Angels Have Choices to Make

The manager who preaches aggressiveness has been curiously cautious.

The two starting pitchers with 29 wins have struggled, and the bullpen that is among baseball’s best hasn’t pitched like it.

The versatile little infielder/outfielder who was so valuable in compensating for the injuries of summer has failed to convert the key plays of fall, and a team priding itself on doing the little things has done virtually none of them.

The cumulative effect is 17-6, the Angels thrashed by the Boston Red Sox in the first two games of the division series and now within one loss of teeing up an off-season in which they face two decisions that may be more daunting than winning three in a row from the soaring Red Sox.

Do they re-sign Troy Percival or let him leave as a free agent and move Francisco Rodriguez into the closer role?

Do they re-sign Troy Glaus or let him leave as a free agent and turn third base over to Dallas McPherson?

There has been no clear-cut indication as to which way the Angels are leaning, but if owner Arte Moreno is determined to knock $15 million or so off his $110-million payroll beyond the $12 million he paid the long-gone Kevin Appier and the $8.5 million he paid Aaron Sele this year, then Glaus and Percival represent an additional $16.5-million saving based on their 2004 salaries.

Of course, they also represent proven commodities while Rodriguez and McPherson are still the unknown for all of their potential -- McPherson being a defensive work in progress who struck out a chilling 186 times in addition to those eye-popping 43 homers from Arkansas to Anaheim this year and the high-octane Rodriguez remaining what pitching coach Bud Black suggests is a Warren Zevon recording come to life (“You know,” said Black, “ ‘Excitable Boy’ ”), who blew seven of 19 saves when given the opportunity to close.

Do the Angels gamble on the come line?

Or do they opt for the reliability of the still-evolving Percival, who converted 33 of 38 save opportunities in the year he turned 35, and the edge-of-your-seat power of Glaus, whose two doubles and prodigious homer in Game 1 against the Red Sox spoke to his 50-homer pace in a season disrupted by shoulder surgery?

The suspicion is that the Angels are prepared to take the risk with a decision that seems penny safe and pound foolish.

The suspicion is that unless the Angels can overcome the productivity of the Red Sox and hostility of Fenway Park to extend the series to Game 5, Percival and Glaus have worn the uniform for the final time in Anaheim, having walked out of the home clubhouse for the last time after Game 2.

If that’s what it was, a potentially less than auspicious adieu, both insisted it wasn’t what they were thinking about while emphasizing again they are what they are -- Percival a closer to the end and Glaus a third baseman forced to serve as designated hitter only because of the surgery.

The point being that if the Angels have other roles in mind it isn’t going to happen.

Said Glaus: “This is acceptable for now, but I’m not ready yet to be a full-time DH or anything else. I’m a third baseman, it’s that simple.”

Said Percival: “I don’t intend to be anyone’s setup man. I’ve proven over my career and again this year what I can do in that [closer] role.”

Two weeks ago, leaving the bullpen at Angel Stadium as he marched in to save a critical victory over the Oakland A’s, Percival heard fans shout “don’t leave, don’t leave.”

He has yet to pitch in the division series, and the fans seem preoccupied by the 0-2 deficit.

“People realize where we’re at and what we’re trying to get done,” Percival said. “It’s not the time to be sentimental right now, and worrying about my own situation is the last thing on my mind. What’s the saying ... if the future doesn’t come to you then you’ve got to wait.”

The only thing the Angels have told Percival and Glaus about the future is that their situation will be discussed after the season’s final game.

“All that stuff will take care of itself down the road,” Glaus said Wednesday night, sitting in an empty Angel clubhouse. “This is a little more pressing. These games are why I busted my behind [in therapy] to get back this year.

“I wouldn’t have even thought about the possibility of this being my last game here if you hadn’t mentioned it.”

Tonight, of course, could be the last game for Glaus and Percival with the Angels anywhere.

They would never have thought the club would lose both games at home, particularly in such an ugly fashion.

“We can play with anyone when we play our game, including Boston,” said Percival, “but we haven’t played our game, and that’s disappointing.”

Jarrod Washburn and Bartolo Colon struggled as the starters in the first two games, the usually dependable bullpen coughed up important runs, Chone Figgins made costly fielding plays in each game at two positions, and Mike Scioscia set a defensive tone with his lineup choices in Game 1 before bypassing his usual aggressiveness to call for a series of sacrifice bunts in Game 2, almost all leaving the impression that the Angels belonged in the instructional league.

“Those are the things we do so well,” Darin Erstad said. “It’s frustrating not to be able to do them now.”

The result is that the Angels are on the precipice of elimination, and Glaus and Percival are at the precipice, period.

“You’ve always got to be emotional about your own,” Moreno was saying about the two homegrown players before Game 1, “and all that will play into [our decision]. But at the end of the day we’ll let the baseball people make the call.”

If they haven’t made it already.

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Throwing Away Troys?

If Troy Percival, above, and Troy Glaus, left, become part of off-season payroll reductions, the Angels will lose two of their longest-term players, both having been developed by the club’s farm system. Their career records:

TROY PERCIVAL

*--* Year G IP W-L SV SO BB ERA 1995 62 74.0 3-2 3 94 26 1.95 1996 62 74.0 0-2 36 100 31 2.31 1997 55 52.0 5-5 27 72 22 3.46 1998 67 66.2 2-7 42 87 37 3.65 1999 60 57.0 4-6 31 58 22 3.79 2000 54 50.0 5-5 32 49 30 4.50 2001 57 57.2 4-2 39 71 18 2.65 2002 58 56.1 4-1 40 68 25 1.92 2003 52 49.1 0-5 33 48 23 3.47 2004 52 49.2 2-3 33 33 19 2.90 Totals 579 586.2 29-38 316 680 253 2.99

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TROY GLAUS

*--* Year G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BA 1998 48 165 19 36 9 0 1 23 218 1999 154 551 85 132 29 0 29 79 240 2000 159 563 120 160 37 1 47 102 284 2001 161 588 100 147 38 2 41 108 250 2002 156 569 99 142 24 1 30 111 250 2003 91 319 53 79 17 2 16 50 248 2004 58 207 47 52 11 1 18 42 251 Totals 827 2962 523 748 165 7 182 515 253

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