BASEBALL DAILY REPORT : Bullpen Is Taking a Double Beating

Troy Percival on Sunday; Mike James on Tuesday night. The two close friends have combined to give the Angels a nasty, one-two punch in the Angel bullpen, but the pair has spent more time commiserating than celebrating this week.

Percival surrendered his first runs of 1996 Sunday when Cleveland’s Albert Belle, Jim Thome and Sandy Alomar homered off him in the ninth inning.

And James’ string of 12 straight scoreless innings ended in Fenway Park Tuesday night when John Valentin hit a game-tying, two-run homer in the seventh inning of a 4-3 Red Sox victory.

“It would have been nice to go 80 games without giving up any runs,” James said, “but I don’t think that was feasible.”

James, who entered with a 4-2 record and 1.38 earned-run average, relieved starter Chuck Finley with a runner on first, one out, and the Angels leading, 3-1. But he fell behind, 2-0, to Valentin, a fastball he tried to sink inside hung over the middle, “and he hit it into the nets,” James said.

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Steve Ontiveros threw off a mound Tuesday for the first time since, well, since a long time ago. The right-hander has been so limited by elbow injuries this season that Manager Marcel Lachemann couldn’t even remember his last mound appearance.

Reminded that Ontiveros threw an inning in a spring training game in March before suffering numerous setbacks, Lachemann said, “Did he? Oh, yeah.”

Though Ontiveros, on the disabled list since March 24, threw in the Fenway Park bullpen for 10 minutes without incident Tuesday, Lachemann was hesitant about putting a “progress” label on the session.

“He’s a little farther along than we thought, but we’re still not really counting on him [to pitch this season],” Lachemann said.

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How’s this for a stunning stat? The Angels, with a rotation that lost Mark Langston and now includes Scott Sanderson and Dennis Springer, both extremely shaky in their last starts, entered Tuesday’s game with the American League’s third-best earned-run average, 4.49. “We’re looking for a starting pitcher [in a trade] and we’re last in the league in runs scored,” said Tim Mead, assistant general manager. “That’s how crazy this season has been.”