Angels hope to give busy bullpen a break

Reporting from arlington, texas —  The Angels’ bullpen has been many things this season.

Dependable. Stingy. Resilient.

How about overworked? Well, maybe not yet. But the trend is heading in that direction.

“It would be unrealistic to think that we can keep pitching these guys as much as we have,” manager Mike Scioscia said. “I don’t think that’s going to work.”

Before Wednesday, the Angels had six relievers who had appeared in at least half of the team’s first 12 games.

To understand how aggressive that pace is consider that this franchise never has had a reliever pitch in more than 78 games in a season. That record was set by Scot Shields in 2005.

“Definitely concerned,” Scioscia said. “It’s always a focal point. … You know how important that bullpen is, not just keeping them healthy but effective.”

Through a dozen games, Angels relievers led the American League in innings pitched and were second in earned-run average and batting average against.

The biggest issue has been the lack of innings provided by the rotation. The Angels have only three quality starts, two by rookie Shohei Ohtani.

On Wednesday, another rookie, Jaime Barria, gave up one hit, a Ryan Rua home run, through five innings but was pulled before reaching the minimum requirements of a quality start.

“We know that we cannot maintain the pace that we had the first week,” Scioscia said. “We don’t believe we’ll have to. We feel that we’ll start to get that length out of our starters to where we’re getting those 17-, 18-, 19-out starts.”

Matt Shoemaker has more tests

The update on Matt Shoemaker is there isn’t much of an update, which isn’t great news for the Angels. More testing still has not revealed the source of what the team has called a right forearm strain.

Put on the disabled list retroactive to April 1, Shoemaker underwent tests that didn’t show any new nerve irritation. An MRI exam also revealed nothing significantly wrong.

He will continue to receive treatment and have another nerve conduction test in a few weeks.

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