For Rapp, It’s the Little Things That Matter Most

Troy Glaus hit the game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning for the Angels, which set off the fireworks at Edison Field. Good for him. Darin Erstad’s score-tying double came right before the home run. Two runs scored. Good for him.

Adam Kennedy singled to left, a smart player who didn’t try to be macho and smash the ball but who hit it where it was pitched. That was right before Erstad doubled. David Eckstein drew a one-out walk off Dodger closer Jeff Shaw right before Kennedy’s single. Good for both of them.

The Angels defeated the Dodgers, 6-4, to win the Freeway Series for the second consecutive weekend.

What we will remember is Glaus’ perfect swing, the sound of the ball, the loud crack it made as it left the bat, the way Glaus’ arms hung at the top of his hitting arc, the picture of a perfect swing on a perfect Father’s Day afternoon.

What we might forget is the way Pat Rapp, a 33-year-old father of three, who was missing his own father on this special day, hung in for six innings.

Rapp is a solid man, built strong and with no fancy edges. Within 20 minutes after the game, Rapp wore khaki shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and sandals. He is not about dressing up.

In the second inning, after the Angels had taken a 1-0 lead, Rapp gave up four runs. There was a one-out walk, then a two-out single by Jeff Branson, an RBI single by Alex Cora and a massive home run by Paul Lo Duca on a 3-and-1 fastball that was at eyeball level.

“I guess he didn’t want the walk,” Rapp said afterward with just a hint of a smile. “Bad pitch and I was punished.”

Two scouts--one from Seattle and one from San Diego--watched Rapp pitch Sunday and they kept shaking their heads.

“How’s he getting anyone out?” one said. “There’s no curve on his curve,” said the other.

For Rapp, it’s all about locating his pitches, changing that location, making the ball move somewhere unexpected.

Rapp was a 15th-round pick out of Southern Mississippi. He had an 11-14 record in two years in college so the 15th round might have been a bit high. He feels lucky that he has been a major league pitcher nearly eight years and doesn’t mind that the nicest thing people can find to say about his talent is that he will give you a lot of innings.

Sometimes that’s exactly what a team needs. Rapp’s fastball was often stuck in the mid-80s. College pitchers who throw that speed don’t get drafted. When Rapp makes a mistake, the ball gets crunched. When it is hot and the Dodgers start smacking the ball in the second inning, as Rapp said, “I didn’t expect to be around in the sixth inning. Not the way I was sweating in the second.”

But Rapp stuck around and didn’t give up any more runs. In the fourth inning, he made a spectacular behind-the-back catch of a high-bouncing Cora ground ball to end the inning. In the fifth, Tom Goodwin singled and Gary Sheffield walked, but Rapp induced Eric Karros to ground into a force out of Sheffield.

In the sixth, Branson had a two-out single and pitching coach Bud Black stared hard at Rapp. Rapp fooled Cora into grounding into a force out. After that, Rapp was finished. Six innings pitched, five hits, four runs, two walks, 104 pitches, Dodgers leading, 4-1.

Hardly anyone noticed that Rapp didn’t come out for the seventh. Except his teammates.

“Pat goes out and battles every game,” Glaus said. “What he did today was important. He hung in there like a pro. He fought. To me, that shows a lot about a player. I hope we all pay attention to what Pat did today.”

“That’s Rapper,” Erstad said, “being a workhorse again, like he has his entire career. . . . Maybe you don’t notice that, but we do.”

As Rapp drove to Edison Field on Sunday, he said he was thinking of his father, James Lee Rapp. James died last August after contracting a bacterial infection while fishing in a Louisiana oyster bed.

His dad, Rapp said, never was an athlete. “He had a great voice and was a good singer, but to my knowledge my dad didn’t play any sports. But he coached us. He coached me and my brothers. He was my Little League coach. He would be at all our games--baseball, football, basketball. Maybe he didn’t play, but he made time for us. It was always hard to find coaches. Nobody wants to give up the time. My dad did.”

It was his father, Rapp said, who taught him that being a star wasn’t important but that being a good teammate was. So Rapp didn’t mind not getting the victory Sunday. He was thrilled not to have given his team a loss and does not even think about how his record might be better than 1-7 if Angel hitters were more productive.

“We owe Pat a game where we give him a lot of runs,” Glaus said, “because he keeps giving us the innings.”

It is little things that win games.

As Glaus said, there is a way you play the game when you are in a pennant or playoff race because every pitch is magnified, every at-bat matters. The Angels hover around the edges of that race. The Dodgers are in the middle of it. The Angels did more of the little things.

Rapp’s 9-year-old son Ryan, who is back in Louisiana, left his dad a message, a long-distance “way to go, Dad” pat on the back. So Rapp was the father on Father’s Day but not the son. He just remembered what his dad always told him. “Do your best,” Rapp said, “then thank the man upstairs.”

*

Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com