Barely Alive, Angels Turn to Their Secret Weapons

Right-hander Lou Pote, who played nine minor league seasons before reaching the big leagues, was the starting pitcher in the Angels’ 2-1 victory over the Texas Rangers before 38,739 at the Ballpark in Arlington Friday night.

Ben Weber, a 30-year-old reliever whose resume includes recent stops in Taiwan and Salinas of the independent Western Baseball League, got his first major league victory, throwing 1 2/3 scoreless innings to help the Angels stave off elimination in the American League West.

And tonight, the Angels will hand the ball to Derrick Turnbow, a lop-eared 22-year-old from Tennessee who was pitching in the Class-A South Atlantic League last season, with but one meager request: keep the Angels in a game they must win to stay alive.

Hey, when you’re the Angels, what have you got to lose?

They are now 5-0 in games in which a reliever started and was followed by a bullpen relay team, so why not go with Turnbow, a Rule V draft pick who belongs in double-A but has gained maturity and confidence this summer?

That strategy worked Friday night, as Pote, making his first major league start and filling in for suspended right-hander Tim Belcher, limited the Rangers to one run on four hits and struck out five in 4 1/3 innings.

Reliever Mike Holtz gave up a game-tying RBI single to Frank Catalanotto in the fifth, but Darin Erstad’s two-out RBI single in the seventh gave the Angels a 2-1 lead and made a winner of Weber, who got Gabe Kapler to pop out with the bases loaded to end the fifth and Chad Curtis to hit into a key double play in the sixth.

Shigetoshi Hasegawa, who leads AL relievers with 92 innings pitched, threw a scoreless seventh and eighth, and closer Troy Percival struck out two of three in the ninth on the anchor leg for his 31st save. The game ball, though, went to Weber.

“I’ll probably get the team to sign it, and I’ll frame it up,” said Weber, who has stranded all 10 inherited runners since being claimed off waivers from San Francisco on Aug. 30.

“What made it even better is my parents came in from Beaumont [Texas], and this is the first time they’ve seen me play in a major league game. It’s a 5 1/2-hour drive . . . well, probably 6 1/2 hours for my dad.”

Had his parents wanted to watch him pitch in 1998 and ‘99, they would have had to go around the world--Weber spent two years in Taiwan before signing with the Giants. He had two stints with San Francisco, posting an 0-1 record and 14.63 earned run average in nine appearances.

Angel Manager Mike Scioscia, who managed triple-A Albuquerque in 1999, and third-base coach Ron Roenicke, who managed triple-A Fresno in 1999, liked what they saw of Weber in the Pacific Coast League and recommended him to General Manager Bill Stoneman, who plucked him off the waiver wire.

“He throws a 90-mph fastball with great sink and has a sharp breaking ball,” Scioscia said. “Add the deception in his delivery and you can see why he can be tough. Hopefully he’ll make the most of this opportunity.”

Pote made the most of his Friday, retiring his first six batters and getting out of a second-and-third, one-out jam in the third by retiring Catalanotto on a fly to shallow right and Royce Clayton on a grounder to short. His only bad pitch was a pitchout that sailed about five feet over catcher Bengie Molina’s head in the fourth.

“I just looked at it as if I was the first guy out of the bullpen instead of the second or third,” Pote said. “If I started thinking about this being my first big-league start I would have gotten tense, and that’s when bad stuff happens.”

The Angels, with the exception of Molina, couldn’t muster much offense against Ranger lefty Darren Oliver. Molina followed Tim Salmon’s single, a walk and a fielder’s choice with an RBI double in the fourth. He also singled to lead off the seventh and scored the winning run on Erstad’s hit.

The Angels pulled to within 7 1/2 games behind Seattle in the West and remained 6 1/2 games behind Oakland in the wild card with nine games left. They must win their last nine games to have any hope of reaching the playoffs, but because of guys like Pote and Weber, they haven’t lost all hope.