Percival Throws the A’s a Curve

Brent Gates looked like a statue wearing an Oakland Athletic uniform Thursday afternoon, his bat on his shoulder, his feet anchored in the batter’s box, his jaw somewhere near his chest.

Angel closer Troy Percival, the second coming of Goose Gossage, the Rifleman with a 97-mph fastball, had just ended the Angels’ 3-1 victory with a called third strike, nipping the outside corner with a curveball--an off-speed pitch, for Pete’s sake--and Gates simply froze.

“You don’t have a chance against him,” said Angel second baseman Rex Hudler, whose eighth-inning home run broke a 1-1 tie before 9,102 in the Oakland Coliseum and propelled the Angels to a three-game sweep of the A’s.

“You’re braced for 100-mph gas and he throws that snap-hook at you. . . .”

It didn’t seem fair. Percival is dominating enough--he now has a major league-leading 10 saves, he has not given up a run this season in 12 innings, he has 17 strikeouts, and he has not given up a hit in his last five games. And now he has a secret weapon to go with that fastball?

“I think guys like that should only be allowed to throw one pitch,” said Gates, Oakland’s overmatched second baseman. “The thing is, even when he’s not feeling his best, he’s still throwing 94 or 95 mph.”

Percival’s perfect ninth inning, which moved former closer Lee Smith closer to Angel extinction, helped preserve Jim Abbott’s first victory of the season. Abbott, keeping his breaking pitches down in the strike zone, gave up one run and six hits and struck out six in 7 1/3 innings to improve to 1-4.

The Angels scored in the fourth inning on a walk, Chili Davis’ single and J.T. Snow’s RBI single. The A’s tied it in the fifth on a walk, a wild pitch and Mike Bordick’s single to right.

But Hudler, starting because second baseman Randy Velarde was sidelined by an ear infection, opened the eighth with a homer to left against Oakland starter Doug Johns. The Angels added an insurance run in the ninth on Snow’s single, Garret Anderson’s sacrifice and Don Slaught’s two-out RBI single.

“That was probably the rabbit ball--the balls are definitely juiced,” said Hudler, a utility player who now has more home runs (four) than starters Tim Salmon, Anderson, Snow and George Arias. “It was like a super ball--it just jumped off my bat.”

The game-winning hit capped a remarkable trip in which Hudler went nine for 18 with two homers, two doubles, five runs and three RBIs. But it seemed all the utility player could talk about afterward was Percival. “Oh man, Lee has done a great job, but how can you take Percival out of that closer spot?” said Hudler, who also turned a critical double play to end the Oakland eighth. “I’m just glad that’s not my decision.

“We’ve got a Hall of Famer sitting on the bench, and that says a lot about the job Troy is doing. He has handled this well, he respects Lee, and he’s not in any kind of ego battle with him.”

Hudler is also glad he’s in the same clubhouse as Percival. What would he do if he had to face him?

“I’d say, ‘Coach, I’ve got a sore hand, it’s really bugging me, maybe you’d better get a pinch-hitter in there,’ ” Hudler said. “But if I did face him, I’d just look for cheese over the plate and hope he didn’t throw one near my coconut.”

Percival has been working on the pitch since spring training but said through April that he wouldn’t use it until opponents proved they could hit his fastball.

Percival has been virtually untouchable, but he decided to try it anyway.

“When I start getting the curve over, it gives me one more weapon on the days when my fastball is not that great,” Percival said. “And the hitters who can hit my fastball, it gives them one more thing to worry about.”