On This Wild Night, Detroit Is Beantown : Angels: Sojo hit in the head, Tigers’ Tettleton in the leg, and Finley is ejected in fourth inning of a 7-5 victory.

They heard the sickening sound of the ball striking Luis Sojo’s helmet, right above the Angel second baseman’s left ear, and his teammates shed any pretense of bravado and were frightened.

“It was real scary,” Dave Parker said. “If you’ve got a purpose pitch and want to throw inside, you don’t throw in the area of the head. You just don’t do that.”

Sojo was woozy from a mild concussion but was spared worse consequences by his helmet, which was cracked straight across by the fastball thrown by Tiger right-hander Dan Gakeler. Sojo was helped to the Angels’ dugout and was later admitted to Henry Ford Hospital for overnight observation.

The fourth-inning incident was an ugly link in a chain of emotional events that led the Angels to a 7-5 comeback victory Thursday night at Tiger Stadium.

In the bottom of the same inning, Angel starter Chuck Finley was ejected for hitting catcher Mickey Tettleton on the leg with his first pitch, an action home-plate umpire John Shulock ruled was retaliation for Gakeler’s having hit Sojo.

The 3-1 lead Finley handed to Floyd Bannister evaporated in the fourth, when a two-run triple by Skeeter Barnes and a two-run homer by Alan Trammell gave Detroit a 5-3 edge. A two-run single by Luis Polonia in the sixth and a two-run homer by Parker in the seventh made a winner of Joe Grahe (1-1), who was taken out of the starting rotation and sent back to the bullpen earlier in the day.

Finley, who grazed Cecil Fielder on the elbow in the first inning, left Tiger Stadium before speaking with reporters. Angel Manager Doug Rader would not discuss the Tettleton incident. “If you want to talk about the game, about who hit it, who pitched it and who caught it, I’ll talk,” he said. “If you’re going to insinuate Chuck Finley was hitting Tettleton, (the question) is inappropriate.”

Tiger Manager Sparky Anderson said he didn’t think Finley meant to hit Tettleton. “The guy had a 3-1 lead. Why would he throw at the first batter up?” Anderson said.

Shulock thought otherwise.

“The situation in Finley’s case warranted ejection because I had warned him between innings,” said Shulock, a 12-year veteran. “I’ve been around the game long enough to know the best thing to do in a situation like that is to eject Finley. It keeps control of the game and you hope that’s going to stop anything else from happening.”

Shulock added that he didn’t think Gakeler deliberately hit Sojo. “If I did, he would have been ejected,” Shulock said.

Asked if the pitch to Sojo was a fastball that simply got away from him, Gakeler said: “Yeah, that’s all it was.”

The Angels had their doubts.

“The guy hadn’t come close to anybody all night, and all of a sudden he gets someone in the helmet?” catcher Ron Tingley said. “Luis had backed out (of the batter’s box) twice before and a lot of pitchers don’t like hitter to do that in the middle of their windup. I don’t know. That’s just a scary thing to see.

“When I got up there (Sojo’s) helmet was just lying there, cracked in half. It really makes you think what could have happened. It saved him some serious problems.”

Tingley also said Finley wasn’t attempting to hit Tettleton. “We had been pitching them inside all night. I was set up for a fastball inside,” Tingley said. “Mickey steps toward the plate when he swings.”

The Angels were involved in similar events May 14 and 16 at New York. Angel reliever Scott Bailes was ejected May 14 after hitting Randy Velarde with a pitch and was fined $450 by the American League, but Yankee relievers Eric Plunk, Steve Howe and Steve Farr were not reprimanded May 16 for hitting Lance Parrish, Dave Parker and Wally Joyner.

“You hate to see what happened out there tonight,” said Bryan Harvey, who pitched a perfect ninth to earn his 18th save, second in the AL to Oakland’s Dennis Eckersley. “You play long enough, you’re going to see everything. I can’t say that makes it better, though.”

The Angels, who moved within 3 1/2 games of the Twins, did better against Paul Gibson (2-4) than against Gakeler. After Tingley put himself into scoring position with the first stolen base of his career, Polonia drove him and Dave Gallagher in with his third hit of the game. Polonia also had three steals, tying him with Rickey Henderson for the AL lead.

Parker’s fourth homer of the season, only the Angels’ second in 89 innings, broke a 5-5 tie in the seventh and made a winner of Grahe, who was unable to retire any of the seven batters he faced Tuesday. “They came back to me. They could have buried me after that outing, but this restores my confidence,” said Grahe, who gave up one hit over 4 1/3 innings.

Parker was inspired to succeed after the Tigers walked Dave Winfield intentionally to get to him in the first inning.

“That’s an insult,” said Parker, who hit a grounder toward first that was muffed by Cecil Fielder and scored the Angels’ first run. “I wanted to do it right then.”