Mark Teixeira can't play much better

Whether it is bitter or sweet could hinge on how the Angels' first baseman and No. 3 hitter handles the pressures of both October baseball and of being a marked man, the player the Angels acquired at the July trade deadline to get them to the World Series.

"I'm going to be excited, anxious, and because of that, I'm going to try to relax at the plate," Teixeira said. "This isn't like football and other sports where energy and intensity sometimes translates into victory. If you go out and run around like a madman, you're going to swing at bad pitches, and you're not going to be successful."

The Angels don't necessarily need Teixeira to replicate Carlos Beltran's 2004 postseason run after a mid-season trade from Kansas City to Houston -- Beltran hit .435 (20 for 46) with eight homers and 14 RBIs in 12 playoff games for the Astros that year.

But to end Boston's October stranglehold on them -- the Red Sox have a nine-game playoff win streak over the Angels dating back to 1986 -- Teixeira will need to drive in some runs and get on base so Boston can't pitch totally around cleanup batter Vladimir Guerrero.

"I'm not going to go out there and hit four home runs a game," said Teixeira, who will be a free agent this winter. "I'm not going to do anything outside of what I always do, which is work counts, have good at-bats, swing at good pitches, get on base, drive in runs, play solid defense. You don't want to go out there and press."

If Teixeira handles October the way he did August and September, the Angels have to like their chances.

In 54 games for the Angels after his July 29 trade from Atlanta, Teixeira hit .358 with a .449 on-base percentage, 13 home runs and 43 RBIs. Adding his four months with the Braves, Teixeira hit .308 with a .410 on-base percentage, 33 homers and 121 RBIs.

The switch-hitter is the just the type of slugger the Angels envisioned when they appeared one big bat away from contending for a World Series in the past three years, but he is hardly the focal point of a lineup Manager Mike Scioscia called his deepest ever.