"The Angels were so thoroughly baffled by Toronto left-handed starter Marc Rzepczynski on Friday that Manager Mike Scioscia compared his hitters to Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov's dog.

"We were being led in a direction, and we didn't make the adjustments we needed to make," Scioscia said.

A day later, against another Blue Jays left-hander, it was as though the Angels had snapped their leash and sprinted to freedom.

Bobby Wilson hit two homers and drove in a career-high five runs and Hideki Matsui, making an increasingly rare start against a left-hander, added a season-high four hits to power a 7-2 victory Saturday at Angel Stadium.

The Angels collected 10 of their 12 hits off Toronto starter Brett Cecil on the way to their sixth triumph in their last eight games, closing to within 71/2 games of Texas in the American League West.

Angels starter Ervin Santana was also plenty dogged in a seven-inning outing in which he became considerably more efficient after needing 57 pitches to get through the first three innings."