Angels Run Out of Rallies : Finley Gets Little Support in Loss to White Sox, 6-3

It was business as usual for Chuck Finley at Anaheim Stadium Sunday.

Bad business.

The Angels, you will remember, are one of the hottest-hitting teams in baseball. Their team batting average over the last seven weeks is almost .300, and they’ve been scoring more than six runs a game in the last month.

Big swingers, all right, except when Finley steps on the mound. The left-hander has been the Angels’ most consistent starter this season, making it into the seventh inning in 14 of his 21 starts. The Angels’ offense--actually lack of offense--also has been consistent when Finley pitches. They have scored more than 5 runs only 4 times in those 21 games.

Sunday, the Angels added some sloppy defense to go with a lack of support, and Finley’s record fell to 6-10 as the White Sox beat the Angels, 6-3, in front of 24,240.

“This wasn’t Finley’s best performance, but he didn’t pitch too badly, either,” Manager Cookie Rojas said. “It seems like every time he pitches, the game’s close, 1-0 or 1-1. We never score early, and he never has any kind of lead to work with. He never has the chance to pace himself. He feels like he’s got to make every single pitch.”

The Angels did score first this time, giving Finley a 1-0 lead in the third when Bob Boone singled and Jack Howell doubled him home.

But the White Sox tied it in the fourth, thanks in part to a wild pitch by Finley. Steve Lyons singled, Harold Baines walked and both moved up on the wild pitch. Lyons scored on Carlton Fisk’s sacrifice fly.

Chicago took a 2-1 lead in the fifth when Dan Pasqua doubled, took third on Donnie Hill’s single and scored on a disputed play that Rojas said was one of two plays that made “a big difference in the game.”

Dave Gallagher grounded to first baseman Wally Joyner, who stepped on first and threw home. His throw appeared to beat Pasqua, but home plate umpire John Shulock ruled that Pasqua slid under Boone’s tag. Rojas came out to question the call, but he got no response from Shulock.

“He didn’t say one word to me,” Rojas said. “He never opened his mouth. I guess you can take it that he missed the call.”

Finley yielded back-to-back homers to Fisk and Kelly Paris (his first in the majors) in the sixth and Chicago led, 4-1.

“The one Fisk hit was a good pitch,” Finley said. “He’s a strong guy who can drive a ball a long way. The one to Paris was just a bad pitch, a fastball out over the plate.”

Finley knows that he can’t afford to make many mistakes, but he’s not going to complain about the lack of offense. Maybe, once in a while, he’ll allow himself a daydream about a big lead, though.

“My job is to keep it close and go as far as I can,” he said. “I kept us in the game and got into the eighth, so I guess I did a pretty good job. I like to pitch every game like it’s close, but, yeah, it would be nice to work with a lot of runs once in a while.”

The Angels parlayed Devon White’s single, Johnny Ray’s double, Brian Downing’s single and a forceout into two runs in the sixth. All the runs came off winner Dave LaPoint (9-11), who gave up six hits in the six innings he pitched.

But then the defense deteriorated in the eighth, wilting at the sight of Chicago’s most unlikely basepath terror--Fisk, a 40-year-old catcher.

Baines led off the inning with a single to left that chased Finley. Then Fisk hit a high bouncer that ricocheted off the bare hand of reliever Donnie Moore. Shortstop Dick Schofield picked it up and flipped to second baseman Ray for the forceout. Ray didn’t attempt a throw to first.

“Johnny just held the ball,” Rojas said. “I don’t think he knew who was running.”

Ray wasn’t the only one to hold the ball too long when faced with the awesome baserunning talents of Fisk.

After Paris singled to right and Fisk took third, Rojas called for a pitchout on the first pitch to Fred Manrique. This Cookie should tell fortunes. The White Sox had a squeeze play on, and Fisk was hung up halfway between third and home. Catcher Darrell Miller chased Fisk back toward third, chased him some more, and then, when Fisk was about 5 feet from the bag, threw the ball over the head of third baseman Gus Polidor.

“You guys saw it,” Miller said later. “I just didn’t execute the play properly. Fundamentally, you’d like to make one throw and get him going back to third. I was trying to get him to commit, to go hard back to third and I just got caught in between trying to tag him and making the throw.”

Fisk jogged home and Paris ended up on third. Paris scored one out later when Pasqua singled off the glove of the diving Polidor.

The Angels, as they have done so often lately, rallied in the ninth, loading the bases with two out. However, White Sox reliever Bobby Thigpen got his 24th save by getting White to fly to left to end the game.

“We can’t always fight from behind and pull it off,” White said. “We fell a little short today.”

The Angels also fell a bit short of their expectations in this series. The White Sox--missing two key hitters (Ivan Calderon and Greg Walker)--seemed likely candidates to lose at least three of four. But they earned a split with Sunday’s victory.

“You’d like to win every game,” Rojas said. “If we could win 162 games, we’d be in the record books, wouldn’t we? We’ll work for that next year.”

This season, they will have to settle for a midseason surge that has returned them to the realm of respectability and maybe a fleeting fantasy about a miracle finish that would propel them past the first-place Oakland Athletics.

Angel Notes

Outfielder Thad Bosley has been making sweet music with the bat recently--he has 10 hits in his last 21 at-bats, including a pinch-hit single to right in the ninth inning Sunday. And he also has released an album of religious music. Bosley sings and plays piano in the album he produced, entitled “No Greater Love.” Hitting instructor Rick Down asked Bosley for a copy recently. “I’ll tell you if he’s got any upcoming hits,” Down said, smiling. A lot of the hits Bosley has had so far have brought smiles to the Angels’ coaching staff. He is hitting .421 with runners on base and .400 with runners in scoring position. . . . When designated hitter Brian Downing was asked about the Angels’ chances of catching Oakland, he shook his head and laughed. “We can’t get too fired up about Oakland,” he said. “Shoot, they’re a dozen (actually 11 1/2) games ahead of us. We need to worry about one team at a time. We’ll try to catch Minnesota first. But one thing’s for sure, when we go up there this week, we’ll have to win them all. There’s no question about that.”

Center fielder Devon White extended his hitting streak to nine games with a sixth-inning single Sunday. He singled again in the eighth, giving him seven multiple-hit games in the past nine. His average over that span is .435. White has hit safely in 20 of his last 22 games and the Angels are 20-8 since he took over the leadoff role July 7. . . . Reliever DeWayne Buice, who was sent to Edmonton for an injury rehabilitation assignment, has been optioned to the triple-A club. Buice and second baseman Mark McLemore, who reported to Edmonton Friday, will probably be in the minors until the rosters expand on Sept. 1, unless an injury opens a spot on the Angels.