Salt Lake Bees reliever Jason Bulger admits he pitched most of the 2008 season with a chip on his shoulder after the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim assigned him to Triple-A early in the year.

"I wanted to be up there [in the Majors] like everyone else," the 29-year-old righthander from Georgia said. "So I pitched with a little bit of a grudge. I was going to prove that I deserved to be in the Majors."

The attitude worked.

Bulger had a stellar season with the Bees, going 4-0 with 16 saves, a 0.63 ERA in 37 appearances and 75 strikeouts in only 43 innings. His performance earned him the MiLBY as top reliever in Triple-A.

Bulger was sent to Salt Lake in late April after five appearances with the Angels during which, he conceded, he "got hit around."

"[Angels pitching coach] Mike Butcher sat down and had a talk with me," Bulger recalled. "He said he liked my stuff, but that I needed a different mental approach to the game.

"I really took that to heart. I decided I was going to be as aggressive as possible. Once I had a couple of good outings [at Salt Lake], things started to build from there."

In his first outing with the Bees, he fanned four in two hitless innings, keeping the Fresno Grizzlies at bay and giving his team a chance to rally for an 8-7, 10-inning win.

Overall, he struck out four in appearances of two innings or fewer on six different occasions during the season. On June 27, he fanned four in 1 2/3 hitless frames and picked up the save in a 9-5 triumph over the Tacoma Rainiers.

"I wasn't throwing it any harder," said Bulger, who has been clocked in the low- to mid-90s. "I was being a little smarter in certain counts and a lot more aggressive. It was just location and mentality."

From May 22-Aug. 8, the 210-pound right-hander pitched 25 consecutive scoreless innings. He yielded only 14 hits and eight walks while striking out 48 batters.

The Angels recalled him in late August and he made nine appearances in the Majors. His best outing came on Sept. 6 in a 7-6, 15-inning loss to the Chicago White Sox during which he struck out five over three hitless frames.

In 14 big-league games, Bulger was 0-0 with a 7.31 ERA and 20 strikeouts in 16 innings. Selected by the Diamondbacks in the first round of the 2001 First-Year Player Draft out of Georgia's Valdosta State University, he was traded to the Angels in February 2006 for second baseman Alberto Callaspo.

"I had a couple of struggles at the end of the year because I lost some mechanics," he explained. "But I'm putting that in the back of my mind. I'm going to take the exact same mental approach I had this year into the next Spring Training."