Starter Dustin Moseley left Wednesday's game against the New York Yankees after five innings, and the arms race began.
The Angels sent out a quartet of power arms that not only preserved the Angels' division-clinching, 4-2 victory but bore a striking resemblance to the team's dominant bullpen of 2002, when Ben Weber, Brendan Donnelly, Francisco Rodriguez and Troy Percival helped fuel the Angels' World Series run.
Kevin Jepsen, with a fastball that hit 97 mph on the Angel Stadium speed gun, replaced Moseley and retired Derek Jeter, Bobby Abreu and Alex Rodriguez in order in the sixth in his second big league appearance.
Jose Arredondo came on for the seventh, and after walking Jason Giambi to open the inning, the right-hander retired the next three batters, two by strikeout, to lower his earned-run average to 1.38 for the season.
Setup man Scot Shields retired the side in order in the eighth, two by strikeout, and Rodriguez, after giving up a two-out walk to Giambi and a bloop single to right-center by Xavier Nady, whiffed Hideki Matsui on a changeup for his 56th save, moving him to within one of Bobby Thigpen's major league record of 57, set in 1990 for the Chicago White Sox.
"The bullpen did it today," Manager Mike Scioscia said. "When you have arms like Jepsen, Arredondo, Shields and Frankie, that's four pretty good power arms you can roll out there, and they did it like clockwork. They went six, seven, eight, nine, and held onto the lead. That's an important part of our club."
Rodriguez, Shields and Arredondo are known commodities, but Jepsen, a 6-foot-3, 220-pound right-hander, might be the most intriguing of the bunch.
Fresh off his stint with the U.S. Olympic team in Beijing, the right-hander has showed the kind of live arm that will make him a very viable candidate for struggling reliever Justin Speier's playoff roster spot.
Because of his outstanding stuff and baseball's unfamiliarity with him, Jepsen could be something of an X-factor in the postseason, probably not along the lines of Rodriguez's playoff dominance after his mid-September call-up in 2002 but enough to have an impact.
Both Jepsen and right-hander Jason Bulger, who threw three perfect innings in Sunday's victory over the White Sox, will vie for a spot on the playoff roster.
"He has a power arm, no doubt about it," Scioscia said of Jepsen. "It doesn't serve any purpose to compare him to what Frankie did in 2002, but there's certainly going to be an opportunity. . . . We wouldn't hesitate taking some young guys and moving forward with them if we feel it gives us the best look."
mike.digiovanna@latimes.com
