Angels Are Just One Small Step From Worst After Another Loss : Baseball: Anaheim moves within half-game of poorest record in majors after losing to Red Sox, 7-4.

BOSTON — Rock bottom is but one Angel defeat and one Kansas City victory away. With Sunday’s 7-4 loss to the Boston Red Sox before 32,253 in Fenway Park, the Angels (51-78) are a half-game away from the worst record in the major leagues.

“I don’t know how many different ways to think about it,” said Angel pitcher Tim Belcher, who was ripped for seven runs and nine hits in 5 1/3 innings Sunday. “Are we really this bad as a team? Am I this bad as an individual? Or is it just a difference of one or two pitches, a ground ball going at someone instead of through a hole, a fly ball being caught instead of going over someone’s head? I don’t know.”

So many questions. So few answers.

The Angels showed a pulse Sunday, putting together a nice three-run rally in the ninth inning that enabled them to bring the tying run to the plate with two out.

Why can’t they do more of that in the early and middle innings?

Belcher praised the wild card-leading Red Sox for being an aggressive offensive team with players who “swing at a lot of strikes and spoil good pitches [by fouling them off] . . . that’s why they’re where they’re at and we’re where we’re at.”

Why can’t the Angels be more pesky at the plate?

Mo Vaughn, in his 20th and final Fenway Park at-bat this season, rapped a two-run single off the left-field wall in the ninth, an at-bat Manager Terry Collins called “vintage Mo Vaughn.”

Why hasn’t he done more of that this season?

The answers to the first two questions are obvious. The Angels have not had many clutch hits, and they’ve showed almost no killer instinct when it comes to building early leads and putting teams away.

They’ve lacked discipline at the plate, swinging at too many first pitches they are unable to drive, taking too many hitter-friendly fastballs and swinging at far too many breaking balls outside the strike zone.

The answer to the third question is a little more complex. The left-handed-hitting Vaughn made a living off Fenway’s Green Monster for eight years, developing one of baseball’s best opposite-field strokes, but he has not driven the ball consistently to left and left-center field for Anaheim.

Some think it’s the Post-Green Monster Stress Syndrome. Without Fenway’s short-but-immense wall to shoot for, left-handed hitters try to pull the ball more, and their fly balls to left in other parks are outs.

Some cite Fred Lynn’s 1981 trade from Boston to Anaheim as having a similar effect on his career, which declined considerably after Lynn left Fenway.

But Vaughn, who went three for 20 with eight strikeouts in five Fenway games this season, believes the severe left ankle sprain he suffered on opening night and has hampered him all year has more to do with his struggles than a change of address.

“I know I can hit the ball to center field in our park, and I know I can hit them into the bullpen [in left field],” Vaughn said. “I just have to get physically right [to be able to do that].

“I’m a back-side hitter. If I can’t sit on my back side, with my weight on my left leg, then I’m only covering one side of the plate consistently. I haven’t been able to get in a good setup. That’s where my power is from, my back leg. My whole game is played on that side of the field.”

Vaughn played to his strength in the ninth Sunday, following Jim Edmonds’ single--his fourth hit of the game--Todd Greene’s two-out walk, Darin Erstad’s RBI single and Orlando Palmeiro’s pinch-hit single with a liner off the left-field wall, which scored two runs to pull the Angels to within 7-4.

After Vaughn’s hit, Boston Manager Jimy Williams summoned closer Derek Lowe.

Lowe preserved the Red Sox’s three-game sweep by striking out Tim Salmon, as Boston took a one-game lead over Oakland in the wild-card race and the Angels moved closer to a 100-loss season.

“When you’re having a . . . year,” Belcher said, “you shouldn’t expect any breaks.”