Royals Foil Finley’s Chance at 19th Win : Baseball: Both Kansas City’s runs are unearned, but they are enough to defeat the Angels, 2-1.

Fatigue may have blurred his precision and robbed his fastball of its zip, but the long season hasn’t destroyed Chuck Finley’s tenacity.

Although the Angels’ left-hander struck out nine and gave up only six hits in eight innings Friday, Finley’s effort to get his 19th victory fell short. The Royals scored two unearned runs in the fourth inning and got Dave Winfield to ground into a game-ending double play with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning to hand Finley a 2-1 defeat.

Finley (18-9) is scheduled to start the Angels’ season finale Wednesday in Oakland, but that was predicated on his having a chance to win 20. He threw 149 pitches Friday at Anaheim Stadium and reduced his earned-run average to 2.40, second in the American League to Roger Clemens’ 1.98.

Although he pitched valiantly, starting a double play in the eighth after Kansas City had loaded the bases on three successive singles, he was charged with his third consecutive loss, his longest such streak this season. Finley, who had been trying to become the first Angel to win 20 since Nolan Ryan was 22-16 in 1974, has pitched into the seventh inning or later in 28 of 33 starts and has pitched a career-high 236 innings.

Steve Farr (13-7) gave up six hits over 5 1/3 innings, including Lance Parrish’s homer to left-center in the sixth. That was Parrish’s second homer in two games and third in his last five. Jeff Montgomery earned the save by making one pitch--Winfield’s double-play ball.

American League batting leader George Brett did not play for the Royals. His lead over Oakland’s Rickey Henderson shrank from five points to four after Henderson went two for four and raised his batting average to .326. Texas’ Rafael Palmeiro went one for four and slipped to .324. Brett is expected to start tonight against Mark Langston in Langston’s final start of the season.

Although Finley said recently he felt no more tired after exceeding 200 innings for the first time in his career than he felt after pitching 150 innings, his statistics and performance appear to contradict that. He had given up 204 hits in 228 innings before Friday’s game, by far the best ratio of hits to innings among the Angels’ starters, but his performance in that category has actually declined in the last six weeks.

In the seven starts Finley made before Friday, he gave up 54 hits in 51 innings, an average of more than one per inning. He won two of those seven, lost three and got no-decision in the other two, slowing his attempt to get 20 victories. He gave up 24 walks in those 51 innings, almost half as many as the 52 he had walked in his previous 177 innings. He leads the Angels’ staff in innings pitched and ranked fourth in the league before Friday.

The walk he issued to Kurt Stillwell in the fourth inning Friday helped Kansas City score twice. But that walk--the fourth allowed by Finley--might not have been costly if the Angels hadn’t opened the inning by committing yet another error.

Dick Schofield’s bobble of Danny Tartabull’s shot to deep short put Tartabull on first. Russ Morman followed with a ground-rule double to left that kept Tartabull at third. Mike Macfarlane’s fly to shallow center wasn’t deep enough to score Tartabull, but Finley’s 3-and-2 pitch to Stillwell bounced in front of catcher Lance Parrish for a wild pitch, scoring Tartabull and moving Morman to third.

Bill Pecota popped to short but Gary Thurman gave the Royals a 2-0 lead when he singled to left, scoring Morman.

Both runs were unearned, increasing the Angels’ total this season to 90, 42 more than they allowed last season.

Angel Notes

Right-hander Kirk McCaskill will undergo elbow surgery Thursday at Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood and won’t make his last scheduled start Monday at Oakland. Joe Grahe, who was removed from the rotation last week, will start Monday.

Arm problems will soon force reliever Greg Minton, 39, to announce his retirement. The right-hander, who endured elbow surgery and an arm muscle injury this season, is 1-1 with a 2.45 earned-run average. “I threw 1 2/3 innings (Wednesday), and (Thursday) morning I tried to pour milk into my coffee out of a gallon container and it fell out of my hand and all over the kitchen floor,” Minton said.

Catcher Bill Schroeder, who has played only three games in September and 18 overall, believes he’s in his final days as an Angel. “I’m not a free agent, but there’s a pretty good chance I will be (by being released),” he said. “I think I can still play.” . . . Batting practice drew extra attention Friday because of the presence of actor Tom Selleck, who worked out with the Angels to prepare for a movie in which he will play a baseball player who goes to Japan. Selleck, who played basketball and volleyball at USC, hit some solid line drives. But Luis Polonia, for one, isn’t worried about losing his job. “He better stay away from Anaheim and go back to Hollywood,” Polonia said. . . . Left-hander Sherman Corbett was optioned to triple-A Edmonton, opening a spot on the 40-man roster for off-season moves.