OAKLAND The Angels finally found something good about this trip.

It's over.

Oakland A's right-hander Dan Haren was the latest pitcher to slenderize his ERA with a few laps around the Angels lineup, holding them to four hits in seven innings of a 3-0 shutout Wednesday afternoon.

The loss was the Angels' sixth in a row and eighth in their past nine games. It ended a 1-7 trip the Angels' worst since they went 1-8 on a nine-game tour of Seattle, Texas and Oakland when baseball resumed play after the terrorist attacks in September 2001.

"For a string of games, I don't know if I've ever seen us struggle so much in total offense," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. "Right now, I think we're as stagnant as I've seen. ... The faucet has been turned off."

On the eight-game trip, the Angels were outscored, 44-16, while batting .214 (57 for 266).

"There's no secret ingredient (to break the slump)," Angels outfielder Gary Matthews Jr. said. "We can't just go out and sacrifice a chicken or throw on some snake oil and all of a sudden start scoring a pile of runs.

"You have to have a solid approach. If you do that consistently, things turn around. ... If it's this bad right now, it's going to be lovely when it turns around."

Well, it's definitely this bad right now and it only got worse when Scioscia had to send out a lineup missing both Vladimir Guerrero and Howie Kendrick. Both players left the team early and returned to Southern California to be examined by hand and wrist specialist Dr. Norman Zemel after being hit by pitches in the previous two days. A non-displaced fracture was discovered at the base of Kendrick's left middle finger, and he will be placed on the disabled list.

That left Angels starter John Lackey with little hope for support. Lackey, now 10-3 with a 2.95 ERA in his career against the A's, pitched well enough to win, but the Angels have scored three runs in his past three starts.

"We went through some of these last year. We had to pitch really well to win," Lackey said with obvious frustration. "It's not a new thing, man.

"I'll forget about it by tomorrow, and we'll work towards the next one. You hope things change."

Scioscia tried to shake his team out of the latest incarnation with a post-game lecture Tuesday on the virtues of grinding out at-bats. The Angels seemed to take it to heart Wednesday, taking more pitches and working deeper into counts. Haren had to throw 109 pitches to get through his seven shutout innings.

But the results were the same particularly with runners on base.

The Angels got one-out doubles in the first inning (from Orlando Cabrera) and again in the fourth (Maicer Izturis). Neither base runner was able to advance as the next two hitters were retired.

In the sixth, Reggie Willits led off with a bunt single and went to third on Cabrera's second hit of the day, a single to left. But Willits was caught in a rundown between third and home when Izturis bounced back to the pitcher, and Garret Anderson popped up to end the inning.

Wednesday's 0-for-6 effort with runners in scoring position left the Angels 4 for 39 (.103) in those situations during the losing streak and 24 for 123 (.195) in the first 15 games of the season.

"There's a lot of things that are contributing to that," Scioscia said.

"When there aren't a lot of guys in your lineup that are swinging the bat well, those situations don't always meet the couple guys that are swinging well. We need more continuity, more consistency, to pressure the other team every inning.

"Hitting with runners in scoring position is part of situational hitting, and right now that part of it is really soft. The root of that is not a lot of guys right now are getting good looks at the plate, not a lot of guys are squaring it up. So when those situations do come up, guys start to grip a little tighter, and it becomes counterproductive."

The most productive move the Angels have made in 10 days might have come when they boarded the team plane to head home.

"It'll be a nice day off tomorrow," Lackey said.