Escobar Has Pain in Defeat

A wholly uninspiring afternoon of baseball went from bad to worse for the Angels, who lost to the Cleveland Indians, 9-3, in front of an announced 35,508 in Angel Stadium on Wednesday and may have lost one of their most consistent starting pitchers in the process.

Right-hander Kelvim Escobar said his elbow was “very sore” after giving up four runs and six hits in five innings and somehow striking out nine despite “not being even 80% of the guy I know,” he said.

Escobar, who sat out the first half of spring training because of shoulder tightness and the first three weeks of the season because of an elbow sprain, said the pain he experienced Wednesday was in the back of the elbow, in a different area from his sprain.

But Escobar also said his discomfort is very similar to the feeling he experienced when he had bone chips in his elbow, a condition with which he has pitched parts of three seasons. He had surgery to remove bone chips in 1997 and was sidelined for six weeks.

Escobar, whose fastball dipped from its normal 94 mph to about 89 mph Wednesday, is expected to undergo X-rays and an MRI test, and it’s possible he’ll go on the disabled list or be forced to skip a start. If he continues to pitch, he will use anti-inflammatory medication and get elbow treatments.

“Sometimes the chips move around and they don’t bother you, but if they get stuck in a nerve, that’s when it gets sore,” Escobar said. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep pitching. I don’t want to go on the DL. And the last thing I want is surgery, because that would knock me out for six or seven weeks.”

If Escobar is put on the DL, the Angels would have the option of moving reliever Kevin Gregg into the rotation and recalling Chris Bootcheck from triple-A Salt Lake to fill Gregg’s bullpen spot, or promoting right-hander Dustin Moseley, who is 2-1 with a 6.23 earned-run average at Salt Lake, or Bootcheck into the Angel rotation.

“We’ll consider what’s in his best interests and our best interests,” Manager Mike Scioscia said of Escobar. “If we have to push him back or shut him down for a bit, we’ll look at those options.”

Escobar said he felt some discomfort in his previous start against Detroit on Friday and felt it again as he warmed up before Wednesday’s game. The elbow worsened throughout a 91-pitch effort in which Escobar gave up a second-inning homer to Ben Broussard and three runs and five hits in the fourth and fifth innings.

“It was sore, but it was good enough to compete,” Escobar said. “Not to the level I’m capable of, but when you’re out there, you don’t want to come out.”

Even without command of or velocity on his fastball, Escobar used a good changeup and split-fingered fastball to strike out the side in the first inning and add six more strikeouts before giving way to reliever Esteban Yan. Yan gave up three runs in two innings, and the Indians turned a 4-3 lead into a 7-3 advantage.

“I don’t know how I punched out nine guys; that was crazy,” Escobar said. “But it’s no fun going out there and not being 100%. You can’t be Superman.”

The Angels flexed some muscle early, with Garret Anderson’s run-scoring single in the first inning and Jose Molina’s two-run homer in the second giving them a 3-1 lead, but then Indian left-hander Cliff Lee began tossing kryptonite, retiring 13 in a row from the second through sixth innings.

Cleveland left fielder Coco Crisp, who was seven for 11 with two homers and three doubles in the three-game series, sparked a two-run rally against Yan with a leadoff double in the sixth and drove in a run with a single in the seventh.

Adding more injury to insult, Angel center fielder Steve Finley left the game in the seventh because of tightness in his left groin, a condition Finley said he didn’t believe was serious enough to knock him out of the lineup.

Jhonny Peralta and Casey Blake each hit home runs against left-hander Jake Woods in the eighth, and the slumping Angels completed a 2-4 homestand against Detroit and Cleveland. Still, they remain 1 1/2 games ahead of Texas in the American League West.

“We know sooner or later we’ll break out and score some runs,” Finley said. “No one is hanging their heads.”

The Angels can only hope the same goes for Escobar’s elbow.