What was that about?

The Angels played badly in Game 1, committing three errors and allowing a pop fly to drop for a hit, and all of that, in concert, led to three runs in a 4-1 defeat … and those of us who have watched this sure and steady franchise over the past decade were sure it was an aberration.

We were wrong. Dead wrong. And that is why the Angels flamed out in six games at the hands of the New York Yankees — a better team, yes, but in this series most notable as the team that didn’t play Just Plain Awful Baseball.

To recap:

After the Game 1 disaster came the equally sloppy Game 2, the blown save and the hands-around-his-throat error by Maicer Izturis that allowed the winning run to score in the 13th inning.

And the mishaps just kept coming.

The Angels won Game 3 despite blowing another save, were trashed in Game 4, 10-1 (that, at least, wasn’t a self-inflicted wound), got away with blowing a four-run, seventh-inning lead in Game 5 to win 7-6 … and then disappeared under the weight of two more errors and a couple of more bone-headed plays in the decisive Game 6.

Not being able to get Alex Rodriguez out was a problem. Brian Fuentes’ inability to contribute a tidy save (or any save at all) was another.

But now that the series is over, the Angels can look back at it and … grimace. They beat themselves at least as much as the Yankees beat them. Their inability to make basic plays is the difference between going to the World Series … and dragging themselves back to Anaheim in something resembling red-faced embarrassment.

The Angels made eight errors in six games. That’s awful. Inexcusable. They appeared jittery and unsure of themselves. Intimidated, even.

Perhaps the Arctic weather in New York had something to do with it … but the Yankees had to play in the cold, too.

Torii Hunter seemed to suggest, after Game 6, that these Angels are young and inexperienced, and that their collective lack of postseason experience (especially on the big stage that is Yankee Stadium) dragged them down. There is something to that. It isn’t as if Erick Aybar and Izturis and Howie Kendrick — the culprits in several key klutzy moments — have a lot of postseason experience.

But. Still. This was a team that was cool, calm and collected during the regular season — and on into the divisional series sweep of the Red Sox.

Yet against the Yankees, they flew apart. The Yankees were good. But they weren’t that good.

The Angels played subpar baseball from beginning to end, and we can talk about weather, and close calls, maybe even blown calls, and tough luck. But, really, the Angels played badly, they failed again and again in the clutch and they gave away at least three games in this series. Hard to win a best-of-seven when you do that.

There performance is called, in impolite quarters, “choking” — and that is what the 2009 Angels will have to live down, and what they will be remembered for.