Angels Are Set Up for a Fall

There is no guarantee Brendan Donnelly or Scot Shields would have shut down the Boston Red Sox in the seventh inning of a tie game Sunday.

The two Angel setup men combined to give up 13 earned runs over 8 2/3 innings in 10 appearances last week, and a Red Sox lineup full of crushers has been known to knock the wheat, as well as the chaff, of opposing bullpens with equal ferocity.

Still, there seemed to be an air of finality in Fenway Park when Angel Manager Mike Scioscia, determined to give the heavily used Donnelly and Shields a day off, turned to rookies Jake Woods and Joel Peralta when starter Jarrod Washburn, game but wilting on a muggy, 84-degree afternoon, departed after the sixth inning.

Sure enough, the Red Sox rallied for three seventh-inning runs and a 6-3 victory in front of an announced sellout crowd of 35,008, Mark Bellhorn knocking in the go-ahead run with a sacrifice fly and David Ortiz providing insurance with a two-out, two-run double.

“Donnelly and Shields are the guys we would normally use in that situation, but there just comes a time when you have to take a step back,” Scioscia said. “We can’t have a three-man bullpen.... If we’re going to play a lot of tight games, some other guys have to go in there and make pitches and get outs.”

Esteban Yan was supposed to provide the bulk of those pitches, spelling Shields and Donnelly on the days they were down, but the right-hander entered Sunday with a 5.40 earned-run average and has been so inconsistent and unreliable he has descended into a highly paid (two years, $2.25 million) mop-up man.

Donnelly and Shields each pitched in five of the previous seven games, and Scioscia said he would use them Sunday only “if something wacky happened, like a 15-inning game.”

So when Washburn, whose only blemish was a three-run fourth inning that featured Kevin Millar’s run-scoring double, Bill Mueller’s RBI single and John Olerud’s sacrifice fly, tired after six, Scioscia summoned Woods, a left-hander who hadn’t pitched in a game since May 27.

Woods hit Mueller with a pitch, gave up a single to Olerud and was pulled in favor of Peralta, a right-hander who was recalled from triple-A Salt Lake on May 23 and showed promise, giving up one hit in 5 2/3 scoreless innings in four games.

But Peralta gave up a single to Jay Payton to load the bases, and Bellhorn’s sacrifice fly gave Boston a 4-3 lead. Peralta struck out Edgar Renteria with a sweeping curve, but up stepped Ortiz, whose 2005 rap sheet already included 13 home runs and 44 RBIs.

Peralta induced a fly to left on a fastball down and away from Ortiz in the ninth inning of Saturday’s 13-6 Angel victory, and he tried to repeat the pitch Sunday.

This time Ortiz, whose walk-off, two-run homer off Washburn in Game 3 of the 2004 American League division series clinched a three-game sweep for the Red Sox, lined it to the gap in left-center for a two-run double and a 6-3 lead.

“That’s a tough situation to throw a kid into,” Washburn said. “I’ve proven [Ortiz] is not a fun guy to face when the game is on the line. But it’s good that Mike had the confidence to throw [Peralta] into that situation. It’s going to do nothing but help him.”

Peralta struck out cleanup batter Manny Ramirez to end the inning, and Yan, after walking Millar to open the eighth, struck out Jason Varitek and got Mueller to hit into an inning-ending double play, a relatively clean inning the Angels hope Yan can build on.

“We think these arms will play well in these roles, and we have confidence in them,” Scioscia said of Woods, Peralta and Yan. “This was the first time in a while they’ve pitched in a close game, but that’s not a reflection on us thinking they can’t. They didn’t get the job done today, but we feel they’re going to give us depth.”

With the ineffective Kevin Gregg having been demoted to triple-A Salt Lake and Bret Prinz on the disabled list, the Angels’ bullpen fortunes could hinge on Yan. If he’s effective, the Angels go four deep; if not, they’ll rely more on the relatively untested Peralta and Woods.

“He usually works into his velocity, and he’s getting through some mechanical issues,” Scioscia said of Yan. “I like the way he threw the ball today. Hopefully that will translate into him getting where he needs to be.”