CLEVELAND — The Indians honored the franchise’s last world championship team in 1948 Saturday by wearing throwback uniforms from that memorable season. But the guys in the Cleveland gear still played like a last-place team.
Stumbling in the field and at the plate, the Indians dropped a 4-3 decision to the Angels in front of 33,501 fans at Progressive Field, which included former manager Mike Hargrove and other members of the club’s Hall of Fame.
In addition to the fans and dignitaries on hand, the Indians’ ineptitude — four errors, two wild pitches, a hit batter and pitiful situational hitting — was also on display for a national television audience on Fox.
“It was ugly early on,” said manager Eric Wedge, whose team committed three of its errors within the first three innings, helping the Angels to all of their runs. “I don’t think you can play any worse than we did those first couple innings. That was the difference in the game.”
The shoddy defense and untimely hitting — 13 left on base — helped make a loser of starting pitcher Fausto Carmona, who worked his best outing since leaving the disabled list on July 26.
Carmona, who has struggled with command since being activated, walked three but allowed just two earned runs on six hits over seven innings.
“Fausto threw the ball better,” Wedge said. “He had to work, but it was a good seven innings.”
“I was under control on the mound and staying back and getting ahead of hitters,” said Carmona through interpreter and first base coach Luis Rivera. “I wasn’t trying to make the ball move. I was just throwing it and it was moving by itself.”
An error on shortstop Jhonny Peralta opened the door for the Angels’ first run in the opening inning, but Carmona was really done in by his defense in the third, when both third baseman Andy Marte and Shin-Soo Choo committed errors that helped Los Angeles to three runs and a 4-1 advantage. Carmona even got in on the action, booting a grounder back to the mound to lead off the fifth.
It was an uncharacteristic sight from the Indians, who entered the game with the highest fielding percentage in the American League (.987) and the fewest errors (60).
“That’s part of the game,” Carmona said. “There’s going to be days when they catch the ball and days when that happens.”
It was all or nothing at the plate for the Indians, who generated their entire run count via homers — a solo shot from David Dellucci in the opening inning and a two-run blast from Ryan Garko that closed the gap to a run in the fourth.
Most often, it was nothing.
With John Lackey departed after allowing three runs on six hits through six innings and on record for his sixth win against just a single loss on the road, the Indians loaded the bases off reliever Darren Oliver with no outs in the seventh.
Needing just a run to tie the game, Cleveland instead got nothing and didn’t like it after Kelly Shoppach struck out for the third time, Garko lined to short and pinch hitter Jamey Carroll grounded back to the pitcher.
Garko’s liner appeared earmarked for an RBI single but Angels shortstop Erick Aybar tracked it down on a nice play with his back to the infield.
“You’ve got to at least get one across (the plate) there,” Wedge said. “A lot of that’s inexperience. You’ve got guys who aren’t particularly comfortable in that situation.
“As bad as we played early, we still had some opportunities. We just weren’t able to do anything with them.”
Cleveland’s final chance arrived in the ninth inning, with Peralta producing a leadoff single against the majors’ best closer, Francisco Rodriguez.
Rodriguez struck out Choo and got Shoppach to ground meekly to second before setting his sights on Garko for the final out.
With Garko up 2-1 in the count, he sent a drive down the left-field line that would have scored pinch runner Franklin Gutierrez with the tying run, but instead landed inches foul.
Garko took a ball before swinging through a low changeup to end the game and give Rodriguez his 47th save, which equaled his single-season franchise record.
“It was close,” said Garko of his near extra-base hit. That’s the way it goes sometimes. It was the same thing (in the seventh). I thought it had a chance to fall, just a couple of inches here or there. That’s baseball.”
Contact Chris Assenheimer at 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com. 

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