Erstad Throws Lead Block

ATLANTA —  Darin Erstad rounded third base at full speed and was closing in on home plate when his instincts took over.

Baseball instincts, he insisted. Not football instincts.

With the ball arriving at home plate a step ahead of him, Erstad lowered his shoulder into Johnny Estrada’s facemask and leveled the Atlanta catcher, who had waited with his left foot in the basepath and his right foot in front of the plate. The ball popped out after the violent collision that left Estrada prone in the dirt. Erstad scrambled to touch home, and his run turned out to be the go-ahead one for the Angels as they rallied to beat the Braves, 4-2, Monday night at Turner Field.

The eighth-inning play drew rounds of jeers from the announced crowd of 23,104 and even more hisses from the Atlanta dugout.

Estrada was taken to nearby Piedmont Hospital for observation.

Erstad, who came away from the collision with a nasty gash across his swollen upper left arm, was apologetic.

“I’ll be OK; I just hope he’s OK,” Erstad said.

“You reach the point of no return when you feel like you’re a dead duck and you need to make a play. I just hope he’s OK. Never in a million years would I intentionally try to hurt someone. I was just trying to win a baseball game.”

The Braves took issue with Erstad’s hitting Estrada above the neck, especially outfielder Brian Jordan, who barked from the top steps of the dugout despite his having won home-plate collisions in 2002 (with an Arizona pitcher) and in 2003 (with a San Diego catcher) while with the Dodgers. Atlanta catcher Eddie Perez, who is on the disabled list, also took exception, but yelled that Erstad should have slid.

Angel Manager Mike Scioscia, a catcher for all of his 13-year career, felt Estrada’s pain.

“It’s baseball; it’s a tough play,” Scioscia said. “Ersty’s trying to score, and Johnny’s trying to block the plate.

“I never got upset when anyone hit me at home plate.”

Said Atlanta’s 46-year-old Julio Franco, when asked if it was a clean play: “It all depends on what you think clean is. I thought he could have slid outside, but I’ve played against Erstad, and that’s his mentality. He plays the game like a football player.”

The play overshadowed a pitchers’ duel between starters John Lackey and John Smoltz.

Lackey, who surrendered two runs and seven hits in six innings for the Angels, did not figure in the decision, his lone mistake a “bad changeup” to Adam LaRoche that LaRoche hit for a two-run homer in the fourth.

Smoltz (4-5) took the loss after giving up four runs and 13 hits in 8 1/3 innings, this after retiring the first 14 Angels he faced. The Braves (30-27) were playing without third baseman Chipper Jones, who was put on the disabled list earlier in the day because of an injured left foot.

The win lifted the Angels (33-24) into a first-place tie with the Texas Rangers in the American League West after entering the night having lost four of six to begin their 12-game trip.

The Angels scored once in the sixth, Steve Finley coming home on Garret Anderson’s single, and took the lead in the eighth.

With Chone Figgins on third and Erstad on first, Anderson lined the first pitch he saw into the right-field corner. Figgins scored easily, but Erstad ended up in the collision. Dallas McPherson followed with a single to score Anderson for the 4-2 lead.

Lackey got relief from Brendan Donnelly and Scot Shields, who each contributed a scoreless inning. Then closer Francisco Rodriguez needed 24 pitches to nail down his 11th save.

Still, the postgame focus remained on Erstad’s reverting to his college football days at Nebraska, where he won the 1994 national championship.

“Everybody says that -- football instinct,” he said of the play at the plate. “I was a punter. It wasn’t like I was an actual football player.”