Scioscia Weighing Options Concerning Belcher’s Return

Manager Mike Scioscia said the reports on Tim Belcher, who has given up one hit and struck out eight in eight innings of two rehabilitation starts for Class-A Lake Elsinore, have been “very encouraging.”

Belcher will make the first of three scheduled starts for triple-A Edmonton on Tuesday, and if he continues to progress in his recovery from winter elbow surgery, Scioscia will have a difficult decision in about two weeks.

Whose rotation spot will Belcher take?

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Scioscia said Saturday. “We’re blessed with a lot of options.”

Belcher will not be used out of the bullpen. The Angels will neither go to a six-man rotation nor replace Kent Bottenfield. And it’s highly unlikely the Angels would remove Ken Hill from the rotation unless the right-hander showed no signs of recovering from his last two rocky starts.

So these next two weeks will be important for young pitchers Jason Dickson, Ramon Ortiz and Scott Schoeneweis. Dickson and Schoeneweis have considerable experience as relievers, so it’s possible one could go to the bullpen, but both have been effective as starters.

A demotion to triple-A could damage Ortiz’s confidence, and if Schoeneweis was sent down the Angels would not have a left-hander in the rotation.

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Pat Kelly, who abruptly retired late in spring training only a day after Scioscia said he could make a run at the second-base job, visited Scioscia and the Angels before Saturday’s game in Tropicana Field.

“I just knew I couldn’t perform at this level any more,” said Kelly, 32, who was suffering from a sore shoulder. “Things happen for a reason. They picked up Adam [Kennedy], who’s a good young second baseman. I took Steve Sax’s spot [with the Yankees] in 1991. When your time’s up, your time’s up.”

Kelly, who lives in Tampa, said his departure from baseball was eased by the birth of his first child, a daughter, on March 31. He said he will eventually move to Australia, where his wife is from, and hopes to work as a baseball scout or broadcaster.

“I miss the camaraderie, the jokes on the planes, but I won a World Series ring [with the Yankees in 1996], I played with Mark McGwire the year he broke the home run record. For a guy who wasn’t supposed to make the big leagues, I couldn’t have written a better script.”

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Upon further review: When Mo Vaughn, Tim Salmon and Troy Glaus homered in the fourth and ninth innings Friday, it marked the first time--in 172,236 games played through Friday, according to Total Baseball--that the same three players homered in the same inning twice in the same game. . . . After not pitching for four days, closer Troy Percival said he was sharp Friday night because he has been throwing on the side, for about five minutes at 80% of normal capacity, every other day or so. A sore shoulder prevented Percival from such workouts last season. “It definitely keeps me a lot sharper and around the strike zone,” Percival said.

TODAY

ANGELS’

JASON

DICKSON

(2-0, 3.93 ERA)

vs.

DEVIL RAYS’

DAVE

EILAND

(0-0, 10.80 ERA)

Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, Fla., 10:15 a.m. PDT

Radio--KMPC (1540), KIK-FM (93.3), XPRS (1090).

* Update--Dickson will try to stem a disturbing trend among Angel starters, who have given up 30 earned runs and 33 hits in 16 1/3 innings of the last four games and have made it past the fourth inning only once. The bullpen hasn’t been perfect, either. Since the seventh inning of Monday night’s 7-1 loss to Toronto, Angel pitchers have given up 56 runs in 45 innings. The staff’s earned-run average has increased from 4.04 last Sunday to 5.96 today.