Obscurity Is a Good Thing, Just Ask the Angel Bullpen

Lou Pote is an earnest 29-year-old relief pitcher for the Angels.

You probably don’t know him. He has nine years of minor league competition that has helped him become even-tempered and eternally grateful to be an anonymous major leaguer, to be a middle relief pitcher.

Pote came into the Angels’ home opener at Edison Field on Tuesday night in the top of the fifth inning after starter Pat Rapp had given up six runs and walked Alex Rodriguez.

This is going to be the most crucial time in so many Angel games this year. This time in the fifth, sixth, seventh innings when the Angels will be already behind, will hardly be thinking about winning a game but just staying close. It will be a time when any run given up probably means game over.

Games where the Angels are behind early and often.

Games where this anonymous bullpen filled with guys such as Pote are going to be where a contest is won or lost, a division title is won or lost.

Games like Tuesday.

Two walks, a hit batter, a double, a single. Four runs scored off Rapp in the top of the second inning by the Texas Rangers.

Right then, not 20 minutes into the evening you can be sure. You’ll be seeing Mike Holtz or Al Levine, or Shigetoshi Hasegawa or Ben Weber or Pote or maybe all of them. And then, if you’re lucky, you’ll have closer Troy Percival in the ninth.

For all the talk about how the Angels’ young starting pitchers will develop, for all the confidence about the Angels’ hitting, what might be the most important thing of all this season in the AL West is the bullpen.

As Holtz, the Angels’ only bullpen left-hander says, “All the teams in this division can score runs. We know all the teams can hit. So it’s going to come down to pitching and defense. And for us, with a young staff that’s somewhat unknown, yeah, we know the ‘pen is going to be key.”

Before Tuesday’s game the Angel bullpen had already saved two of the team’s three wins. The relievers had a 1.93 earned-run average because they’d allowed only three earned runs in 14 innings of pitching.

Did you know that in 2000 the Angel bullpen finished in an American League tie for saves (46) and second in the AL in innings pitched (552) and ERA (4.13)? Probably not.

Maybe you paid attention to Percival, the hard-throwing, sometimes erratic closer.

But who has noticed Holtz? Holtz is 5 feet 9 and could walk through the crowd wearing his uniform with No. 65 on it and no one would stop and look twice. Or Levine, who is 32 and who has rock-star sideburns and who played with Michael Jordan when both were at double-A Birmingham in 1994? Poor Levine. He couldn’t pitch to Jordan.

Hasegawa, the other middle reliever, got to make himself a bit of a name last year by becoming a closer when Percival was hurt. Hasegawa always is smiling and is game to be whatever pitching coach Bud Black wants--closer, middle guy.

“We like it that nobody knows us,” Holtz says before the game. “If nobody knows us, it means we’re doing good. The only way we’ll get on TV is if we’re giving up some monster home runs. We don’t want that.”

Rapp, the starter, is 33 and he is not going to overpower hitters. He is not going to break 90 mph on the radar gun and he is very likely not going to throw a complete game. If it’s a good night, Rapp will take the Angels into the sixth or seventh inning and maybe the Angels will be ahead by a run or two or behind by a run or two.

After Rapp put the Angels in a 4-0 hole, the home team got one run back in the bottom of the second, scoring the run after two were already out. And then there were two more runs in the bottom of the third.

But Rapp gave up a two-run home run to Chad Curtis in the top of the fourth. It’s a two-run shot because Rapp walked Ken Caminiti. So in the top of the fifth, when Rapp walked Rodriguez, and having put his team behind 6-3, Rapp was finished.

Pote started slowly. Rafael Palmeiro singled. After Ivan Rodriguez struck out, Andres Galarraga singled hard to left and Rodriguez scores. The run is charged to Rapp but Pote hung his head a moment.

It was not until there were two outs in the top of the seventh that Pote left, though. No runs scored in the sixth but Pote walked into the dugout with Texas runners on second and third in the seventh, leaving them for Levine to deal with. Levine dealt with it. A fly ball out to Tim Salmon.

The Angels scored one more run while Pote was pitching. It was a monstrous home run by designated hitter Glenallen Hill. The score was 7-4 but it was a night where the hitters couldn’t quite make up for Rapp’s bad start. Levine gives up no runs and Weber retires the side in the ninth.

Pote, Levine, Weber, they’ve done the job. Again. The Angels lose but they could have won in spite of Rapp. None of the anonymous guys got themselves on TV.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com.