Abbott Is Rewarded for Having Some Fun : Angels: After a reminder that there is nothing to dread about pitching, he gets help from some friends to beat the Indians, 2-1.

CLEVELAND — He had never considered pitching a hateful chore, but Jim Abbott was too busy struggling to enjoy himself fully.

Abbott needed a reminder from pitching coach Marcel Lachemann before discovering the joy of competing, and he needed an effective slider to rediscover the joy of winning consecutive starts. He found both Saturday, when he held the Indians to five hits over seven innings in the Angels’ 2-1 victory.

“Marcel made a point to the pitchers this week that the day you pitch should be the most fun of the week and not a day you dread,” Abbott (2-4) said after winning consecutive starts for the first time since July 3 and 8, 1989, and consecutive decisions for the first time since last Aug. 29 and Sept. 10.

“I’ve always enjoyed pitching, but sometimes, when so many things keep beating you down, instead of expecting good things, you expect bad things to happen,” Abbott said. “I get frustrated between starts, but all season I’ve felt we’re going to do really well. If you look at my record in the beginning of the season, I threw some good ballgames, but I didn’t get any rewards. You throw a good game and lose, and they beat you down. You don’t throw a good one, and then people want to beat you down even more.”

The Indians couldn’t beat him Saturday because of his aggressive pitching and because of the play of Luis Sojo.

With Dick Schofield getting a day off and Donnie Hill too flu-ridden to come to the ballpark, Sojo got his first start of the season at shortstop. He recalled making three errors in his last game at shortstop at Cleveland Stadium while with the Blue Jays, but he was sure-handed Saturday.

“He can play,” said Angel Manager Doug Rader, whose club raised its record above .500 (15-14) for the first time since April 26. “He saved us two runs.”

The Indians had runners on second and third in the third inning when Mark Lewis hit a grounder toward the hole. Sojo dived and kept the ball from going through the infield. Joel Skinner scored, but Mitch Webster had to hold at third base, where he was stranded when Abbott made Albert Belle the third of his four strikeouts.

Sojo helped preserve a 2-1 lead in the seventh inning.

With Carlos Baerga on second base, Skinner hit a grounder to Sojo, whose quick throw to third base got Baerga to defuse a potentially damaging situation.

“What I do before the pitch is I see who’s running and who’s hitting,” Sojo said. “Baerga can’t run that well, so I make the throw.”

Sojo’s choice surprised third baseman Gary Gaetti, but he recovered quickly and made the tag.

“I was yelling ‘one, one, one,’ ” Gaetti said, meaning he was urging Sojo to get the sure out at first. “I was backpedaling to the base. I didn’t know where I was in relation to the base. I knew the runner was in front of me. I just tried to slap it down.

“It was a good play by Baerga and a good play by Luis. One good play turned out to be better than the other.”

Better outfield play might have spared the Indians their fourth consecutive loss. Mike Huff’s failure to hold Dave Parker’s sixth-inning fly to center allowed Luis Polonia to score the tying run, and Parker scored the go-ahead run on Gaetti’s ground-rule double to center. Cleveland starter Greg Swindell (1-4) also was victimized by his defense in his last start against the Angels, April 30 at Anaheim, when an error by Jerry Browne led to four unearned runs.

“He’s just a good, quality pitcher,” Gaetti said. “You usually get him some runs, and you can forget it.”

Abbott last won on the road last July 29 at Seattle. He hasn’t had a three-game winning streak since May 17-30, 1989, but he can match that Thursday in New York.

“A lot of those stats take the fun out of the game,” he said. “I just know that it was a good game, and I’m glad to get a victory for the team. It was a tough game against a tough pitcher.”