Long, Rough Day for Angels

The game dragged on for 3 hours 52 minutes Sunday, the longest nine-inning game of the season for the Angels, so pitcher Matt Perisho had plenty of time to ponder his rocky performance in a 5-4 loss to the Minnesota Twins before 23,875 in Anaheim Stadium.

“I’ve been sitting here for an hour and a half trying to find something positive about today’s game,” said Perisho, the Angels’ 21-year-old left-hander who gave up four runs on six hits in three innings.

“The good thing is I’m still here, and the sun will rise tomorrow. And I’m looking forward to my next start, because I think I can do some good things.”

Better for Perisho to look ahead, because the scene in the rear-view mirror is getting ugly. Perisho, who averaged three walks per nine innings at double-A Midland before being called up to Anaheim, walked four Sunday and threw three wild pitches.

Two of his offerings were blasted for home runs: a bases-empty shot by Greg Colbrunn in the second inning and a two-run shot by Terry Steinbach in the third. In two starts after replacing the injured Mark Langston, Perisho has given up nine runs on 12 hits and walked eight in eight innings.

But with Langston out for another five to seven weeks after undergoing elbow surgery Tuesday and Mark Gubicza scheduled for a shoulder operation this week that will sideline him until at least August, Manager Terry Collins doesn’t have many other options.

“I think the only guy that we’d consider starting is [reliever Shigetoshi] Hasegawa, but I like our bullpen and I don’t want to mess with it,” Collins said. “We could see if someone else at [triple-A] Vancouver or Midland is pitching well, but Matt is going to go back out there. They said he’s the best we have, so we’re going to give him a good look.”

But how patient can the Angels be after missing a chance to gain a share of first place with Texas in the American League West for the fourth time in eight days?

“I don’t know if you can put a number on it in terms of starts,” Collins said. “We have to send him back out there and see how he does when he settles down. We have to make sure he stays around the strike zone, because he has a good arm.”

Perisho’s line could have been much worse had the Angels not turned three 6-4-3 double plays behind him. And the Angels took him off the hook with a four-run third inning highlighted by Craig Grebeck’s RBI double, Darin Erstad’s RBI single, Gary DiSarcina’s hit-and-run single and Jim Edmonds’ RBI double, which gave the Angels a 4-3 lead against Twin starter Kevin Jarvis.

But that edge began to evaporate when Perisho walked Roberto Kelly and Colbrunn to start the fourth. Collins yanked Perisho for Hasegawa, who gave up a game-tying RBI single to Darrin Jackson but escaped the jam by striking out Pat Meares and Chuck Knoblauch and retiring Denny Hocking on a groundout.

Minnesota took a 5-4 lead on Steinbach’s fifth-inning homer to left-center off Hasegawa, giving the Twin catcher 19 homers and 62 RBIs against the Angels.

The bullpen trio of Pep Harris, Mike Holtz and Mike James did a superb job of blanking Minnesota after the fifth inning, but the Twins’ Greg Swindell, Mike Trombley, Eddie Guardado and Rick Aguilera were up to the task, combining for 6 2/3 scoreless innings to help Minnesota improve to 4-1 against the Angels.

There was more bad news for the Angels when they announced that Gubicza, on the disabled list since April 12, will undergo exploratory arthroscopic surgery on his shoulder.

Even without the operation, Gubicza was not expected to resume throwing until July 1, but if doctors find Gubicza has a frayed labrum--the lip-shaped structure found in the shoulder joint--he’ll be out for another two months, minimum.

“I’m optimistic they’ll just have to clean up the shoulder and I can come back and be ready to go in as short a time as possible,” Gubicza said. “I tried to avoid surgery, but [Angel reliever] Rich DeLucia had the same procedure and was back pitching in eight weeks. Hopefully I can help us win some games in August and September.”