Belcher Is Able to Lend Angels a Veteran’s Hand

The young starting pitchers have done a remarkable job of keeping the Angels in games and in the division race, but no matter how well Seth Etherton, Brian Cooper and Jarrod Washburn perform, they cannot bring to the mound what Tim Belcher brought Saturday night.

It’s called experience, and it’s what got Belcher out of two early jams and enabled him to lead the Angels to an 8-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles before 45,758 in Camden Yards, ending the Angels’ three-game losing streak and the Orioles’ six-game winning streak.

Center fielder Garret Anderson, benched Friday night because of a sluggish bat, hit a three-run homer in the third inning, and Troy Glaus (19th of the season) and Mo Vaughn (20th) added home runs on a night in which the Angels scored more runs than in their previous three games combined.

Belcher, who underwent elbow surgery Dec. 2 and hadn’t pitched since Sept. 14, gave up one run on five hits in 5 1/3 innings in his long-awaited 2000 debut, utilizing a sharp-breaking slider and a split-finger fastball with some bite to strike out three.

But it was a few well-placed fastballs--and his veteran presence--that got him through the laborious first and second innings, when he walked four of the first eight batters, including Brady Anderson and Mike Bordick to open the first, and threw 58 pitches.

After striking out Delino DeShields with two on in the first, Belcher remembers his thought process when Albert Belle, who had five homers and 14 runs batted in in his three previous games, stepped to the plate.

“I was thinking, ‘OK, dummy, you just walked two guys with the hottest hitter on the planet coming up,’ ” Belcher said. “I wanted to keep him in the park, and I’ve gotten a lot of ground balls to second against him by getting him to roll over on fastballs away.”

Belcher, the 38-year-old veteran, threw a fastball away, and Belle hit into an inning-ending double play.

The Orioles loaded the bases with one out in the second, but Belcher struck out Greg Myers. Anderson worked the count full, and Belcher threw him a split-finger fastball that Anderson fouled off.

Belcher, who is in his 13th big league season, then spotted a fastball on the outside corner to catch Anderson looking for his 1,500th career strikeout.

“Obviously, the more you pitch in the big leagues, the more opportunities you have to pitch in those situations,” Belcher said. “Having been there before, you know you can’t continue to beat yourself up, saying, ‘Why did I walk these guys, yada-yada-yada.’ . . .

“Young guys may have the stuff to get out of those situations, but do they have the experience to stay calm, to stay relaxed? I wish I had the ability to do that when I was young and had good stuff.”

Angel Manager Mike Scioscia liked Belcher’s stuff Saturday--his fastball hit 89 mph with regularity--and bench coach Joe Maddon told Belcher that his breaking pitches, especially the slider and the splitter, were better Saturday than they were in 1999, when the injury-plagued Belcher went 6-8 with a 6.73 earned-run average.

“I lost the finish on my pitches in mid-May last year,” Belcher said. “If I can finish the cutter and snap off some good sliders, I’m going to need that.”

And the Angel rotation, which has lost five pitchers to injury (Ken Hill, Kent Bottenfield, Jason Dickson, Scott Schoeneweis and Kent Mercker) and one to demotion (Ramon Ortiz), is going to need a healthy and productive Belcher to contend in the American League West.

“I’m glad to see him back,” Vaughn said. “Our young guys have been pitching well, but it’s good to have some guys with experience back in the fray. That will help us.”

After his rocky start, Belcher breezed through the third, fourth and fifth innings, giving up only two hits, but Belle tagged him for a homer to lead off the sixth. After B.J. Surhoff’s single and Cal Ripken’s fly out, Scioscia pulled Belcher, whose pitch count hit 100, in favor of Mike Holtz, who retired left-handed hitting Will Clark and Harold Baines to end the inning.

“Tim really battled to get as far as he did,” Scioscia said. “To pitch into the sixth after those first two innings was a huge compliment to him.”