Quest for Relief : Percival Finds Role in Bullpen With Angels

Troy Percival has emerged as one of the Angels’ top relief pitchers this season because he is hitting spots all over the strike zone with his wicked fastball and curve.

That might amaze those who saw Percival in the spring of 1993. About all the right-hander could hit then was batters--and bats.

Percival’s spring-training line read like something out of the Ryne Duren School of Pitching: Six innings pitched, seven hits, 14 earned runs, seven walks and four hit batters.

In a one-third-inning stint against the San Diego Padres, Percival hit three batters and walked three more.

“Two years ago, I would have never projected being here,” said Percival, who is 1-0 with a 4.63 ERA and 15 strikeouts in 11 2/3 innings. “I was so wild. Some of my pitches were like three and four feet off the plate.”

Angel coaches couldn’t understand how this converted catcher, who had pitched so well the previous season at double-A Midland, where he was 3-0 with a 2.37 ERA, could be so wild.

What they didn’t know was that the elbow on Percival’s throwing arm was killing him.

Percival thought he could make the team that year and, like many youngsters, didn’t want an injury to hinder his chances. So he kept his mouth shut and tried not to wince. Problem is, it’s not easy pitching when you have no feeling in your fingers.

Percival began 1993 at triple-A Vancouver, where his elbow got worse. He’d ice his arm from the fifth through eighth innings, then go to the bullpen to warm up. He’d walk around the mound after every pitch, trying to muster the strength for his next delivery.

The anti-inflammatory pills he took for his arm made his stomach bleed, and one night in Portland, about two months into the season, he figured enough was enough.

“I was throwing 78, 79 m.p.h.,” Percival said. “I threw three straight fastballs to Billy Ashley and he lined out to short. He got back to the dugout and told his teammates I threw three straight changeups. I don’t even throw a changeup. I threw my glove down and knew then I needed to have surgery. . . . It was the best thing that ever happened.”

Percival underwent elbow surgery to remove ligament calcification.

“I woke up the next day and could feel my fingers,” he recalled.

Nine months later, Percival rediscovered the strike zone. He spent the 1994 season at Vancouver, going 2-6 with a team-leading 15 saves and a 4.12 ERA, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio improved to 73-29.

Though the Angels signed Lee Smith to be their bullpen ace, Percival showed Manager Marcel Lachemann this spring that his 95-m.p.h. fastball, snappy curve and command of both pitches were ready for the major leagues.

Smith has been the clear-cut closer, with an American League-leading 10 saves, but Percival has been the team’s stopper, the guy who is called in the seventh and eighth innings of close games with runners on base.

Percival was shaky Sunday, allowing three runs in the eighth inning against the Chicago White Sox, but he had retired two batters with the bases loaded in the seventh.

More typical of his season was an appearance last Thursday, when he struck out Minnesota’s Scott Stahoviak in the sixth inning to snuff the Twins’ seven-run rally, then struck out four during a scoreless seventh and eighth in the Angels’ 15-9 victory.

Percival, a 6-foot-3, 200-pounder who generates much of his power from his muscular thighs, struck out the three batters he faced against Seattle on May 5 and three of the four batters he faced against Minnesota on May 16.

Ted Simmons, a special assignment scout for the Cleveland Indians, who are in the market for a closer, liked what he saw of Percival in Minnesota.

“He’s known--it’s not like I’ve found a diamond in the rough,” said Simmons, who was also scouting Smith and Minnesota’s Rick Aguilera. “He’s been projected [as a closer] for a long time and seems to have recovered from his arm surgery.

“He bangs the [speed] gun at a very high rate, he throws strikes, and he doesn’t walk people. That’s how you get to the major leagues and stay there.”

Percival has walked only four this season and has shown few ill effects from the game-winning, two-run homer he gave up to Kansas City’s Gary Gaetti on his only pitch in the bottom of the ninth inning May 13.

“I’ve had so much adversity coming up because of my arm, I’m not going to let one home run faze me,” Percival, 25, said. “It upset me for a little while, but I got over it.”

As the Angels’ closer of the future, Percival must learn to cope with such setbacks, and who better to learn from than the unflappable Smith, who has saved a record 444 games in the major leagues?

“He told me you can’t let someone beat you with one swing,” Percival said. “I threw Gaetti a belt-high fastball but should have thrown something different. You know he can turn on a fastball.”

Percival didn’t feel slighted when the Angels signed Smith. The closer role may be the toughest, most stressful job in baseball, and few teams entrust rookies with such a responsibility.

As long as the Angels are using Percival in close games--and they are--he’s happy to be part of Lee Smith’s mentor program.

“I’d love to close, but the amount I’ve learned listening to Lee, I couldn’t get that somewhere else,” Percival said. “I’m sure I might get a chance [to close] if Lee is tired, but even if I don’t, I don’t ever want to lose the closer’s mentality.”