Gonzalez Gets Best of Angels : Baseball: He hits a two-run homer to tie the score in the eighth inning, then another in the 10th to give the Rangers a 6-4 victory.

ARLINGTON, Tex. — The Angels looked at one another in disbelief Friday night after their 6-4, 10-inning defeat to the Texas Rangers, acting confused, almost as if they had to reassure one another this really happened.

It wasn’t so much that they lost a game. Considering that Bryan Harvey is in Florida these days, the Angel bullpen is expected to blow its share of late-inning leads, as it did this time.

What left them shaking their heads, however, were the heroics of 23-year-old Juan Gonzalez.

They have alwayS been cognizant of his power, watching him hit five of his league-leading 43 homers off their pitching staff last season, but they are not sure they have seen anything like this.

“I still can’t believe it,” Angel catcher Greg Myers said, while staring into his locker. “The ball was going to bounce. I got down to my knees because it was going to bounce to me. I’m sure of it.

“For someone to hit that ball, let alone how far he hit it . . . my God.”

Gonzalez, swinging at a 1-and-2 curveball by Chuck Crim that appeared to be no more than a couple of inches off the ground, hit the two-out pitch off the left-field wall into the seats for the two-run game-winning homer at Arlington Stadium.

“I hit it off the end of the bat,” Gonzalez said. “It never passed my mind that it would go out. I thought maybe it would go to the wall, but that’s it.”

Instead, left fielder Stan Javier kept drifting back, leaping at the last second, and appeared stunned that it went over his head. He had no idea where the ball landed until he went back into the clubhoUse to see the videotape.

“I really was not worried about him taking me deep there,” Crim said. “I mean, I was making sure to throw a pitch that he couldn’t drive. I was just worried about hit hitting a ball through the hole.

“But he got it. I don’t know how he got it, but he got it.

“It was almost like it didn’t dawn on me that it went out until I heard the public address announcer say it was Gonzalez’s 11th multiple-homer game.”

Gonzalez, who made reliever Joe Grahe’s life miserable in the eighth inning when he tied the score with a two-run homer into the right-field seats, set the all-time Ranger record for multiple-homer games.

“You’re going to be hearing from him for a long, long time,” Ranger Manager Kevin Kennedy said. “He’s a threat to win a ballgame every time he goes up there.”

Gonzalez, who sat out nearly a week because of a tight hamstring, has 14 homers this season, equaling Albert Belle of Cleveland for the league lead. He has hit seven homers in his last 29 at-bats, and has 52 homers in his last 145 games.

“In this ballpark, and with this lineup,” Angel Manager Buck Rodgers said, “you can never score enough runs. I think that became quite clear tonight.”

The Angels kept telling themselves afterward that they should have blown open the game long before Gonzalez’s heroics. Five of the first six batters reached base off Ranger starter Kenny Rodgers.

Rogers, who has a 25.41 earned-run average in his last three starts, was pulled after giving up two runs and leaving the bases loaded. The Angels failed to make it much worse when reliever Brian Bohanon struck out Damion Easley and induced a ground ball from Gary DiSarcina.

Still, with starter John Farrell yielding only four hits and two runs in 6 2/3 innings, the Angels took a 4-2 lead in the eighth inning. When reliever Scott Lewis gave up a one-out single to Jose Canseco, Rodgers summoned Grahe, his bullpen stopper.

It took one pitch for Gonzalez to send Grahe’s outside fastball into the right-field seats, tying the score and leaving Rodgers screaming. Two innings later, Gonzalez ended the game with David Hulse standing on third base, after his leadoff bunt single.

“It hurts because this would have been a big one for us to win,” said Grahe, who blew his first save of the season. “But one man beat us, one man.

“And he’s a strong, strong man.”