Angels’ Streak Ends at Four : Baseball: Fleming, Mariner rookie left-hander, improves to 12-4 with 8-1 victory. Langston gives up 12 hits, seven runs.

ANAHEIM —  They have lost to many left-handers this season, but there was little indignity to the Angels’ 8-1 loss to Dave Fleming and the Mariners Tuesday before 19,509 at Anaheim Stadium.

Fleming (12-4) limited the Angels to eight singles over eight innings in ending the Angels’ four-game winning streak and fortifying his credentials for rookie of the year. The 22-year-old New Yorker leads all major league rookies in victories and has 30% of his team’s. After giving up a run during the first inning, he settled into a steady rhythm and not another Mariner got past first.

The Angels, who are 5-19 against left-handed starters, saw starter Mark Langston (9-9) struggle through 5 2/3 innings. Langston, who won a 2-1 decision over the Mariners on June 27 at Seattle, wasn’t nearly as effective Tuesday. He gave up 12 hits, one short of his single-game high he set at Cleveland over eight innings on Oct. 4, 1986, while with the Mariners, and lost for the fourth time in his last five starts. The Mariners got 18 hits against Langston, Mike Butcher and Scott Bailes.

Kevin Mitchell sparked a four-run Seattle rally during the third inning with an RBI double and Lance Parrish had three singles and an RBI. Jay Buhner homered during the ninth against Bailes, and Henry Cotto had three singles, two steals and scored three times for the Mariners, whose 40-62 record is the worst in the major leagues.

Fleming, a third-round pick by the Mariners in the 1990 draft, has given up two earned runs or fewer in 11 of his last 16 starts. His earned-run average is 3.09, well below the Mariners’ team ERA of 4.76.

Although the Angels gave Langston an early lead, he was unable to hold it. He staved off trouble in the first and second innings but couldn’t hold off the Mariners in the third, when they scored four times to take a 4-1 lead.

First, though, Luis Polonia continued his hot hitting by leading off the first inning with a single to center. Luis Sojo followed with a bunt up the third base line that the Mariners let roll, hoping it would skip into foul territory, but it stayed fair and gave the Angels runners on first and second.

Junior Felix hit a comebacker to Fleming, who threw to second to get Sojo. Polonia went to third on the play and scored when Gary Gaetti rapped Fleming’s first pitch to him into left field.

A double play in the second inning helped Langston out of a jam, but the Mariners put together five hits and a walk in the third to score four times. They might have had an even bigger inning except for an unusual double play, in which two runners were thrown out trying to advance after Dave Valle’s RBI single to right.

Cotto started the inning with a single to right, and he took second when Edgar Martinez beat out a high chopper to second. Both runners moved up on Ken Griffey Jr.’s bouncer to short, and Cotto scored when Langston’s 1-and- 2 pitch to Mitchell bounced in front of the plate and past Angel catcher Mike Fitzgerald. Martinez took third on the wild pitch and jogged home when Mitchell lined a double to center.

Langston walked Jay Buhner and then gave up a single to Parrish, which scored Mitchell and put Buhner on second. Buhner scored when Valle singled to right, but Parrish was thrown out at third and Valle was nabbed trying to take second.

Polonia led off the bottom of the inning with a single to center, but the Angels’ comeback hopes were quashed when he was caught stealing. That ended a team streak of six successful steals.

A two-out run in the fourth enabled the Mariners to increase their lead to 5-1. Cotto grounded a single to right, stole second and third unchallenged and scored when Martinez singled to right.