Hot-hitting Willits hurts Bucs

He homered and drove in three as the Angels beat Pittsburgh Friday night.

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Reggie Willits and Chone Figgins are setting the table perfectly for Orlando Cabrera, who has been flourishing in the third spot in the Los Angeles Angels’ revamped lineup.

Cabrera homered and had three RBIs, including a run-scoring single in the bottom of the 11th inning, to lead the AL West leaders to a 5-4 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Friday night.

Willits had a career-high four hits, including a pair of RBI doubles that lifted the rookie’s average to .347 — third in the AL behind Magglio Ordonez and Ichiro Suzuki, and two points ahead of Derek Jeter.

“Reggie’s having an incredible season,” manager Mike Scioscia said. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that from the day we adjusted some things and inserted him in the lineup every day, we found some chemistry that we were looking for on the offensive side.”

Key triple

With one out in the 11th, Figgins tripled into the right-field corner against Jonah Bayliss (4-3).

Cabrera lofted a 1-0 pitch into the right-field corner over a drawn-in outfield. The ball bounced into the seats, but was scored a single instead of a ground-rule double because Cabrera never touched second base.

“I don’t think there’s a shortstop in our league playing better than Orlando — from the defensive side to his clutch hitting,” Scioscia said.

Scot Shields (1-2) pitched two scoreless innings for the win, allowing one hit. Angels pitchers retired 19 consecutive batters between Ronny Paulino’s infield hit with one out in the fourth and pinch-hitter Chris Duffy’s infield single with two outs in the 10th. Both hits were high-choppers.

Lots of weapons

“When you start adding up all the different weapons that go into being a solid major league team, they have a ton of them,” Pirates manager Jim Tracy said. “They have weapons for you at the back end of the bullpen, they have starting pitching, power in the middle of the order, they have speed up and down the lineup, they’re very aggressive and they’re extremely well-managed. This may be the best team in baseball.”

Pirates closer Matt Capps returned to the active roster after serving a three-game suspension for hitting Milwaukee’s Prince Fielder with a pitch back on May 5. He allowed one hit over two scoreless innings.

Gap narrowed

The Angels narrowed the gap to 4-3 in the seventh on Willits’ RBI double against Damaso Marte and Cabrera’s run-scoring single off Shawn Chacon, who surrendered the equalizer in the eighth.

Pinch-runner Nathan Haynes got a good jump off first on Willits’ double to left-center and was waved home frantically by third base coach Dino Ebel after left fielder Jason Bay cut the ball off and relayed it back to the infield.

“If you stand around and you’re a spectator against this team for a split-second, they will embarrass you,” Tracy said.

The Pirates, coming off consecutive shutout losses at Seattle, ended their drought of 20 consecutive scoreless innings in the first on an RBI double by reigning NL batting champ Freddy Sanchez.