A Dog Day Afternoon for Angels : Baseball: With the temperature rising and injuries mounting, play gets sloppy in 5-2 loss to the Rangers.

This was inevitable, the Angels say. You spend 2 1/2 weeks looking like the Big Red Machine, and then you hit a stretch where you look like a 1976 Pinto.

The flip side continued Sunday for the Angels, who lost to the Texas Rangers, 5-2, before a paid crowd of 23,342 in Anaheim Stadium.

It was the Angels’ third loss in their last four games--two of the past three to the second-place Rangers--but there were no signs of panic in the clubhouse. The Angels, remember, have a 10-game lead in the American League West.

Still, an unsettling feeling seemed to permeate the room. There was all-star shortstop Gary DiSarcina, the team’s best defensive player and a .317 hitter, his left thumb in a splint as he prepared for Tuesday’s surgery that probably will end his season.

There was third baseman Tony Phillips, his sore right hamstring wrapped and iced and due for a cortisone shot today, telling reporters that some of the Angels “are going through a little dead period.”

There was center fielder Jim Edmonds, already bothered by a sore foot, recalling his first-inning crash into the fence in pursuit of Will Clark’s RBI double. What part of your body hit the wall? “Everything,” Edmonds said.

There was Manager Marcel Lachemann, expressing more displeasure with the manner in which the Angels are losing--fundamental breakdowns, mental lapses and errors (seven by the left side of the infield in the last three games)--than the actual losses.

And there was General Manager Bill Bavasi and assistant GM Tim Mead, buzzing around the clubhouse, ducking into Lachemann’s office and making a roster move they hope will bring some relief to this team, calling outfielder Orlando Palmeiro up from triple-A Vancouver and sending reliever Mark Holzemer down.

Watch enough of this, and you get the sense this team is clinging to a double-digit lead.

“Like I said before, this game has cycles, and you’re not going to play every day like we have for the last three weeks,” Lachemann said. “We’re going to get hot again. We’re not going to be held to two, three or four runs every night. We just have to play hard, execute and things will take care of themselves.”

The mind may be willing, but are the bodies able? It’s a shorter season, but August is here, the nagging injuries are mounting, temperatures are rising, and the schedule is grueling. The Angels are in a stretch in which they play 27 games in 27 days.

“Guys are coming up tired, guys on other teams are tired. These are the dog days and this is what happens,” Phillips said. “When you’re tired mentally and physically, you get sloppy, but that’s when you have to kick yourself in the butt. Because if you stay in this funk, you’re gonna be in trouble.”

An Angel offense that has averaged 7.7 runs a game since the all-star break looked sluggish against Texas right-hander Roger Pavlik, the same pitcher the Angels rocked for eight runs in the first inning of a 20-4 victory June 29.

Pavlik, changing speeds, mixing pitches and hitting spots, gave up seven hits in 7 2/3 innings--only two infield singles in the first five innings--and struck out six to improve to 6-6.

The Angels committed two errors: one by pitcher Brian Anderson that led to an unearned run in the first inning, and one by shortstop Rod Correia that didn’t cost any runs in the second inning but served as another reminder of a defense without DiSarcina.

Anderson did not pitch poorly--he went 7 1/3 innings, giving up five runs on eight hits--but his error aided a two-run first, and he hit Jeff Frye on an 0-and-2 pitch to start the seventh. Frye eventually scored on Otis Nixon’s double, and Nixon scored on Lou Frazier’s infield single for a 4-0 lead.

The Angels stirred in the eighth inning when J.T. Snow singled and scored on Spike Owen’s pinch-hit double. Chili Davis’ RBI single made it 5-2 in the ninth, and the Angels loaded the bases with two outs, but Ed Vosberg struck out Garret Anderson to end the game.