Angels are at a crossroads with reliever

It's easy to understand why he was eager to obliterate all thoughts of the eighth inning, in which he gave up a single and a walk and hit a batter before he served up a fastball he hoped would be beaten into the ground but was walloped high and far and into the right-field stands by designated hitter Hank Blalock.

"I'll look at tapes tomorrow," Shields said, "but it will be erased from my memory tonight. About an hour, it will be gone."

It might be worth remembering as one of Shields' last appearances -- and almost surely the last for the immediate future -- in the setup role that he has filled so well for three seasons.

Manager Mike Scioscia, patient during Shields' second-half struggles, said Sunday he would have to "look at a couple of things" after Shields couldn't hold a 5-2 lead.

Scioscia wouldn't specify if that meant moving Justin Speier into that eighth-inning "bridge" role, or whether left-hander Darren Oliver would take on a more prominent part, a consideration Oliver has earned by reducing his earned-run average from 7.98 on May 31 to 4.11 after he pitched a scoreless inning Sunday.

It's clear only that Shields has not been consistently effective and that the Angels no longer can wait and hope for him to come around.

Whatever progress Shields might have made in his last three outings in August -- three scoreless appearances that brought his ERA for the month down to 9.00 -- was wiped out Sunday.

"We could consider a role change, we could consider letting him work a little bit off the mound. There's a lot of things that I think we're going to look at as we move forward here," Scioscia said.

"His stuff, it looks good. It's just his command is off. We just need him to find that because he's going to be big for us."

Blalock's grand slam wiped out a lead the Angels had carefully constructed on Jeff Mathis' two-run home run in the third and a three-run fifth. Starter John Lackey sweated and pushed himself through 6 2/3 innings, giving up six hits and striking out eight before leaving to a well-earned standing ovation on a night when the oppressive heat at Angel Stadium made clapping an exhausting chore.

Had Shields and his bullpen mates preserved that margin, the Angels would have extended their American League West lead over the stumbling Seattle Mariners to a formidable 7 1/2 games.