Angels blow another one

• Last Updated: October 18. 2009 8:58PM UAE / October 18. 2009 4:58PM GMT

NEW YORK // The Angels could hardly wait to leave cold, wet and windy New York and fly back to Los Angeles, where they hope to regain a sunnier disposition with a fightback against the Yankees in the American League Championship Series.

Sloppy play and sub-par hitting combined to leave the Angels in a 2-0 hole in the best-of-seven series that rewards the winner with a berth in the World Series.

“We’re going back home. The momentum in this series can swing in a heartbeat,” the Los Angeles manager, Mike Scioscia, said after the Saturday night-Sunday morning 4-3 loss in 13 innings that ended on a wild throw by the second baseman Maicer Izturis.

“We’re going to go out there and come out and play a good ballgame and grind it out pitch-by-pitch and start all over.”

The players echoed their manager’s sentiments.

“We messed it up both games,” the Angels’ shortstop Erick Aybar said. “But we can come back. It will be nice to be out there [Los Angeles] in baseball weather.”

The Angels had lost Friday’s opener 4-1, making three errors and struggling at the plate against CC Sabathia.

Los Angeles gave themselves loads of chances in Game 2 but failed to take advantage, stranding 16 men on base.

After the rain came and went on another chilly night, the game ended at 1:07 in the morning when Izturis threw away Melky Cabrera’s grounder to second.

The pinch-hitter Jerry Hairston Jr, in his first post-season at-bat, had opened the 13th with a single off Ervin Santana. Brett Gardner sacrificed and Robinson Cano was intentionally walked as the crowd chanted “Melky! Melky!”

Cabrera hit a bouncer in the hole between first and second, and Izturis curiously tried to throw back across his body to get the force at second. The low throw skipped past Aybar and rolled behind third, where Chone Figgins tried to pick it up. Figgins fumbled the ball and Hairston, who had slowed up, sped home and slid in with the winning run, ending a game that lasted five hours and 10 minutes.

Game 3 is tonight in balmy Los Angeles.

* Reuters