Angels

In normal circumstances, it's the bullpen that comes to the aid of a starting pitcher. But there's nothing normal about the circumstances surrounding the Angels' pitching staff these days. So Manager Mike Scioscia said Friday he'll try to right the staff with the second-highest earned-run average in baseball by using one of his starters to bail out his ailing relief corps, moving right-hander Garrett Richards from the rotation to the back of the bullpen. Right-handed Jerome Williams will start in Richards' place Sunday.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Bring on the next bunch of disappointing, underachieving, gagging local athletes. And so it goes with our Trojans, Lakers, Clippers and even the Bruins losing their last three. So much promise, raised expectations and then a quick goodbye to all. The Kings? The who? Oh yeah, I hear they're down already, 2-0. Thank heavens for the grandchildren. They are waiting at home, in for a visit from Arizona, and they don't give a lick about the power trip referee Joe Crawford is on, disturbed fans in Memphis or a visit with the Choking Dogs on Monday night.

More than a month into the season, Angels Manager Mike Scioscia admits he's still not sure what kind of team he has. That's understandable, because he really hasn't seen his team much. "It's tough to evaluate exactly what our team's going to be because the team hasn't been out there," said Scioscia, who has lost his top starter, the left side of his infield and his starting center fielder and leading hitter to injuries in April. "So it's tough to say, 'Well, this will happen or that will happen.'" It would have been extra tough to predict all the things that happened in the Angels' 5-1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on Thursday, mainly because many of them hadn't happened all season.

May Day protesters marched down streets across the country Wednesday, calling on lawmakers to provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants who have entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas. The crowds numbered in the thousands, not the hundreds of thousands who turned out for the historic immigration marches of 2006. But with a major immigration package being debated in Washington, reform advocates wanted their voices heard. "Listen up, Obama: We are in the fight," people chanted in Spanish in Los Angeles and Chicago.

A federal court judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power against a state agency it claimed was illegally forcing the city to waste billions of gallons of precious High Sierra water to control dust on dry Owens Lake. U.S. District Court Judge Anthony W. Ishii determined that the issues are for state courts to decide because the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District is a state agency. The DWP has a similar challenge pending in state court.

The Angels' bullpen has been bruised and battered this season. And there's a chance things could get worse before they get better. Two of the four relievers on the disabled list - right-handers Ryan Madson (Tommy John surgery) and Kevin Jepsen (shoulder strain) - threw lightly on flat ground Thursday, the first time either of them has thrown in two weeks. But because neither has a timetable for getting back on a mound, it's likely both pitchers are weeks away from being reactivated.

Chris Iannetta noted nothing valiant about catching all 19 innings of the Angels' 10-8 loss to the Oakland Athletics on Monday night, not when the lasting image from that grueling night of work was the A's swarming home plate to celebrate Brandon Moss' game-winning two-run home run to right field. "It's a loss, and it stinks," Iannetta said. "You never want to lose, especially when you have every opportunity to win. We had a five-run lead and that disappeared. We scored a run to go ahead in the 15th and made errors and lost the lead.

OAKLAND -- A strong scent of desperation was in the air Wednesday in the Oakland Coliseum, where Angels Manager Mike Scioscia, his bullpen options limited by injury and ineffectiveness, went to extreme lengths to win a game Scioscia left starter C.J. Wilson in long enough to throw 123 pitches, a decision the left-hander rewarded by rebounding from a 36-pitch first inning to give up two runs and six hits in 61/3 innings and escape...

- The Angels have sweat out harrowing late-inning moments in most of their 10 victories this season, but they could have made things a lot easier on themselves Wednesday had they not run into two outs on the bases in the eighth inning. Erick Aybar opened the inning with a single and was thrown out trying to steal, the seventh time in 17 tries the Angels have been thrown out stealing. Mike Trout tripled to center field and scored on Albert Pujols' sacrifice fly to give the Angels a 5-2 lead over the Oakland Athletics.

OAKLAND - The Angels are a mess. There's really no other way to put it. Their ace, three of their top relievers and their third baseman are on the disabled list. They got their shortstop back from the DL on Tuesday but lost their center fielder and productive leadoff batter to a hamstring strain. Their rotation is thin, their bullpen is thinner, and their mercurial right fielder, the one they invested $125 million in last December, looked completely lost at the plate for most of April.