Michael Ventre

ANAHEIM, Calif. - Maybe I spoke too soon.

Maybe when umpire Doug Eddings laid an egg the other night in Chicago on the now infamous non-dropped ball non-call, that gave the Angels permission to lay several.

Maybe this hangover isn’t going away.

Maybe they should sell their rally monkey for medical experiments.

On Friday night at Angel Stadium, the Chicago White Sox played like a team that got over on the system and likes it. They jumped out to an early lead on the catatonic Angels and then breezed, 5-2, behind the baffling arm of Jon Garland to win Game 3 of the American League Championship Series.

Now, instead of the Angels in command after taking two in Chicago, it’s the White Sox who are rolling over their traumatized opponents. Chicago is ahead, 2-1, in the best-of-seven affair, and that call Wednesday night looks a lot bigger.

It’s impossible to get inside the Angels’ heads and poke around to see if demons lurk from A.J. Pierzynski’s hijinks. But that one play is as good an explanation as any for why a scrappy, veteran team like the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim looked so lethargic. Maybe they’re just tired of saying that long name to people.

“When you’re not swinging the bats well you look flat,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said afterward. “Our club was ready to go. We had a lot of energy.”

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Maybe he meant the Anaheim Angels, because the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim sure didn’t.

Obviously some of the blame goes to Angels’ starter John Lackey, who put his mates in a 3-0 hole after the first inning. “He wasn’t awful, “Scioscia said, “but he wasn’t as crisp as he has been and he wasn’t as crisp as he was against the Yankees.”

But the Angels’ bats, which have whipped up and then subsided all season like Santa Ana winds, were no-shows again, just like in Game 2 when they mustered one puny run before backup catcher Josh Paul’s flip to the mound and Joe Crede’s liner to left.

On this night, Garland came off a long stretch of rest to smoke the Angels. Said Chicago manager Ozzie Guillen: “This is the best I’ve seen him all year long.”

Scioscia concurred. “That’s one of the top games pitched against us all year.”

Garland gave up a two-run dinger to shortstop Orlando Cabrera in the sixth, but otherwise he was untouchable. Every time the rally monkey started jumping up and down, Garland sat him down again.

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“Going out and giving me some quick early runs took the pressure off me a little bit,” Garland said of his teammates, especially Paul Konerko, who belted a two-run homer in the first.

The Angels did get a lot of dramatic hits Friday night. They were the ones shown on the jumbo video screen to fans, highlight clips from the season designed to get everybody in the park fired up between innings. Vladimir Guerrero hit some doozies over the fence. So did Garrett Anderson and Bengie Molina and Darin Erstad.

Unfortunately those same sluggers were a combined 2-for-13 in Game 3 as Garland mowed down the Angels’ lineup on his way to a four-hit complete game.

This is not the same Angels team that fought off the Oakland Athletics’ charge in September. This is not the club that refused to lose in 2002.