Angel Bullpen Is Battered, Beaten Again : Baseball: Butcher and Leiter are the latest relievers to falter and lose a lead.

Again and again the gates opened and another Angel relief pitcher jogged to the mound to try his luck.

It was a parade of futility, largely a march of disappointment for Manager Buck Rodgers Monday night at Anaheim Stadium.

Starter Phil Leftwich was only so-so, and Rodgers needed help early in the game. This wasn’t an isolated incident, coming against the American League’s top hitting team, and that made Monday’s run through the bullpen tougher for Rodgers to stomach.

No, an 8-5 loss to the Chicago White Sox marked the third consecutive game in which the Angel relievers were battered and beaten.

“I’m not happy with the way our bullpen is pitching right now,” Rodgers said. “The lefties are getting the job done, but our righties aren’t getting their guys out.”

Too bad Rodgers has only Craig Lefferts and Bob Patterson as his left-handed relievers.

Saturday, the bullpen couldn’t hold a 7-4 lead as the Seattle Mariners rallied for a 10-7 victory thanks to a four-run eighth inning off Joe Grahe.

Sunday, John Dopson gave up three runs in the eighth inning and Seattle turned a two-run lead into a 9-5 runaway.

Monday’s adventures in protecting a lead included a three-run seventh for Chicago against Mike Butcher. To be fair, an error by Chad Curtis contributed to the jam. But Butcher did give up three consecutive hits without recording an out before Rodgers replaced him with Lefferts.

At least Lefferts offered stability. He gave up only one hit in one inning of work.

Rodgers was out of arms to start the eighth, so he brought starter Mark Leiter into the game.

“It was Leiter’s throwing day, anyway,” Rodgers said. “Kevin Brown of Texas did that to us the other day, so it’s not an indication of anything.”

Moving Leiter to the bullpen is probably an alternative down the road, but there are numerous possibilities.

After all, Leiter started Saturday’s game, going 2 2/3 innings and giving up four runs and six hits with one strikeout and two walks. That start probably sealed his fate. Although it went into the books as a no-decision, he had lost three in a row going into the game.

Leiter joined the worn-out bullpen and seemed to fit right in, laboring through a rocky ninth in which he gave up one run and one hit with one walk and two hit batters.

Finding a day of rest for the bullpen hasn’t been easy for Rodgers, which seems to complicate matters in the late innings of recent games.

But with his starters failing to last longer than six innings the last three games, it has been difficult. The nature of the game also hurts. High-scoring games are the norm. The Angels haven’t played a game this season in which fewer than five runs have been scored.

“That’s the game right now,” Rodgers said. “That’s the way it is.”

It’s difficult to know whether the Angels play high-scoring games because opposing teams hit the ball so well or because their bullpen is so weak.