shattered Terrence Long's bat with a slider and Long could muster only a pop fly to first for the inning's first out. But Rodriguez moved Dye and Durazo into scoring position with a wild pitch, forcing the infield in.

No problem. Oakland's Ramon Hernandez flailed at a full-count slider in the dirt for a strikeout. One problem - the ball broke to the middle and then down instead of to the middle and away. Catcher Bengie Molina again could not smother the ball. It went to the backstop as Dye trotted home with the tying run.

That's when things got weird. Hernandez didn't budge from the plate even though he could take first on the dropped third strike. The trouble for the Angels was that first baseman Scott Spiezio and second baseman Adam Kennedy, per baseball convention, moved toward the mound to back up a possible throw at the plate. That enabled Hernandez to lumber down the line and take first without a throw.

``It's an instinct play where you try to decide what's your best bet,'' Spiezio said. ``It didn't work for us right there.''

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Photo:

The Angels' Scott Spiezio (23) catches a fly ball in front of Adam Kennedy in the third inning of the Angels' 7-6 loss.

Ben Margot/Associated Press