Rodriguez a Man of Emotion

Reliever Francisco Rodriguez punctuated his eighth-inning strikeout of Rondell White on Saturday night with a roundhouse pump of the fist, a pirouette off the mound and a few screams as he bounced toward the dugout.

Troy Percival, the Angels’ veteran closer, watched the youthful exuberance of the 22-year-old setup man after his bases-loaded, one-out escape act and couldn’t help feeling a bit concerned about how Rodriguez might be perceived by opponents.

“Age will take that out of him,” Percival, 35, said. “He’ll realize it may come back to haunt him if he does cartwheels off the mound.”

Rodriguez, the team’s most dominant reliever and Percival’s heir apparent, a right-hander with a 95-mph fastball and one of baseball’s nastiest sliders, has no plans to attempt to harness those emotions.

“The crowd expects a strikeout, and that pumps me up,” said Rodriguez, who has a 1.62 earned-run average in 51 games. “When I get out of a big jam, sometimes it’s hard to control my emotions. I’m not trying to show anyone up or be a hot-dog. I’m just a competitive guy. If they take it the wrong way, that’s their business.”

White, the Detroit left fielder, admitted that seeing Rodriguez’s reaction provided the Tigers with more motivation to beat him, but no one in his dugout was offended.

“He shows a lot of emotion and gets the fans into it, but I don’t have a problem with that,” White said. “I played with Carlos Perez, and he used to do a whole dance out there. When we hit home runs, sometimes we do the same thing. Sometimes we need more of that in baseball, guys getting excited.”

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There’s a reason Percival’s velocity, normally in the 95-mph range, dipped to 92 mph or below in his last few outings before Sunday -- the right-hander has been pitching with lower-back stiffness, a condition that necessitated an injection Saturday with a muscle relaxant.

“My lower back locks up sometimes,” said Percival, whose fastball hit 94 mph in the ninth inning Sunday, when he recorded his 23rd save. “It’s happened on and off all year, so I don’t even really think about it. It’s a little tougher to follow through [on my delivery], but it doesn’t really impede my performance.”

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Mike Scioscia gave Vladimir Guerrero, who had started 18 consecutive games since returning from a minor wrist injury July 27, the day off “just to let him recharge a bit.” ... Catcher Bengie Molina (broken right index finger) played catch again Sunday and is expected to be activated Wednesday or Thursday.