Angels struggle to fill holes in patchwork bullpen

OAKLAND -- The game was still close in the sixth inning Tuesday night when Angels Manager Mike Scioscia turned to his bullpen with two on and two outs and the Oakland Athletics leading by two runs. What happened next was almost predictable.

Left-hander Nick Maronde walked John Jaso and threw a wild pitch, allowing one run to score. He then fell behind Adam Rosales before walking him intentionally to load the bases.

Scioscia summoned right-hander Barry Enright to face Seth Smith, who crushed a three-run triple to cap a four-run inning, and the A’s went on to a 10-6 victory.

With Ryan Madson, Kevin Jepsen, Sean Burnett and Mark Lowe on the disabled list, the Angels have relied on the likes of Maronde, Enright, Dane De La Rosa and Michael Roth in key situations.

There have been small pockets of success, but mostly failure. The Angels bullpen has combined for a 4.26 earned run average in 95 innings, allowing 27 of 57 inherited runners to score and blowing five of eight save opportunities.

“When you put a guy in, you’re putting him in with confidence he’s going to do the job, but it’s not happening right now,” Scioscia said. “Right now it’s frustrating to not be able to match up the way we need to, to not have some of the guys we know can hold leads for us. But these guys are better pitchers than they’ve shown, and we need to get whoever is down there on the beam.”

Roth was sent back to triple-A Salt Lake on Tuesday, and Maronde, who was impressive after a September promotion last season, compiling a 1.50 ERA in 12 games, was optioned to double-A Arkansas after Tuesday night’s game.

“That was rough,” Scioscia said of Maronde. “We had high hopes for him coming out of last season -- we thought he pitched well and had great mound presence. He had a rough spring training where he struggled with a lot of things as far as his command and his breaking ball, and he just hasn’t put it together.”

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