Finley Calls It a Day--a Bad One : Baseball: Angel starter lasts only 5 1/3 innings, giving up six earned runs in 7-4 loss to Tigers.

His complexion matched the ashen clouds over Tiger Stadium, but Chuck Finley insisted he wasn’t under the weather when he took the mound Wednesday. “I felt fine,” he said. “The game made me sick. The whole outing made me sick.

“I felt like I was punching tickets at a movie theater. Take a ticket and come on in. Take a ticket and come on in. Every time I looked up, there were men on base. The worst part was, I look up at the scoreboard and there are no outs. To see that many guys on base and no outs, that’ll make you sick. Then I look in the dugout and see everybody kind of looking toward the bullpen . . . “

Finley didn’t complete that sentence--or his mission against the Tigers. In a rare rocky performance, the Angel left-hander was thumped for nine hits and six earned runs in 5 1/3 innings of a 7-4 loss to Detroit, his shortest stint in 10 starts since a 4 1/3-inning effort against the Chicago White Sox on June 27. Finley (16-6) failed to get into the seventh inning for only the fourth time in 25 starts this season and walked the first two batters in an inning for the first time since May 3.

“I didn’t even realize that. That’s something else to worry about now,” said Finley, whose earned-run average rose to 2.47 but is still second-lowest in the American League. “With practice, I can get pretty good at walking people. That’s just the way the whole day went.”

The game went back and forth in the early innings, despite Travis Fryman’s first-inning home run off Finley and the inning-opening walks to Tony Phillips and Fryman in the third that turned into runs when Cecil Fielder doubled home Phillips--Fielder’s 100th RBI of the season--and Gary Ward drove in Fryman with a sacrifice fly.

The Angels came back to take a 4-3 lead against Jack Morris (10-11) on one run in the fourth and three in the fifth.

Bill Schroeder doubled and scored on Dick Schofield’s single to cut Detroit’s lead to 3-2 in the fifth. Then Schofield, who had taken second on the throw home, scored on Luis Polonia’s double down the right-field line, and Polonia scored on Devon White’s single to right field.

That lead vanished in the bottom of the inning when Fryman singled, went to second as Alan Trammell beat out a chopper to third and scored on Fielder’s single into left field.

“Morris has been better. He didn’t have very good stuff, but unfortunately for us, neither did Chuck,” said Brian Downing, whose fourth-inning single scored White with the Angels’ first run.

“Normally, when we get a lead like that and come back from a deficit, Chuck holds them back. It was obvious from the start that he was having problems today. It happens. He deserves an off-day once in a while.”

Finley got Darnell Coles to ground out for the first out of the sixth inning, but walked Mike Heath on a 3-and-2 pitch, gave up a single to Phillips and walked Fryman to load the bases. This time, when Manager Doug Rader looked to the bullpen, he called in Mark Eichhorn.

“I threw pretty good in the pen (before the game), but once I got in there, I was struggling and I said to myself, ‘I’m struggling way too early,’ ” said Finley, who shut out the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park in his last outing Friday and hadn’t allowed more than four earned runs in his previous 14 starts. “I was just trying to get some innings in, so maybe I could find a groove. I just wasn’t moving the ball around the plate very well.”

Eichhorn didn’t have much more luck in the sixth. Trammell, the first batter to face the Angel reliever, hit a slow roller that was thrown away by Donnie Hill, his first error at second base this season. Heath and Phillips scored, and Fryman went to third. Fielder scored Fryman with a sacrifice fly.

“I thought I could get (Trammell) if I quick-flipped it,” Hill said. “If I had gone back and thrown like I should have, I might have gotten him. I made a terrible throw.”

Which was in keeping with Finley’s day.

“You can have four, five great starts and then two or three bad. You throw a shutout and go out and get knocked around,” said Finley, who still leads AL left-handers in victories. “It’s a humbling game. You think you’re going a bit better than the game is and it sets you straight.”

Angel Notes

Bob McClure made his third relief appearance since coming off the Angels’ disabled list and has yet to allow a run in two innings. The only batter he faced Wednesday, Larry Sheets, grounded into a double play in the seventh inning.

Pete Coachman’s first-inning double gave him at least one hit in each of the five games he has played since being recalled from triple-A Edmonton. Overall, he’s nine for 21, a .429 average. . . . “The more I play, the more I feel good at the plate,” he said. “I realize I’m at a higher level, and they’re going to make good plays on me. What would be a hit in triple A is taken away from you in the big leagues.”

Luis Polonia, whose third-inning walk Tuesday was his first in the last 108 plate appearances, has promised hitting instructor Deron Johnson that he will get at least 15 more walks this season. “I know I can do it,” said Polonia, who has walked 14 times in 85 games. “I’ve got to make the pitcher work. I’ll get better pitches, too.” . . . Dave Winfield had a swollen left ankle after fouling a ball Tuesday and didn’t play Wednesday. However, he doesn’t always play a day game that follows a night game.

Devon White has stolen a base in the last four games he has reached base. . . . Catcher Bill Schroeder, who gave Lance Parrish a rest after Tuesday night’s game, extended his hitting streak to six games. The streak began July 29. “I had a 10-game streak once in Milwaukee that went from early June to late July,” Schroeder said. “You’ve got to like doing this (playing part time). A lot of people wouldn’t be happy in this position, but I like it.”

Dick Schofield, who has raised his batting average 52 points to .228, credits some of his success to using a bigger and heavier bat. He had been using 34-inch bats that weighed 31 or 32 ounces but has switched to a 36-inch bat that weighs 35 ounces.