Angels Feast on Moose

All things considered, New York Yankee starter Mike Mussina probably felt pretty lucky that he left Angel Stadium intact last night, instead of the Angels mounting his carcass on their clubhouse wall. Anaheim bombarded “Moose”for seven runs and seven hits in just 1.2 innings—the shortest outing of Mussina’s distinguished 16-year career—as the [Angels embarrassed the Yankees 18-9].

Alex Rodriguez launched his 41st and 42nd home runs of the season, but it wasn’t nearly enough to compete with the Angels’ assault on Yankee pitching. Mussina, Ron Villone and much-hyped rookie Edwar Ramirez combined to surrender 12 runs in the first three innings, and one night after [allowing a walk-off hit], New York reliever Sean Henn allowed five of his own. The loss dropped the Pinstripers [six games behind](http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/standings) the first-place Red Sox in the Al East and two-and-one-half games behind Seattle in the Wild Card race.

In his last two outings, Mussina has allowed 13 runs in less than seven innings of work. The former Stanford graduate better figure out what’s wrong soon or his ERA will soon exceed his IQ.