Angels Offense Grinds to a Halt

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) _ The Anaheim Angels' offense had nowhere to go but down. <br><br>For one game, it hit bottom. <br><br>Joe Mays allowed four singles in eight innings, and Eddie Guardado pitched a

Wednesday, October 9th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) _ The Anaheim Angels' offense had nowhere to go but down.

For one game, it hit bottom.

Joe Mays allowed four singles in eight innings, and Eddie Guardado pitched a hitless ninth Tuesday night as the Minnesota Twins beat the Angels 2-1 to open the AL championship series.

``No team hits .370 the whole season,'' said Troy Glaus, who took a called third strike from Guardado to end the game. ``That's baseball.

``You're going to have games where the pitcher gets you out of your rhythm. That's going to happen.''

The Angels pummeled the New York Yankees for a postseason-record .376 batting average in eliminating the four-time AL champions in the division series last week.

Against Mays and Guardado, they had a total of six base runners _ the four singles, one walk and an error that allowed their only run to score.

After hitting shot after shot against the Yankees, the Angels only hit a few balls hard against the Twins.

Of course, it's only one game.

``When you're not getting any leadoff guys on in an inning, that makes it tough,'' Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. ``That's one of the best games we've had pitched against us all year.

``It's a long series. We'll turn the page and come out tomorrow and we're going to have to do a little more on the offensive side to pressure these guys.''

The Angels averaged 14 hits and nearly eight runs against the likes of Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Mike Mussina and David Wells in eliminating the Yankees.

They managed three hits and an unearned run in the first three innings against Mays, but had only two base runners after that.

``We're disappointed in ourselves, but you've got to give credit to Joe Mays,'' David Eckstein said. ``He threw a dominant game.''

When asked how he could classify the performance dominating since Mays had only three strikeouts, Eckstein replied: ``By his control. He did that against us last year. When you have control, you can do that.''