Angels’ Sparks Supplies Sparkle

The hold Angel pitcher Steve Sparks had on his career last winter was as tenuous as his knuckleball grip.

At the same time, Texas Ranger pitcher Todd Van Poppel was playing in Venezuela, having long ago gone from prospect to suspect.

As reclamation projects go, the Angels certainly had the better of it Saturday. It wasn’t pretty for a while, yet as the game went on, it was obvious who was winning this arms race.

Sparks gave up three runs in the first but hung around for 6 1/3 innings in the Angels’ 8-3 victory in front of 31,671 at Edison Field.

Van Poppel also gave up three runs in the first, but was gone by the end of the third.

Darin Erstad, Dave Hollins and Phil Nevin each drove in two runs, and Sparks won his second game--both against the Rangers--since being recalled from triple-A Vancouver. It left the Angels 1 1/2 games ahead of Texas in the American League West Division.

“I felt if I was healthy, I could pitch in the big leagues,” said Sparks, 32, who sat out last season after elbow surgery. “I thought I would be ready by July, but I had such good command of the knuckleball, I was hoping to be called up.”

Under normal circumstances, a pitcher with a 0-8 record in the minors doesn’t get that call. But the Angels, who have won 17 of 20 games despite a plague of injuries, stopped being normal a while ago. Sparks is one of the few breaks that hasn’t required a trainer.

The Angels were one of “10 or 12 teams” Sparks said he contacted last winter. He picked them because of General Manager Bill Bavasi’s “enthusiasm for knuckleball pitchers.”

“I’m sure he was a guy Bill signed to fill a spot in the minor leagues,” Manager Terry Collins said.

That might been been the extent of Sparks’ season if the Angels hadn’t lost three-fifths of their starting rotation because of injuries.

Sparks was called up June 15, two days before an out clause in his contract took effect. He could have jumped to another team if there was no chance of being in the major leagues with the Angels. Instead, Sparks went 6 2/3 innings in beating the Rangers last Monday.

Things didn’t start so well Saturday. He gave up a two-run homer to Juan Gonzalez in the first inning. It was Gonzalez’s 23rd home run of the season and gave him 88 runs batted in, tops in the major leagues.

Gonzalez nearly homered again with two on base in the third. His towering fly was chased down a few feet from the fence by left fielder Orlando Palmeiro. The Rangers loaded the bases with two outs before Sparks got Ivan Rodriguez to fly out.

“My knuckleball wasn’t as good as the last time out,” said Sparks, who was 13-18 in two seasons with Milwaukee. “I decided to throw more fastballs today so they wouldn’t be waiting on it.”

Sparks gave up three hits before leaving with one out in the seventh inning.

Van Poppel, the Oakland Athletics’ first-round draft pick in 1990, couldn’t match that effort.

He has added better breaking pitches since his phenom days and had pitched well at triple-A Oklahoma this season before the Rangers brought him up for Saturday’s game. Things went bad for Van Poppel quickly.

Erstad hit his first pitch off the right field foul pole, his 17th home run. By the time the inning was over, Van Poppel had thrown 39 pitches and the score was tied, 3-3.

The Angels scored three more runs in the third, in which Van Poppel walked Garret Anderson and Palmeiro to start the inning. Anderson scored on a groundout by Erstad, who kept the inning alive by beating the throw to first on what would have been an inning-ending double play.

It paid off when Hollins lined a double into the right field corner, scoring Palmeiro and Erstad. By then, Van Poppel was long gone.

“He needs to get a whole lot better than that,” Ranger Manager Johnny Oates said. “What we saw today was unacceptable on the major league level. It’s unacceptable on any level. He wasn’t just missing. It was a struggle.”

The Angels had no such complaints about their reclamation project.

NEXT SERIES FOR ANGELS

WHO: Dodgers

WHERE: Edison Field

WHEN: Monday, 7 p.m.*, Tuesday 7 p.m.

WHERE: Dodger Stadium

WHEN: Wed., 7:30 p.m., Thursday, 7 p.m.