Angels, Sele Thrive With Five

OAKLAND -- Two starts, two victories, 10 shutout innings. From the numbers, the conclusion appears obvious: The Angels’ five-inning restriction on Aaron Sele is a stroke of genius.

Nothing of the sort, Sele said. After he pitched his maximum five innings in the Angels’ 1-0 victory over the Oakland Athletics on Friday, he said the artificial limit explains none of his success.

“I’m doing absolutely nothing different,” he said. “When we win, it’s amazing how everything looks like it’s the right thing to do.”

The Angels won weirdly, yanking a pitcher throwing a shutout, losing their manager to ejection and their third baseman to dizziness and getting two of their three hits from a guy looking up at the Mendoza Line. They beat Mark Mulder, who pitched his sixth complete game, tops in the major leagues.

They won for the sixth time in eight games, with three of those victories by shutout, and moved to within 10 1/2 games of the Seattle Mariners in the American League West. Not good, of course, but it’s as close as they’ve been since June 15.

Mulder had retired 15 of the first 16 hitters when Benji Gil, with a .189 batting average, doubled to start the sixth inning. Jose Molina sacrificed Gil to third base, David Eckstein dropped a first-pitch squeeze bunt to score the run, and Francisco Rodriguez, Brendan Donnelly and Troy Percival preserved the 1-0 lead by stopping the A’s on one hit over the final four innings.

“Going into the late innings, you better have the lead,” Oakland Manager Ken Macha said. “They’re like Seattle’s bullpen, maybe better.”

The relievers got an assist from Gil. In the third inning, the Angels shuffled their infield after third baseman Troy Glaus left the game complaining of dizziness brought on by stomach flu, with first baseman Scott Spiezio moving to third base and Gil ending up at first. In addition to his two hits, Gil robbed Erubiel Durazo of a double with a diving stop in the ninth.

Sele staggered through the first inning, walking two, making 28 pitches and leaving the bases loaded. But his next four innings were perfect, and he said he felt more than strong enough to continue.

Angel Manager Mike Scioscia, frustrated by Sele’s one-step-forward, one-step-back recovery from shoulder surgery, slapped the five-inning limit on him last week. The idea, Scioscia said, is for Sele to throw harder for a shorter amount of time and for him not to worry about saving certain pitches for later in the game.

“I’m a four-pitch pitcher,” Sele said. “I don’t throw 97. I have to throw my other pitches. I haven’t changed my approach.”

Sele is 2-0 on the five-inning leash, and the 10 scoreless innings have lowered his earned-run average from 7.01 to 5.70.

Scioscia said the restriction would remain in force for at least one more start. But he also said the Angels can’t keep blowing out their bullpen every time Sele pitches. Mickey Callaway, who was scheduled to make his third minor league start Friday, has a maximum of 20 days left on his rehabilitation assignment. Scioscia said Callaway could be summoned if needed to fortify the bullpen.

Scioscia watched the final innings on the clubhouse television, ejected by plate umpire Marty Foster in the bottom of the seventh for what was apparently perceived as arguing about a ball or strike call. The umpires declined to comment, but Scioscia said he yelled to Rodriguez “way to throw the ball” on a pitch that Foster called a ball.

“The home plate umpire starts to look over to me and starts gesturing,” Scioscia said. “He said something like, ‘Let’s go.’ I said, ‘You go.’ He threw me out.

“I was flabbergasted. I don’t think I’ve ever tried to pump up a pitcher by talking to him and gotten thrown out for it.”