Oliver rediscovers his touch

OAKLAND -- It’s easy to feel like a forgotten man in a bullpen that includes Francisco Rodriguez and Scot Shields, and there were times earlier this season when that might have seemed to be a pleasant alternative for Darren Oliver.

Given an irregular workload to start the season, the left-handed reliever struggled mightily in his first two months as an Angel and had a 7.98 earned-run average at the end of May.

The numbers have been easier on the eyes recently. Oliver had not given up an earned run in 17 of his last 20 outings before the Angels played Oakland on Thursday night at McAfee Coliseum, lowering his earned-run average from 7.47 to 4.38.

“Frankie better watch out, huh?” Oliver joked.

As he has emerged as a more dependable option, Oliver has been used in more late-inning situations. He closed out a lopsided victory against Detroit last Saturday and was thrust into a two-on, none-out mess in the seventh inning Wednesday against Seattle. Oliver retired the next three batters -- two by strikeout -- to extend his stretch of consecutive scoreless appearances to six, spanning nine innings.

Thursday night, he was asked to pitch the ninth inning with a 6-2 lead and got within one out of finishing the game, before giving up a two-run homer to Oakland’s Donnie Murphy. Manager Mike Scioscia brought in Rodriguez to get the final out.

“He’s turned things around,” pitching coach Mike Butcher said of Oliver. “He’s pitching to both sides of the plate, his breaking ball is a little shorter and sharper, and he’s been throwing the ball well.”

Oliver has been more effective against right-handed batters than left-handed ones, unusual for a left-handed pitcher. He was holding righties to a .195 average while lefties were hitting .397 against him before Thursday.

“He’s got a nice repertoire that he can use against righties,” Scioscia said. “He’s got that little fastball that he can get in on their swing and have it cut a little bit. He knows how to work both sides of the plate. When he’s on, he’s tough on everybody.”

Lately, that’s been most of the time. Oliver completed July with a 1.38 ERA in 13 innings.

“It’s just the way baseball is,” said Oliver. “It’s a game of streaks.”

The Angels’ recent power outage so frustrated hitting coach Mickey Hatcher that he contemplated holding a team home-run derby in batting practice.

There’s no need for that now.

After hitting only 10 homers in a month, the Angels had erupted for six in two games before Thursday, including three by Gary Matthews Jr. Then in Thursday night’s game, Vladimir Guerrero, who hadn’t homered since June 23, hit two.

Hatcher said the homers were a function of players’ relaxing and “getting back into playing the game the way we like to play it.”

“One of the things I keep telling them is that they’re going to come,” Hatcher said. “Don’t try to do it.”

Hatcher said Matthews had made adjustments to focus on “just really driving the ball so that he could feel his hands, and. . . it’s been a big change for him. You see a lot quicker, aggressive swing in the strike zone with him, and that’s good to see.”

Ervin Santana should take comfort in the fact that he is being evaluated on more than his numbers at triple-A Salt Lake, because they aren’t good. In three minor league starts, he has gone 1-1 with a 6.05 ERA, giving up 26 hits and 13 runs in 19 1/3 innings.

“Certainly, part of building confidence is having success, but there are other things that are going to define if he’s moving in the right direction other than just his line score,” Scioscia said. “He just needs to get out there and re-establish that command of the fastball with the breaking ball and then kind of fold in some other things about changing speeds or maybe a little movement on the ball here or there that he’s capable of. It’s a process.”

ben.bolch@latimes.com