Ailing Grahe Willing to Stick Neck Out

A wicked closer is usually essential to a first-place baseball team.

The Angels, in second place this morning, offer Joe Grahe, who is producing more questions than saves.

Grahe, suffering from a sore neck since one large, freak sniff late last month, pitched for the first time in a week and for only the second time in 13 days during the Angels’ 6-2 loss Saturday night to Oakland. He gave up two runs in a rocky eighth inning.

“He had to get some work,” Angel Manager Buck Rodgers said. “He needed an inning or so. . . .

“It took him awhile. At the end of his tour, he started throwing the ball where he wanted to. In the beginning, he was high and wild. Those are things you kind of expect when a guy hasn’t been out there for a week or so.”

Grahe had a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test earlier this week and team orthopedist, Dr. Lewis Yocum, will study the results today. Grahe said the sore neck is something he will have to live with.

“It’s not a big deal,” Grahe said. “Hopefully, it won’t be an issue. Pinched nerves, I guess. I’ve just got to keep working with it.”

Whether it becomes a big deal depends on how it responds. Grahe produced in 21 of 24 save situations last season, and when the Angels left Bryan Harvey unprotected in the expansion draft, they figured Grahe would step in.

But as he navigates his way through what he hopes will be his first full major league season, the maze has become more complicated.

He was summoned to begin the eighth Saturday with the Angels trailing, 4-2. He went 2-and-0 on Mike Bordick before hitting him with a pitch. Then he went 2-and-0 on Lance Blankenship before Chuck Hernandez, Angel pitching coach, paid a visit.

Blankenship promptly singled, and Kevin Seitzer followed with a two-run triple.

Then Grahe struck out Dave Henderson, induced Ruben Sierra to ground out and then got Mark McGwire to fly to center.

“Obviously, it was a little rough at first,” Grahe said. “But I got through it after awhile. I guess I’ll consider it a success if I’m ready to go (today).”

Grahe, 1-1 with two saves, said there was no pain in his neck Saturday.

“No,” he said, “except for the hitters.”