Those waves of fans who streamed toward the Angel Stadium exits after Francisco Rodriguez's blown save in the top of the ninth inning Monday night missed a heck of a finish.
Torii Hunter, whose go-ahead home run in the eighth inning looked as if it would be wasted, blasted a grand slam against closer Joe Borowski in the bottom of the inning to lift the Angels to a 6-4 victory over the Cleveland Indians.
With the Angels trailing, 4-2, Gary Matthews Jr. walked with one out, Vladimir Guerrero singled to left and Garret Anderson walked to load the bases.
Hunter pounced on Borowski's 1-and-0 slider, a pitch he later said he was looking for, and sent a high drive to deep left field that passed to the right of the foul pole for his 10th career grand slam and fourth homer of the season.
As Hunter circled the bases, the Angels poured out of the dugout and gathered at the plate, where Hunter leaped into a pile of humanity and was pummeled like a tackling dummy.
What remained of the crowd roared its approval, and Hunter, in his first season with the Angels after signing a five-year, $90-million deal in November, obliged fans with his first Anaheim curtain call.
"All those fans who left, they're like, 'Man, I missed it!' " Hunter said. "That was awesome. That celebration was nice. That's how chemistry is started. These are my new teammates . . . when I came in, they doused me with beer."
Hunter's shot was the Angels' first walk-off grand slam since David Eckstein's against Toronto on April 28, 2002. It also extended to 162 the Angels' major league-high streak of consecutive games won when leading after eight innings.
That streak, which dates to April 19, 2006, was in jeopardy of falling when Rodriguez, trying to close out the Indians with a pair of sprained ankles and a soggy fastball, gave up three runs in the ninth for his first blown save of the season.
Travis Hafner walked to open the inning, Victor Martinez ripped a run-scoring double into the right-field corner and Jhonny Peralta followed by flaring a run-scoring double to right field.
Ryan Garko walked, and Rodriguez, unable to push off the rubber and generate much power with his legs, was pulled in favor of Scot Shields, who gave up a pair of singles for one run and a walk to load the bases.
But Shields recovered to strike out Grady Sizemore looking and retire Jason Michaels on a grounder to second, keeping the deficit at two and the Angels within striking distance.
