Angels 5

Yankees 0

The end of Jon Lieber’s start last night went something like this: RBI single by David Eckstein, dropped flyball by Hideki Matsui and lights out.

In this case, that meant two things: Lieber was chased from an 11-hit outing that just wasn’t good enough, and the power went out at various spots inside Yankee Stadium during the seventh inning of last night’s 5-0 loss to Anaheim.

The Yankees played the last few innings of the game in eerie quiet, with none of the usual music and sound effects – which was appropriate for their fourth loss in five games.

“It was a little bit like the Twilight Zone,” Alex Rodriguez said.

And fittingly, the Yankees (76-45) did nothing against Ramon Ortiz – who tossed eight innings of four-hit shutout ball – after they landed at around 3:15 a.m. following a nine-game road trip.

“We just came out kind of flat,” Derek Jeter said.

Lieber (9-8) technically produced a quality start, but that doesn’t matter much in Yankeeland. After dominating the Angels in back to back starts in mid-May, he squandered a chance to stand out in the Bombers’ current six-man rotation. He left in the seventh with his team trailing 3-0.

On the other side, Ortiz won for the first time since June 19, allowing the victorious Red Sox to move within 7½ games of first place in the AL East after Boston beat the White Sox.

Manager Joe Torre gave Lieber a thumbs-up after the righty allowed only two earned runs over 61/3 innings, but the Lieber wouldn’t let himself off the hook.

He surrendered a solo homer to Adam Kennedy in the second to put the Bombers behind, and allowed a walk and consecutive singles with one out in the seventh to seal his fate.

When Matsui dropped Darin Erstad’s flyball to left after tracking it down, Chone Figgins scored the Angels’ third run, and that was that. Lieber left the game after loading the bases with an intentional walk to Vladimir Guerrero.

“It boils down to making the right pitch at the right time,” Lieber said. “It was OK for the most part, but in a tight game like this, you’ve gotta be able to bear down later in the game.

“I made some mistakes, and it cost us the game.”

In the seventh, power went out on the scoreboards in the outfield, and the phones went dead in the dugouts.

The Yankees had two good opportunities erased on the basepaths. In the second, after Jorge Posada stroked a leadoff single, John Olerud missed a hit-and-run sign and Posada was a dead duck at second. Olerud then followed with a single but was stranded.

In the sixth, Gary Sheffield managed a one-out single to center but was caught trying to steal second on the back end of a strikeout, throw-out double play with Rodriguez.

The only other Yankee hit off Ortiz came in the third, when Jeter ripped a one-out double to the wall in right-center but was stranded when Sheffield and Rodriguez struck out on pitches outside the strike zone.

Paul Quantrill served up a tape-measure two-run homer to Garret Anderson with two outs in the ninth, which was his third straight dismal appearance.

“He’s going through a rough time, but he’s going to keep getting the ball,” Torre said.