These Donnelly Chips Have Been Down

DETROIT —  Brendan Donnelly just didn’t look right, and Saturday he finally admitted why. After the latest in a recent spell of shaky outings, the All-Star reliever said he plans to undergo postseason surgery to remove bone chips from his right elbow.

Donnelly said he has endured intermittent discomfort in the elbow for more than two months but waited until the last home stand to alert doctors to the condition.

“If we were in a pennant race, I never would have said anything,” he said.

Donnelly blew the save but received the victory in the Angels’ wacky 14-8 victory over the Detroit Tigers, who lost their 11th game in a row and 97th of the season.

The Angels scored eight runs in the final three innings of regulation and six more in the 10th. The Tigers used seven pitchers and the Angels scored against each, with Eric Owens tying a career high with five hits and Garret Anderson breaking an 8-8 tie with a two-run single.

Donnelly, the setup man to closer Troy Percival, earned acclaim by giving up two earned runs over his first 50 innings. He has given up eight earned runs in his last 13 2/3 innings.

The surgery is arthroscopic, and common for pitchers. Donnelly is expected to be ready for spring training.

After doctors examined him and evaluated X-rays, they assured him he could not worsen the injury by pitching and could continue to pitch so long as he could tolerate the discomfort in the elbow.

“I’ve got some chips floating around, and they probably went into some areas where they don’t belong,” he said.

Donnelly blames his recent spell of poor pitching on a flaw in his delivery -- not on the injury, and not on his heavy workload. He noted he first felt the discomfort in June, long before his current struggles, and said it is more of an issue as he starts to warm up than by the time he gets into a game.

“You’ve got to go out there with what you’ve got,” he said. “If it’s 80%, it’s 80%.”

Even with the Angels playing for next year, General Manager Bill Stoneman said he saw no reason to shut down Donnelly for the rest of this year.

“We always ask the doctors if continuing to throw is going to make matters worse. In this case, the answer was no,” Stoneman said. “There’s not really any downside if he feels good enough to throw.”

With the Angels’ top two relievers facing questions about their status -- Donnelly because of the pending elbow surgery and Percival because of a troublesome hip -- and with Scot Shields expected to contend for a job in the starting rotation, rookie Francisco Rodriguez could carry a considerable burden in the bullpen next season.

Those questions also could convince the Angels to offer arbitration to Ben Weber, retaining a healthy and proven reliever even if his salary could jump from $375,000 to the $1-million range.

On Saturday, the Angels fielded one of their worst regular-season lineups ever in a game before the September roster expansion. The lineup was only slightly better than the one that got no-hit by Eric Milton of the Minnesota Twins on Sept. 11, 1999, when interim manager Joe Maddon rested his regulars and fielded a lineup that included Bret Hemphill at catcher, Matt Luke at first base, Trent Durrington at second base, Andy Sheets at shortstop, Todd Greene in left field and Steve Decker at designated hitter.

Saturday’s lineup included two regulars, Anderson and Tim Salmon, reserves Owens, Jose Molina and Shawn Wooten and rookies Alfredo Amezaga, Chone Figgins, Robb Quinlan and Adam Riggs. But Manager Mike Scioscia played to win, clearing his bench by the eighth inning, and the Angels were an injury or ejection away from losing the designated hitter or using a pitcher in the field.

“[John] Lackey could have borrowed my glove,” Wooten said. “That would have been cool.”