Snow, Others Make Remarkable Plays

Manager Marcel Lachemann called Ryan Hancock’s 13th-inning double play “a monster play,” but it wasn’t the Angels’ only defensive highlight in Sunday’s 8-6 victory over Cleveland.

The Angels, who have slipped from first to ninth in American League fielding percentage, turned four other double plays, one with the bases loaded in the third inning, and first baseman J.T. Snow made two clutch plays.

Shortstop Damion Easley started three of the double plays and second baseman Randy Velarde started the other, as the Angels snuffed several Cleveland uprisings.

Snow saved a run in the sixth when, with two out and runners on second and third, he fielded Kenny Lofton’s grounder and barely beat one of baseball’s fastest players to first, sliding feet-first into the bag while Lofton went in head-first.

“I’ve never seen that play before,” Snow said. “I’ve never slid into first to get a guy out.”

Snow, a Gold Glove first baseman, then made a more conventional play--for him--to start the seventh, diving to back-hand Julio Franco’s grounder, adjusting in the air to a bad hop and throwing to reliever Mike James for the out.

“That was us last year, but we’ve been inconsistent defensively this year,” Lachemann said. “When you make the plays, it makes a difference.”

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Lachemann on Troy Percival’s 10th-inning strikeout, in which the reliever became the first Angel pitcher to bat since Mark Langston on June 10, 1992: “That’s why, a long time ago, we converted him from a catcher to a pitcher.”

Percival hoped to get a few swings in, but when Tim Salmon singled in front of him, he was asked to bunt against hard-throwing right-hander Eric Plunk. He got his bat on one pitch but missed two others, heading back to the dugout with a greater appreciation for hitting.

“It was a little different having a 95-mph fastball come at you,” Percival said. “The scary part was he threw two pitches on the outside corner and I thought they were going to hit me in the face.”

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Reliever Mark Holzemer, who left the game in the 11th because of a strained muscle under his arm, will undergo an MRI today and probably will have to go on the disabled list. Third baseman Tim Wallach left the game in the fifth because of an injured left index finger. Two other starters, designated hitter Chili Davis and shortstop Gary DiSarcina, are already sidelined because of hamstring injuries. “We’re like a M*A*S*H unit,” Holzemer said. . . . James allowed only one hit and struck out two in two innings of scoreless relief, lowering his earned-run average to 1.67. . . . Hancock was the first Angel pitcher to score a run since Clyde Wright on Sept. 27, 1972. . . . Consecutive hits by Wallach, Garret Anderson and Snow in the second Sunday snapped a 30-inning streak in which the Angels failed to produce consecutive hits. . . . Snow hit home runs from both sides of the plate in the same game for the first time in his career. . . . Anderson, who homered in the fourth and had a two-run double in the fifth, hadn’t knocked in a run since May 31, and the RBIs were his first on the road since May 14.