ANGELS : Blyleven Puts Shoulder to Test Against Padres

Bert Blyleven will be 40 next month, and his right arm has 4,837 innings of major league mileage on it. But as he waited to test his surgically repaired right shoulder in Sunday’s B game against the Padres, Blyleven was as jittery as a rookie.

“Today was the first day I was competing against somebody other than intra-squad games. I was a little nervous in anticipation,” he said. “The first inning went real well. In the second inning, I just got some balls up. You’re (ticked) off when you don’t pitch the way you want to, but that’s the competitiveness in me.”

While he has plenty of combativeness left, the strength and zip remaining in his right arm are in question. After he pitched a hitless first inning and gave up three hits and three runs in the second inning Sunday, the answer was still unclear.

Brian Dorsett’s two-run home run in the second inning didn’t bother Blyleven, who has allowed 413 homers in his career. He was looking for sharpness in his curveball and freshness in his arm, and he saw both.

“The home run was a fastball I tried to sink away. It had nothing to do with my arm, just location,” Blyleven said after the game, a 3-3 tie called after eight innings.

“It might have been scary if I’d gone out and shut them down one, two, three. I wouldn’t have known how to handle it. You get upset when you make a bad pitch, but that’s why you’re here, to get all the bad pitches out. My main concern is my arm strength, and that’s getting better.

“I feel I’m going to be ready (to start the season). My arm strength is coming back. I just need the innings, that’s all.”

He also needs to make rapid progress. He’s not worried about his velocity--”I haven’t been concerned about the radar gun the last 10 years,” he said--but he can’t afford to backslide.

“He threw the ball a little bit better today, especially the very last pitch he threw,” pitching coach Marcel Lachemann said, referring to a fastball Greg Gross missed for a strikeout. “He’s on the upswing. It’s just going to have to continue.”

Blyleven will continue his comeback Thursday, when he faces the Padres in another B game at Mesa’s Gene Autry Park. He had only one complaint Sunday. “My calf is killing me more than my arm,” said Blyleven, whose leg tightened while running. “When you’re getting old, you start falling apart.”

In the A game, Jim Abbott gave up four consecutive two-out hits in the third inning and the Padres recorded a 4-0 victory. The Angels have lost 10 consecutive spring games and have lost their last seven against the Padres.

Abbott said his outing lasted “one out too long,” but he was happy with his slider and his ability to hit the outside of the plate.

“I’m kind of mad at myself because I felt so good, not necessarily stuff-wise but in terms of presence,” he said. “The last couple of hitters, I screwed around a little too much. Then again, it wouldn’t be right for me to make things too easy for myself.”

Lachemann found fault only with a fastball down the middle that Fred McGriff turned into a two-run triple and another that Benito Santiago lined for a run-scoring single.

“The other hits came off good pitches,” Lachemann said of Abbott, who recorded 25 strikes in 35 pitches. “He needs to remember he’s got to continue making his pitches. You throw fastballs down the middle and bang-bang, it’s a three-run inning. Overall, he did a good job. His slider moved well and he located his fastball pretty well.”

Right-hander Scott Lewis, a prime candidate to step into the rotation if Blyleven isn’t healthy, pitched three perfect innings Sunday and left-hander Floyd Bannister gave up two singles in two innings. Angel relievers have pitched 13 consecutive scoreless innings since Matt Keough gave up five runs in Friday’s exhibition opener.

Lewis’ impressive outing Sunday was a challenge of sorts to Joe Grahe and Bannister, his apparent rivals for the starting spot. However, Lewis isn’t looking beyond his own performances.

“I don’t look at it as a competition at all. I just do whatever I can and let the front office make the decision,” he said. “I got lucky today--I made some bad pitches and guys lined them right at people. I’d rather be lucky than good.”

Angel Notes

Lee Stevens’ double and singles by Jack Howell and Max Venable were the Angels’ only hits in the A game. . . . Dante Bichette, who is trying a more open batting stance to improve his quickness, was zero for three and is hitless in five at-bats. . . . Mark Langston, who was hit in the right arm by a line drive in Thursday’s intra-squad game, will start against the Padres today at Arizona State University in Tempe.