Trouble Is No Trouble for Angels’ Finley : Baseball: Pitcher gets his 17th win of the season, getting out of a bases-loaded, one-out situation in the seventh inning. Howell hits home run in 1-0 victory.

There may be two runners on base or three, two outs to be recorded or one. The details of the predicaments vary from game to game, but Chuck Finley’s uncanny ability to escape trouble remains constant.

“I don’t like those kinds of things, but I’m real comfortable and I don’t panic,” the Angel left-hander said. “I don’t know if it’s maturing as a pitcher and being able to relax--it might have come from giving up so many runs in other years I got tired of seeing it happen.”

As it happened in the seventh inning Sunday at Anaheim Stadium, the White Sox had the bases loaded with one out and the Angels clinging to a one-run lead. “I had the feeling there weren’t going to be that many runs (scored by the Angels), and I was headed for a no-decision or a loss if I gave up a run there,” Finley said. “It was win the game or what.”

Winning excused him from having to define “what.” Finley struck out pinch-hitters Carlos Martinez and Ron Karkovice to end that threat and lasted into the eighth before yielding to Bryan Harvey, who preserved the 1-0 victory. It gave Finley a career-best 17th victory.

“It feels about as good as it did when I got my 16th. It’s just a number,” Finley (17-6) said after striking out six over 7 1/3 innings and reducing his earned-run average to 2.43, second in the American League to the 1.95 of Boston’s Roger Clemens.

“I’ve bettered myself by one game from last year, and I’m three ahead in the loss column. Whatever happens from here, I’ll be real happy. . . . I’ve been asked about 20 ever since I won my 14th. If I start thinking about it now, I’ll end up being 17-10. I take them one at a time. That’s the way I got here. If I change that it’s like changing my pitching style, and that wouldn’t work.”

Jack Howell produced the only run with a fifth-inning home run off rookie right-hander Alex Fernandez (2-2), as the White Sox fell 6 1/2 games behind the AL West-leading Oakland Athletics.

“It was a bad pitch, I guess,” said Fernandez, who defeated the Angels, 4-2, last Thursday at Comiskey Park. “If I would have gotten him out, it would have been a good pitch.”

Several good defensive plays helped the Angels avert a sweep and begin their six-game trip to New York and Baltimore with a .500 record.

Howell’s other contribution was to charge Ivan Calderon’s eighth-inning grounder on the bumpy infield and get Calderon at first base while holding Sammy Sosa at second. Dave Winfield threw out Carlton Fisk at the plate in the fifth when the 42-year-old catcher tried to score on Scott Fletcher’s fly to right--a play Manager Doug Rader called “like hitting a solo home run”--and catcher Lance Parrish chipped in by picking Ozzie Guillen off second for the final out.

“The game belongs to many,” Winfield said. “Chuck pitched well, it ended with Lance, Jack did a little bit and I’ll take the last little bit.”

Howell had waited for his seventh home run of the season. His last homer was seven weeks and one visit to triple-A Edmonton ago, and he has returned with renewed assurance. “The thing I feel best about is that I carried what I did in Edmonton and brought it here,” he said. “Even now, when I have a couple of at-bats where I press, I’m able to go back, after a couple of at-bats, to what I know works.”

Finley labored in the seventh after Frank Thomas doubled, Fisk walked on four pitches and rookie Matt Stark moved them up with a sacrifice. Rader ordered Scott Fletcher walked intentionally--the fourth consecutive game he has used that strategy after ordering only 18 in the previous 130 games--and Manager Jeff Torborg sent Martinez to hit for Robin Ventura.

“We got ahead of him pretty quick,” Parrish recalled of Martinez’s flailing swing and foul ball for an 0-and-2 count, “but I don’t know if Chuck started trying to push it or put the ball in the perfect position, but we went with the forkball three times and it was outside. Three and two with the bases loaded, we had to come at him. It was in a perfect spot, down and in.”

Finley got a 1-and-2 count on Karkovice before throwing a breaking ball that he missed. “I don’t know if Chuck particularly cares to be in those situations, but he pitches well once he’s in them,” Parrish said.

Finley, who can become the Angels’ first 20-game winner since Nolan Ryan in 1974, is tied for third in the AL in victories, eighth with 139 strikeouts and fifth with a .739 winning percentage. There’s no official ranking for scoring threats defused, but he must be among the leaders there, too.

“Winfield’s throw and Parrish’s throw were the two key defensive plays,” Rader said, “but overall, the fact that Chuck pitched out of jams was the key. He did most of the work. He’s done it for a couple of years, especially this year. He’s worked out of some tough situations and done a very fine job.”

Angel Notes

Bryan Harvey converted his seventh consecutive save opportunity and 20th in 23 chances with 1 2/3 hitless innings. His 87% success rate matches White Sox reliever Bobby Thigpen, who tied the major-league record Saturday with his 46th save. Thigpen equaled the record in 53 opportunities.

“I just try to do the job every time I get in that situation,” said Harvey, who is 1-1 with 16 saves and an earned-run average of 0.90 in 27 appearances since May 24. “Next year, I’d just like to be consistent from the beginning instead of after the first month and a half.”