Valdes Goes to Great Lengths

Ismael Valdes, the butt of many blister jokes, could smile Thursday when asked about the perceptions about his stamina.

“People are always going to talk,” Valdes said. “Either I throw 30 complete games in a year or they’re going to talk about me. There is nothing I can do to control that.”

Except what he did against the Chicago White Sox on Thursday night. None of the 17,896 at Edison Field could complain about his performance.

Valdes allowed one run in eight innings, then sweated out the ninth in the dugout before Troy Percival nailed down a 3-2 victory that moved the Angels within five games of Oakland in the race for the wild-card playoff spot. Valdes struck out five and didn’t walk a batter, while pitching past the sixth inning for the 10th time in 18 starts this season.

He handed a 3-1 lead to Percival, who nearly handed the game to the White Sox.

Percival gave up consecutive doubles to Jose Valentin and Magglio Ordonez with one out to make it 3-2. Ordonez then stole third, putting the tying run 90 feet away.

But Percival struck out Jose Canseco looking with a 97-mph fastball and got Paul Konerko to foul out to catcher Bengie Molina on the next pitch.

“Standing out there on the mound, I knew if I let that tying run in, we’d lose the game and it would take us three games to catch up in the standings again,” Percival said.

The Angels do have the idea they are in the race for a playoff spot. The problem is leapfrogging the four teams ahead of them--Oakland, Boston, Cleveland and Minnesota. All four are within a half-game of each other.

“As of right now, we don’t need any help,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said. “We do have to leap over a few clubs. We have enough games head-to-head with those teams, so we have a little control over our destiny.”

The Angels have 19 games left with those four teams.

“If we were in second place it would be a little different,” Percival said. “With so many teams ahead of us, all we can do is battle.”

The White Sox were willing to surrender to Valdes. He allowed only three hits and retired 13 of the last 14 batters he faced, giving up only an eighth-inning home run to Carlos Lee.

Valdes (8-6) is 4-2 with a 2.42 earned-run average in eight starts since returning from a sore shoulder that had him sidelined three weeks.

Of course, Valdes has been known more for the blisters on his fingers during his career. While with the Dodgers, he often left games early. He has only 11 complete games in seven seasons, and six of those came in 1995.

“The things people said bothered me,” Valdes said. “They didn’t know what was going on. But you can’t say anything about the talk. I’m healthy and I’m able to help this club.”

Actually, he propped up his teammates Thursday.

The Angels were held to four hits by Mark Buehrle in a 15-1 loss Wednesday. The offense put in a cameo appearance in the fourth inning Thursday with four consecutive singles, all to right field, to break a scoreless tie.

Darin Erstad led off with a single and went to third on Troy Glaus’ hit. Garret Anderson singled, scoring Erstad. Scott Spiezio rolled a single into right, scoring Glaus.

Adam Kennedy’s sacrifice fly scored Anderson for a 3-0.

About the only other excitement an Angel hitter caused was in the seventh, when Glaus looked at a third strike to end the inning and strand runners at first and second. Glaus stood at home plate and griped at umpire Tony Randazzo.

An Angel defensive lapse nearly got Valdes into trouble in the fourth, but two strong defensive plays plucked him out of it.

Valentin singled with one out and headed to third when Ordonez singled to right. Tim Salmon mishandled the ball, but recovered to throw out Ordonez, who tried to take second.

After Canseco walked, Konerko hit a sharp ground ball that appeared headed to left. But shortstop David Eckstein extended himself just enough to backhand the ball and then had plenty of time to through out Konerko to end the inning.