Walk Lets Angels Beat Brewers in 10th : Baseball: Stevens scores on a base-loaded pass to Ducey, his first run batted in with new team, for a 1-0 victory.

Rob Ducey had waited 29 games to get his first run batted in this season, so he had the patience to wait while Milwaukee Brewer reliever Mike Fetters tried to find the strike zone and produce an inning-ending double play during the 10th inning Tuesday night.

“I hadn’t faced Mike before, so I wanted to see where he was coming from,” said Ducey, who got his first look at Fetters with the bases loaded and one out.

“The first pitch was the only one that was really close. After that, he threw all balls.”

Those four consecutive balls thrown by Fetters, a former Angel, brought in Lee Stevens and gave the Angels a 1-0 victory before 21,142 at Anaheim Stadium.

“This is the team I didn’t want to do bad against,” said Fetters, who was traded to Milwaukee last December for Chuck Crim.

“I didn’t do my job. All I needed was a ground ball.”

Angel starter Chuck Finley pitched nine strong innings, giving up six hits and striking out five, and Angel catcher Ron Tingley frustrated the Brewers by throwing out four would-be base stealers. In all, five Brewer runners were caught stealing, one short of the American League single-game record set by the St. Louis Browns on May 12, 1915, and equaled by the Chicago White Sox on June 18, 1915.

Tingley threw out Kevin Seitzer in the fourth, Scott Fletcher and Pat Listach in the eighth and Franklin Stubbs in the 10th. Paul Molitor was caught on a play begun in the fourth by Finley with a throw to first baseman Gary Gaetti, who relayed to shortstop Gary DiSarcina.

Of Milwaukee’s 10 baserunners, eight attempted to steal. Three succeeded, padding the Brewers’ league-leading total to 164, but Tingley succeeded when it counted most.

“I was just out there playing catch with Ting,” Finley said. “I just threw it to him and told him, ‘Throw it to second. Just let me duck before you throw the thing down there.’ He kept those guys out of scoring position and after a while, they just quit running. He was a big factor in this.”

Stevens, a replacement at first base after Rene Gonzales was hit on the right hand by a Jaime Navarro pitch, hit a roller off the end of his bat that bounced down the left-field line for a double during the 10th. The Brewers intentionally walked Von Hayes, bringing up Ken Oberkfell; Milwaukee countered by taking out Navarro (12-8) and summoning Fetters, who has a 0.65 earned-run average as a setup man for the Brewers.

This time, however, he set up a loss that kept Milwaukee 5 1/2 games behind Toronto in the American League East. Oberkfell hit Fetters’ first pitch to left for a single, with Stevensholding at third. Fetters then walked Ducey, and himself walked off the mound in disappointment.

“A couple of them could have gone either way, and they went the other way,” Fetters said of te ball calls.

Angel pitching coach Marcel Lachemann, managing the team while interim manager John Wathan attends his father’s funeral, sympathized with Fetters’ plight.

“He’s had a great year and it’s unfortunate for him that it ended that way,” Lachemann said.

“You hate to see somebody lose this game the way Navarro and Finley pitched. They both pitched well.”

Joe Grahe (4-3) was credited with the victory after pitching a one-hit ninth. Grahe has won two games and saved 12 while Bryan Harvey has struggled to overcome elbow problems.

Tingley, who had thrown out seven of 21 base stealers before Tuesday night, called thegame a rare happy moment in a season “that’s been a horror flick.”

He added: “It’s incredible how things have gone haywire for us, with DJ (Deron Johnson) dying, and Matt Keough (being hit in the head by a foul ball and undergoing brain surgery) and the bus accident. And now (Harvey) needs surgery.

“It’s scary to think what else can go wrong now. A night like this is like a light at the end of the tunnel, a bright spot for us.”