VENGEANCE IS ALL ANGELS' PITCH BEHIND GUERRERO SPARKS LACKEY IN VICTORY OVER ATHLETICS ANGELS 4, OAKLAND 3.

Byline: DOUG PADILLA

Staff Writer

OAKLAND -- If this is the way the Oakland Athletics go about getting revenge, they might want to rethink their tactics.

Whether or not the A's tried to hit Vladimir Guerrero with a first-inning pitch, it did have one lingering effect: It prompted Angels starter John Lackey to dig even deeper, and the right-hander used his new-found inspiration to craft a 4-3 victory.

Not much went right for the A's on Sunday. Not only did they lose the game, they never even got their revenge, as Dan Haren's first-inning pitch went behind Guerrero.

The Angels were convinced the A's were after some eye-for-an-eye justice, since Kurt Suzuki was hit in the hand by a Scot Shields pitch Friday.

"If they think we hit a rookie catcher and they're going to throw at one of the best players on the planet, that doesn't go unnoticed," Lackey said. "That's just dumb. It was a 1-and-2 count that (Suzuki) got hit on (Friday). We're here to win, we're not here to mess around with stuff like that."

Angels manager Mike Scioscia was curious to find out what type of message the A's were trying to send.

"Well, you'd like to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, but that one was behind (Guerrero)," Scioscia said. "I don't know where that came from."

Aside from Suzuki's sore hand, Haren could have also been thinking about July 24, when A's shortstop Bobby Crosby suffered a broken wrist when he was hit by a Justin Speier pitch.

For Lackey, none of it justified throwing at Guerrero.

"It doesn't surprise me from them, no. That's all I'm going to say," said Lackey, who was involved in an on-field brawl with former Oakland catcher Jason Kendall last season. "I don't see how a 1-2 pitch to a rookie catcher correlates to you throwing at an MVP of a team in a (pennant) race."

The A's weren't the only ones Lackey questioned. He also wondered about home-plate umpire C.B. Bucknor, who issued warnings to both benches once Guerrero was nearly hit.

"I mean, come on," Lackey said. "If you're going to give a warning, throw the guy out. If you think (Haren) threw at him, throw him out. That's the rule. Or at least don't give the warning and let me get my shot."

The A's pleaded innocent.

"It just got away form me," Haren said. "If I'm going to miss, it's going to be in. I was all over the place that first inning."

Lackey (14-6) would have to be satisfied with the victory.

A two-out RBI single by Garret Anderson in the fifth inning gave the Angels a 2-1 lead but the A's came right back. In the sixth, Dan Johnson reached out on a Lackey fastball that was low and away and hit it out for a two-run home run and a 3-2 A's lead.

But the Angels rallied in the seventh. Chone Figgins led off with a single and Orlando Cabrera followed with a hit-and-run double. After an intentional walk to Guerrero, his thrid walk of the game, Anderson drive home his second run on a sacrifice fly to tie the score.

Casey Kotchman put the Angels in the lead for good with a two-out RBI single up the middle.

Justin Speier replaced Lackey during the seventh inning, Scot Shields pitched a scoreless eighth and Francisco Rodriguez walked two batters in the ninth before closing things out for his 27th save.

"They're a good team, I don't care what their record says," Shields said of the Athletics. "They are a feisty ballclub. It's our goal to win the series every time but to come out of there with a split, we feel good about it.

"We just have to keep on playing well. We have a couple of good teams coming in this week. We have to keep rolling."

First up, starting today, is the Boston Red Sox for a three-game homestand. The last time the two teams met, the Angels were in the midst of a disastrous 1-7 April road trip.

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Angels (Weaver, 7-5, 4.00) vs. Boston (Schilling, 6-4, 4.20) 7 p.m., Angel Stadium.

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