Finley’s Replacements Fail Again : Yankees Drop Angels Into Third Place With an 11-5 Win

When Chuck Finley wrenched his left foot on that bullpen mound in Kansas City 12 days ago, the pain was so bad he could barely walk away.

Did the Angels really expect they could do any better?

Despite the brave words and the we’ll-get-the-job-done rhetoric, the Angels, plainly, have failed to respond to Finley’s loss. In the game he left after making just 17 pitches, they lost. In the first start Finley missed, they lost.

And Friday night at Yankee Stadium--Round 2 without Finley--the Angels did more than lose. They were shelled, 11-5, by a Columbus Clippers team posing as the New York Yankees, allowing rookie Manager Bucky Dent to win for only the fourth time in his embattled 15-game tenure.

A seven-run second inning for the Yankees?

A home run, a double, a single and three RBIs from Randy Velarde?

Key hits from the likes of Bob Geren and Alvaro Espinoza and two New York runs scoring on wild pitches in the same inning?

Who says the Angels don’t miss Finley?

Not Angel Manager Doug Rader.

“We’ve said all along that we’ve been thin since Day 1,” Rader said. “We put great emphasis on (maintaining) the relative health of the ballclub. We were very concerned all along that the wrong injury at the wrong time would hurt us--and that has come to pass.

“Chuck Finley is one of our best pitchers. We haven’t had him for three starts now, and we’ve lost all three.

“Without question, it’s hurt us.”

Terry Clark, who lasted just 4 2/3 innings in his first turn as Finley’s replacement, didn’t get out of the second inning Friday. He managed to record four outs--and give up four runs.

Clark (0-2) was one of three Angel pitchers required to complete a disastrous seven-run, 11-batter second inning. He merely laid the foundation, yielding a walk and three hits, leaving with one out and two Yankee runs in.

Enter Rich Monteleone, who exited four batters--and four hits--later. He was followed by Edmonton recall Mike Fetters, who made his major league debut at Yankee Stadium and did all right for two batters, recording the necessary outs to close the inning, mercifully.

But in the third, he served up a home run to Velarde, the first of the season for the New York utilityman.

And in the fourth, he gave up three more runs--two coming home on wild forkballs in the dirt.

Before the night was through, Sherman Corbett and Willie Fraser would also trudge to the mound, the fourth and fifth Angel pitchers of the game. They served to mop up a defeat, the Angels’ fourth in their last five games, that dropped the club into third place in the American League West behind Oakland and Kansas City.

Rader might have been able to shrug it off as one of those nights, if the same thing hadn’t happened twice three nights earlier. Tuesday evening in Boston, the Angels lost a doubleheader by scores of 8-4 and 13-5, nearly wiping out their bullpen in the process.

“Phew,” Rader said. “That’s three times in five ballgames. It’s kind of inexplicable. That hadn’t really happened to us all year, and now, three times in four days.

“I really don’t know how to address it.”

Rader will have to start soon, however. With Finley expected to miss at least another 10 days, the Angels will have to find a way to replace him in the rotation at least one more time.

“We have a number of names to consider,” Rader said before ticking them off. “Dan Petry, Willie (Fraser), Clark and Fetters.”

Maybe they’ll end up drawing straws.

Clark and Fetters hardly acquitted themselves well Friday. After surrendering three hits but no runs in the first inning, Clark opened the second by walking Steve Balboni, then yielded a single to Geren, a two-run double to Velarde and a one-run single to Steve Sax.

After Monteleone let the game slip away--he gave up a run-scoring double to Espinoza, a run-scoring single to Don Mattingly and a two-run homer to Mel Hall--Fetters was ushered in, just hours after his arrival from Edmonton.

Stung by Velarde’s home run in the third inning, Fetters seemed unnerved in the fourth, allowing successive singles to Mattingly, Hall and Jesse Barfield for one run before wild-pitching home two more.

“I really don’t know how to evaluate him,” Rader said. “The kid was pitching in the majors for the first time and he was pitching in Yankee Stadium. He certainly was erratic. He did some good things, but he also threw away a couple forkballs that cost us runs.

“I need to reserve judgement until he gets his feet on the ground. To pass judgement after he’d pitched for the first time at Yankee Stadium is a little unfair.”

Friday’s game was the 12th in a 15-game trip for the Angels and their 15th in the last 15 days. Rader was asked if his team was playing tired.

“Yeah, a little bit,” he replied. “I think fatigue has been a factor, which is very understandable. But that’s not the explanation for giving up seven runs in the second inning. Fatigue had nothing to do with that.”

Just bad pitching.

And this, remember, was the series Rader said the Angels had to win--in his words, “winning three out of four in New York is imperative.”

Today, the Angels are 0-1 in New York. Three games remain.

Angel Notes

Neither Terry Clark nor Mike Fetters stuck around long enough after the game to answer questions, so Willie Fraser was designated spokesman for the beleaguered Angel pitching staff. Fraser said Fetters was “nervous” before getting the call from the bullpen in the second inning. “He was nervous when he came in to change (clothes) before the game,” Fraser said. “I know what that’s all about. The first one is always tough. You’re trying to do so good and you’re trying to impress so many people, you can lose track of what you’re doing. And Yankee Stadium is a tough place to play in. He did all right.”

Fetters wasn’t alone Friday night. Despite a 7-1 lead after two innings, New York Manager Bucky Dent said he sweated out every inning until the final out. “I never relax,” Dent said. “Even in triple-A when I had big leads, I never relaxed.” With the Yankees these days, you can never be sure. Before Friday, New York hadn’t won consecutive games since July 29-30. “I wasn’t even thinking of that,” said Dent, now 4-11 as Yankee manager. “I was just worried about getting a couple wins here.”

Call It a Promotion: On the day every other major league team expanded its roster, the Yankees reduced theirs, sending rookie infielder Hensley Muelens back to double-A Albany-Colonie. Unlike the Yankees, Albany-Colonie is in the playoffs, taking a 1-0 lead over Reading with a 16-3 win Friday night in the Eastern League’s championship series. So Muelens, who played 104 games and had 11 home runs and 45 runs batted in with Albany, will rejoin his old teammates to bolster their pennant run.