Healthy Donnelly Impresses Scioscia

Reliever Brendan Donnelly’s first warmup pitch before the fourth inning Sunday almost hit umpire Mike Everitt, who was standing about eight feet to the side of home plate.

“It looked like Nuke LaLoosh was making a comeback,” Donnelly joked.

Two batters into his first exhibition appearance of the spring, Donnelly tried to come inside on Oakland’s Eric Karros and hit him in the left hand.

“My body was going game speed, and my arm was going batting-practice speed,” Donnelly said. “I had to slow down, get my body in control.”

Once he did -- after giving up Scott Hatteberg’s single and Adam Melhuse’s RBI single -- Donnelly struck out Esteban German and Mike Rouse to end the inning, looking more like the All-Star setup man from 2003 instead of the erratic hurler from the film “Bull Durham.”

“He made some real good pitches, and his velocity was good,” Manager Mike Scioscia said after the Angels’ 5-2 split-squad victory over the A’s. “There’s no question about him being healthy.”

Donnelly, who was 2-2 with a 1.58 earned-run average in 63 games last season, underwent surgery this winter to remove bone chips from his throwing elbow and clean up cartilage in his left knee.

He pitched much of 2003 with elbow pain and compounded his problems in August when while running, he caught a spike in a rubber mat and twisted his knee.

“Once I got warmed up [last season] and the blood was flowing, the chips would start floating and I was fine,” Donnelly said. “But when it was cold, it really hurt. Getting warmed up was the hard part.”

Donnelly spent three hours during the day before a night game treading water in a pool in an effort to keep his arm loose. But since surgery, “I won’t have to do that any more,” he said. “I wake up every day and can straighten out my arm. I’m excited.”

He’s not overconfident, though. After laboring 10 years in the minors before getting his first crack at the big leagues, Donnelly is not assuming he’ll begin this season as closer Troy Percival’s primary setup man.

“I never feel secure in a job.... You have to prove yourself every year,” Donnelly said. “It took me so ... long to get here, I’m not taking anything for granted.”

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Aaron Sele struggled a bit with his mechanics and didn’t have great command of his curveball, but the right-hander was pleased with his two-inning, one-run, three-hit performance Sunday against Oakland.

David Eckstein homered off Barry Zito to open the first, and Jared Abruzzo had two hits and two runs batted in for the Angels.

Percival, slowed by a degenerative hip injury for much of the second half last season, looked sharp in his inning, striking out Mark Kotsay and retiring Eric Byrnes and Eric Chavez on fly balls. Bobby Jenks threw three shutout innings to gain the victory.

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Catcher Bengie Molina, who is experiencing what Sciosca described as “general stiffness,” was scratched Sunday night for the second game in a row.... Jarrod Washburn threw two hitless innings, walking three and striking out two, as the Angels won the second of Sunday’s split-squad games, 6-3.... Center fielder Garret Anderson’s recovery from biceps tendinitis near his right (non-throwing) shoulder is going slower than expected.

The Angels hoped that Anderson would play Sunday. But he has been unable to swing a bat for several days and is not expected to play until later this week.