Escobar Is Tough as Nails in Win

With the split nail on his pitching hand oozing blood and his control abandoning him in the second inning Saturday afternoon, there appeared to be little chance of Kelvim Escobar’s sticking around to record his first victory as an Angel.

Scott Hatteberg and Erubiel Durazo had just connected for back-to-back homers, giving the Oakland Athletics a three-run lead, and it was becoming apparent that allowing Escobar’s wound to fester much longer might have more serious ramifications than knocking him out of one game.

But Escobar persevered despite pain that intensified with every inning, shutting down the Athletics over the remainder of his five-inning outing and allowing the Angels to rally for a 6-3 victory in front of 25,739 at Network Associates Coliseum.

Escobar retired the last 11 hitters he faced and would have set down the final 12 if second baseman Adam Kennedy hadn’t one-hopped a throw to first baseman Darin Erstad for an error.

“He went out there and sucked it up for three innings and gave our bullpen a chance to go out there and get the job done,” said closer Troy Percival, one of three Angels who combined to pitch four innings of scoreless relief. “He’s a gamer; he wants to go out there and take the ball.”

The Angels scored two runs in the third and two more in the fourth on their way to a win that pulled them into a tie with Oakland and Texas atop the American League West. Starter Ramon Ortiz will try to reverse his sagging fortunes today as the Angels, winners of three consecutive games for the second time this season, go for the series sweep.

Escobar, who last winter signed a three-year, $18.75-million contract, showed the Angels what kind of competitor they had acquired after horizontally splitting the nail on his middle finger in the first inning.

The right-hander retired the side in order but had trouble keeping the ball down in the second, yielding a leadoff double to Jermaine Dye and leaving a fastball over the plate that Hatteberg whacked into the concrete stairwell beyond the fence in right. Durazo then tested Escobar during an epic at-bat, slamming two potential homers just foul before connecting for an opposite-field blast to left.

“There was a 10- to 12-pitch window where all his pitches were up,” Angel pitching coach Bud Black said. “Then he bounced back and made some great pitches.”

Escobar (1-1), who struck out six and walked none, left after retiring Billy McMillon to end the fifth on his 79th pitch.

“I’m disappointed because I felt like I could have gone like seven innings the way I was throwing the ball,” Escobar said. “But what can you do? ... It’s painful. You can’t really use the finger, and that’s the thing you really put all the [pressure on] when you pitch.”

Scot Shields, Francisco Rodriguez and Percival shut down the A’s the rest of the way, Rodriguez escaping a two-on, two-out scrape in the eighth by getting Hatteberg to ground out to shortstop David Eckstein.

Percival, who earned his fourth save, made a mechanical adjustment after a pregame tip from former Angel pitching coach Marcel Lachemann, who had noticed that Percival was pulling his body too hard with his left side on his delivery, causing him to lose control of pitches.

“It really helped the breaking ball a lot,” Percival said.

Eckstein drove in the Angels’ first run in the third on a groundout after Kennedy hit a one-out triple off the wall in left-center. Erstad followed with a single to left and went to second when Oakland starter Mark Redman (1-1) hit Vladimir Guerrero with a pitch. Troy Glaus doubled to left-center, driving in Erstad, but Guerrero was called out at the plate on second baseman Frank Menechino’s relay throw.

The Angels took the lead in the fourth thanks in part to a throwing error by third baseman Eric Chavez. Jose Molina hit a two-out single and eventually scored the tying run after Chone Figgins’ single to Chavez, who made a nice backhanded stop but threw well wide of first base. Figgins went to third on the error and scored on Kennedy’s single to right-center.

Guerrero hit his fifth homer, a solo shot, in the fifth and the Angels tacked on a run in the ninth when Figgins hit a leadoff triple to right-center on a ball that didn’t reach the outfield wall and scored on Kennedy’s single to left over a drawn-in infield, barely over the glove of leaping shortstop Marco Scutaro.

Black said it was too early to tell whether Escobar’s injury would affect his next start, though the Angels have a little extra time with an off day Monday. Escobar said he had used a fake fingernail after suffering a split nail when he pitched with Toronto but didn’t like it and planned to allow the nail to heal on its own this time.

“He showed us a lot,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said. “This guy wants to compete and still made some terrific pitches despite the circumstances.”