BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT : ANGELS : Perez’s Argument Can’t Be Denied

First baseman Eduardo Perez awoke feeling no pain in his injured left wrist, so he persuaded Manager Buck Rodgers to start him on Sunday. It didn’t take much of a speech for Perez to get his point across.

“No. 1, he said he felt good,” Rodgers said after Perez went three for five in his first game since May 4. “No. 2, he didn’t have any pain at all. No. 3, Chili (Davis) went down (with a cut below the kneecap). No. 4, we’re facing Randy Johnson, and I didn’t want another left-handed hitter up there.”

Perez singled in the second and third innings and doubled in the ninth.

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Rodgers rates reliever Craig Lefferts, who leads the team with a 1.95 earned-run average, as one of the biggest surprises of the season.

“It’s tough to evaluate veteran pitchers in spring training,” Rodgers said. “Veterans like Lefferts work on adrenaline and they just can’t get their adrenaline up in spring training. If they don’t get that adrenaline rush, their stuff isn’t so good.

“But you put Lefferts into a game situation where he’s got a chance to help the ballclub and help himself, and he can come through. He can still, on occasion, blow his fastball by people.”

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Gary DiSarcina couldn’t wait to get on the field Sunday, hoping to erase memories of Saturday’s 10-7 loss.

“The longer you sit around the worse it can be,” said DiSarcina, who hit safely in his seventh consecutive game Sunday. “After a game like that, the first thing you want to do is get back out there.”

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Here’s more on Jerry Willard, whose three-run homer capped Seattle’s come-from-behind victory Saturday night. Willard, 34, played in 340 major league games before this season, spending the better part of his 14-year pro career in the minors. He batted .319 with eight homers in 107 games at Richmond, Va., the Atlanta Braves’ triple-A affiliate. The Mariners signed him as a minor league free agent in February. . . . Goose Gossage’s 3 1/3 innings of shutout relief Saturday was his longest appearance since Sept. 2, 1984, when he was a member of the San Diego Padres. . . . Tim Salmon went into Sunday’s game batting .333, going 14 for 19 in the past four games. Two weeks ago, he was batting .232.