No Ace, so Angels Need Full House

The Red Sox had Pedro Martinez to pitch a gem Friday.

The Angels countered Saturday with the Gang of Four. Kevin Appier, with sore everything, walked the first batter on four pitches. But all of a sudden it’s the sixth inning and Appier still has a shutout.

So in came Brendan Donnelly, 31, a perennial minor leaguer until the Angels invited him to Anaheim in June. Donnelly’s blue eyes and fastball are blazing and he retired the side in the seventh on eight pitches.

Donnelly walked the first batter of the eighth, so in came Scott Schoeneweis, the only lefty in the bullpen, a fierce competitor who is unwilling to say he is comfortable being a middle reliever. “Say I’m acclimated,” Schoeneweis says. It’s an attitude to appreciate, because Schoeneweis had always been a starting pitcher until he quit throwing strikes in April and May.

Schoeneweis retired the side on five pitches. He coaxed pinch-hitter Carlos Baerga into lining into a double play.

Being a relief pitcher is hard, Schoeneweis says. It’s a whole new routine and Schoeneweis says he has always been a stickler for routine. So now his routine is a different routine every day.

Schoeneweis adjusts.

“I have to,” he says, “because I want to be on a winning team and in the playoffs.”

No pouters allowed on the Angels.

No malingerers, no whiners, no excuse-makers.

Troy Percival came in to pitch the ninth.

If there is an Angel in the bullpen somebody east of Riverside can name, it is Percival the closer. He needed three pitches to retire Nomar Garciaparra and Manny Ramirez, two of the best hitters in baseball. But they can’t make this too easy. Cliff Floyd whacked a wicked, curving line drive that bounced off the glove of right fielder Orlando Palmeiro and was called a double.

Shea Hillenbrand fouled off five Percival fastballs. But finally the game ended on a hard-hit ground ball to first baseman Scott Spiezio.

Shouldn’t Palmeiro have maybe caught that line drive? That’s what Angel Manager Mike Scioscia is being asked, in several different ways. No, Scioscia says, he shouldn’t have. It was a hard-hit ball taking a crazy path. It was a double. Move on.

That’s what the Angels do. That’s what their bullpen does. Move on. Al Levine, Ben Weber, Scot Shields, Donnelly, Schoeneweis, Percival.

This is what the Angels are about.

The bullpen. The bullpen that leads the American League in ERA (3.04) and is second in saves with 41. The bullpen full of guys other teams threw back (Levine had been with the White Sox and Rangers, Weber with the Giants, Donnelly with the White Sox) or never wanted (Shields).

“The guys you hear about are the guys who make a lot of money,” Schoeneweis says. “None of us makes a lot of money. Yet.”

Because the Angels had lost three of their last four games, and because today they must face Boston All-Star Derek Lowe with his 17-5 record and his 2.19 ERA while the Red Sox will get to bat against Mickey Callaway, 27, whose major league career so far consists of four starts and two relief appearances for the dreadful Tampa Bay Devil Rays, this group pitching effort was hugely important.

Is it heresy to say that Callaway should fit right in, then, a low-paid, anonymous figure who will probably toss a four-hitter and get the win?

No one back home thinks that. Callaway will get pounded, Lowe will be unhittable. There seems to be a certain fatalism back home. E-mails started arriving after Friday’s 4-1 loss to Martinez suggesting that this is the beginning of the end for the Angels, as if Pedro doesn’t blow away everybody.

Trust isn’t something Angels fans have. They see Tim Salmon and Aaron Sele hit the disabled list and panic.

They don’t see young John Lackey pitching smartly and well as a rookie starter or the way Spiezio is fielding everything sent his way at first base and hitting hot too.

They don’t see the calm approach of pitching coach Bud Black or the way Palmeiro was watching video of his three strikeouts before he had showered Saturday so that he won’t repeat the mistakes again.

They don’t see Salmon sitting on a couch with struggling Troy Glaus, Salmon extending his arm and pointing to Glaus’ hand, the injured veteran talking hitting with the struggling young talent. Glaus had thrown his bat angrily after striking out to end the eighth inning. Salmon gives counsel and a pat on the back.

And they don’t want to get optimistic about the way Appier fights his aches and pains and complicated mechanics to give the bullpen a fighting chance. They don’t want to believe what they see, the way Donnelly fires out of the bullpen, throwing pitches in his head on his way to the mound and then forgetting them by the time he’s back on the bench, a good mental place to be, never agonizing over what has already happened and always preparing for what’s going to happen.

“A year ago I was in triple A and didn’t know what was going to happen,” Donnelly says. “How can I not be happy?”

“Have some chicken, it’s good,” Percival says as he walks past the postgame buffet.

In the Angel bullpen, everything is good. That’s how it is when you’re the best.

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