Angels believe that all is not lost because of season-ending injury to pitcher Garrett Richards

No on-the-mend free agent or pitcher who has been designated for assignment — think Tim Lincecum, Kyle Lohse, John Danks — would measure up to Garrett Richards, the Angels ace who is expected to undergo elbow ligament-replacement surgery and be out until the middle of 2017.

The Angels could trade for a back-of-the-rotation starter, but there’s not enough in their depleted farm system to acquire a front-end pitcher like Richards.

“Replacing Garrett Richards, a talent like that … is impossible,” Angels closer Huston Street said. “But there are all sorts of ways to win a baseball game.”

Street’s point: It’s going to take a village to replace their most dominant starter, and it starts with an attitude similar to the one the Angels adopted in the last six weeks of 2014, when they went 23-14 and won the American League West after losing Richards, then a Cy Young Award candidate, to a knee injury Aug. 20.

“The key for us is you can’t dwell, you can’t feel sorry for yourself,” said Street, who is on the disabled list because of an oblique strain. “There are no excuses. We still have a chance this season.”

Winning the division by 10 games in 2014 after the loss of Richards and Tyler Skaggs, who suffered a season-ending elbow injury that July 31, showed character.

The Angels were just as resilient in 2015, when they overcame a mid-season front-office shakeup and a 10-19 August to extend their playoff hopes until the final day of the season.

“I do think makeup is a strength of this team,” Street said. “We have a bunch of guys who are not going to feel sorry for themselves. I’ve seen teams do that. They have injuries early and they start losing a lot of games they could have won.

“I don’t know if it’s because at 3 p.m. they were too busy feeling sorry for themselves or talking about what could have been. The good teams don’t talk about what could have been. They talk about what needs to be. There’s plenty of teams that have made the playoffs with lots of injuries.”

The Angels had eight rotation candidates in January. They are down to three healthy starters — Hector Santiago, Jered Weaver and Nick Tropeano. They’ll need two more starters this week, for Wednesday’s game against St. Louis and Saturday’s game at Seattle.

Cory Rasmus, who gave up five runs in 2 1/3 innings Friday night, and triple-A pitchers Matt Shoemaker and Nate Smith are the leading in-house candidates.

“This is what the big leagues is about, people stepping up,” Street said. “That’s how we all got our chance. A slot opened up. Someone either got hurt or wasn’t pitching well enough.”

That’s how Street went from a rookie middle reliever to a 22-year-old closer for Oakland in 2005. Veteran Octavio Dotel suffered an elbow injury in mid-May, Street took over and finished with a 1.72 earned-run average and 23 saves. He has been closing ever since, with 320 saves to his credit.

One key to his success was he didn’t try to be more than he could be. The same should go for the pitchers replacing Richards.

“You’re not trying to fill in for Garrett,” Street said. “You’re trying to do the best you can do.”

Improved production from an offense that entered Saturday ranked 12th in the league in on-base-plus-slugging percentage (.686) and 10th in runs (107) would ease some of the burden on the rotation.

A bullpen that ranked fourth in the AL with a 2.68 ERA and third with a .212 batting average against must continue to support the starters.

“You can’t ask any more out of a player; you can only ask for what they’re capable of doing,” Manager Mike Scioscsia said. “You can’t say, ‘This guy is banged up on the pitching side, so we need to score more runs.’ ”

Star center fielder Mike Trout said the Angels must try to avoid the mentality of trying to “step up” to make up for the loss of Richards.

“If we try to get out of our element, that’s when we’re really going to get into trouble,” Trout said. “If we start pressing, trying to do too much … everyone in here knows our role. If we stick to our plan, the things we worked on this spring, we’ll be a winning ballclub.”

Follow Mike DiGiovanna on Twitter: @MikeDiGiovanna