Angels' Guerrero makes adjustments to his swing

"It hurts me," Hatcher said. "I get stiff after seeing a few of those swings. Sometimes, the harder they throw, the harder he swings. I think [Tuesday] he was really out of whack."

Guerrero swung so hard during an 0-for-5 night Tuesday he looked as if he might come right out of his spikes. So, Hatcher suggested Wednesday that Guerrero widen his stance slightly, a move that forces hitters to cut down on their swing a bit.

The result, Hatcher hopes, will be more at-bats such as the one in the fifth inning Wednesday, when Guerrero stroked a clean ground-ball single to center field with a compact, controlled swing.

Guerrero added a ground-ball single to left in the ninth, stole second and scored a big insurance run on ToriiHunter's single. The Angels beat the Red Sox, 6-4.

The hits didn't exactly snap Guerrero out of a funk -- the slugger is 10 for 40 (.250) in his last 10 games and has gone eight games without a run batted in. He's batting .282 with two homers and 12 RBIs on the season.

"I've seen him be even worse than [he was Tuesday] and then, all of a sudden, boom, he takes one swing and creates that feeling," Hatcher said. "I think he and Garret [Anderson] are the same, they feed off a feel.

"Vlad will have a good swing and you'll say, 'Oh, that's the one.' And it starts to happen. He's been a little out of whack, but he knows what he needs to do."

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Manager Mike Scioscia did not change his lineup when Red Sox right-hander Daisuke Matsuzaka was scratched because of flu-like symptoms and replaced by left-hander Jon Lester on Wednesday, but he did tweak it.

Anderson and Hunter were flip-flopped in the fourth and fifth spots, Casey Kotchman dropped from sixth to eighth, No. 9 hitter Erick Aybar, who entered with a .356 average, moved to sixth, and catcher Jeff Mathis moved from eighth to seventh.

Mathis, 10 for 22 with three homers and seven RBIs in his last seven games, including a double and a run Wednesday, started for a second straight night, ending a 14-game stretch in which Scioscia alternated starting Mike Napoli and Mathis behind the plate.