Rodriguez Helps Close Deal as Angels Win, 6-3

Angel reliever Francisco Rodriguez provided another reminder Saturday night of why closer Troy Percival may find himself in the ultimate save situation next winter: the battle to save his job with an Angel team with which he hopes to finish his career.

Rodriguez, the Angels’ 22-year-old pitching prodigy, needed only 16 pitches to strike out all four batters he faced in the seventh and eighth innings of the Angels’ 6-3 victory over the Oakland Athletics in front of a sellout crowd of 43,487 in Angel Stadium.

Vladimir Guerrero, ending an 0-for-9 skid, smashed a two-run homer off starter Mark Mulder in the third inning, and Troy Glaus, who had struck out in five of his previous seven plate appearances, had a two-run homer off reliever Chad Bradford in the eighth to give the Angels a 6-2 lead and eliminate a save situation for Percival.

That cushion was almost necessary when Percival replaced Rodriguez to start the ninth and gave up a leadoff home run to pinch-hitter Billy McMillon and one-out walks to Bobby Kielty and Eric Chavez, bringing the tying run to the plate.

But Percival got Jermaine Dye, one of baseball’s hottest hitters, to pop to Glaus at third and Eric Karros to ground out to third to end the game, the scare, and the Angels’ two-game losing streak.

“That was the best I’ve thrown in the bullpen probably in my entire career, and then when I got into the game, it was ugly,” Percival said. “My first pitch, I knew something wasn’t right mechanically. I had to force the ball over the plate.”

That Percival’s second consecutive shaky outing -- the right-hander blew a save but eventually got the win in a 6-5 victory over Seattle on Wednesday night -- came on the heels of Rodriguez’s lights-out performance was merely coincidence.

Free of the injuries that hampered him in the second half of 2003, Percival, the Angel closer since 1996, seems to be throwing as well this season as he has in years.

But the Angels’ all-time saves leader turns 35 in August, he’s in the last year of a two-year, $16-million contract, he’s battled a number of nagging injuries in recent years, and Rodriguez would provide an inexpensive closing alternative for an owner who probably doesn’t want to increase his payroll far beyond its current $110.5 million.

“With our bullpen the way it’s set up now, I don’t see any huge changes in roles,” Manager Mike Scioscia said. “There’s no sense looking down the road. If Percival is down, Frankie will get opportunities to close, but it’s nothing we have to define now.

“Frankie does have closer stuff, and that’s the upside of a guy pitching in the back of the bullpen. You can’t tell me that those four outs in the game weren’t as important as the last three.”

Rodriguez replaced reliever Scot Shields with two out in the seventh and struck out Karros swinging. He then struck out the side -- Erubiel Durazo looking, Bobby Crosby swinging and Damian Miller swinging -- in an impressive eighth.

In six appearances this season, Rodriguez has given up no earned runs, struck out 12 and walked two in 6 2/3 innings.

“He was phenomenal,” Percival said of Rodriguez. “I’m already resigning myself to the possibility of not being here next year. Whether I’m here or not, I don’t know, but if you have no deal in place, I think the best way to approach it is to resign yourself to being elsewhere, and it’s a bonus if it goes the other way. You don’t want to be somewhere where you’re not the best man for the job.”

Shields had completed 1 2/3 innings of scoreless relief Saturday with an impressive strikeout of Dye in the seventh when Scioscia pulled him in favor of Rodriguez, who had never faced Karros before.

“He’s got a real good slider,” Karros said of Rodriguez. “I don’t know anyone on this team who’s had success against him.”

The bullpen preserved the win for Angel left-hander Jarrod Washburn, who needed 107 pitches to gut out five innings but gave up only two runs and five hits and struck out five to improve to 2-1.

Washburn stranded two runners in each of the first and second innings and struck out Durazo on three pitches with the bases loaded to end the fifth. A rare throwing error by Oakland third baseman Eric Chavez gave the Angels two gift runs in the second, and Guerrero’s fourth homer of the season allowed Washburn to leave with a 4-2 lead.