Tropeano continues to step up for Angels

ARLINGTON — The Angels’ Nos. 1 and 2 starters when the season began won’t return until August, if they’re lucky. Their second-highest-paid player hasn’t pitched in an official game all year, including Spring Training. And the young, promising starting pitcher they have been waiting on for 21 months isn’t currently allowed to throw off a mound.

And yet, somehow, the Angels’ rotation is persevering.

Nick Tropeano held a dangerous Rangers lineup scoreless through 6 2/3 innings on Monday, pacing the Angels’ 2-0 victory and dropping his ERA to 2.86 in nine starts. The Angels’ rotation has a 3.00 ERA over the last 11 games, the fourth-best mark in the Major Leagues — even though Garrett Richards, Andrew Heaney, C.J. Wilson and Tyler Skaggs are not a part of it.

“Coming into the spring, we had eight guys fighting for those spots, and we were all capable of pitching here,” Tropeano said. “And we all know it. It kind of fuels us. We fuel each other.”

There was a time, not too long ago, when the Angels weren’t sure how they would get through this season.

Richards and Heaney were tending to tears in their ulnar collateral ligaments, Skaggs was shut down in the late stages of his recovery from August 2014 Tommy John surgery, and Wilson hadn’t overcome the shoulder woes that …

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