Trio Helps Pen Another Fantastic Finish : Baseball: Relievers Nielsen, Butcher and Frey keep Angels in position for ninth-inning rally.

Here’s how it usually works: The Angels swing open their bullpen gate and, shortly afterward, ushers make sure all of the Anaheim Stadium exits are open so people can leave quickly while the home team gets trounced.

Here’s how it worked Thursday night: The Angels swung open their bullpen gates and people stayed.

This is what the Angels have been waiting for all summer. This was their Picasso. Jerry Nielsen, Mike Butcher and Steve Frey, in step, one-two-three, working together as Manager Buck Rodgers would have choreographed it.

They kept the Angels close enough so they could get their third consecutive bottom-of-the-ninth victory, this time over the New York Yankees, 4-3.

“This was a big night for our bullpen,” Rodgers said, grinning broadly. “They’re giving us a chance to win. They’re giving us one more shot; we’re not getting blown out.

“And as long as we get one more shot, our guys think we’ve got a chance to win it.”

Nielsen, who was on call before the game because starter Hilly Hathaway had a blister on the middle finger of his pitching hand, was summoned with two outs in the third, when Hathaway’s blister worsened.

Nielsen faced 12 batters, yielding only a bases-empty home run to Danny Tartabull in the fourth inning that gave New York a 2-1 lead.

Butcher was requested with two outs in the sixth, the Angels trailing, 2-1, and a runner on first. He worked to 11 batters, leaving with one out in the ninth.

Enter Frey, who allowed Paul O’Neill’s RBI double--Mike Stanley’s run was charged to Butcher--and then shut the Yankees down.

It was Nielsen’s longest outing of the year, bettering his 2 2/3 innings at Kansas City on June 22. In three innings Thursday, he allowed a run on two hits.

Nielsen was effective despite receiving short notice. Because of Hathaway’s blister, Nielsen was summoned so quickly he did all of his warming up on the pitcher’s mound.

“It’s not fun to warm up on the mound,” he said. “You feel like you’re delaying the whole show.”

Butcher worked 2 2/3 innings, also allowing a run on two hits.

“Everybody seems to like ragging on the bullpen,” Butcher said. “We’ve still got to go out there and pitch like we can.”

Frey, who worked two-thirds of an inning, was awarded the victory to improve his record to 2-0.

But perhaps none of them had as big a night as Nielsen, who worked 20 games for the Yankees last summer and called Thursday’s outing his best in 10 games for the Angels during 1993.

It didn’t come without a price, though. Nielsen was schooled by Tartabull on a 3-and-0 fastball in the fourth.

“Last year he got an order of bats in and was all happy like it was Christmas,” Nielsen said. “He calls me ‘Leslie’ (after the actor, Leslie Nielsen) and said to me, ‘Leslie, these are for left-handers.’

“I learned something. I learned that, guys like him, when you get them 3-and-0, you’ve got to make a good pitch. They’re not just going to sit back and take it.”

But, as it turned out, it was cheap education. The Angels came back and won and, for one night, roommates Nielsen and Butcher--they’re staying at Joe Grahe’s place--could smile as they drove off into the night.

Finally, the only thing Nielsen and Butcher served up was dinner for Grahe’s fish.

“We feed ‘em three times a day,” Butcher said. “We make sure they eat right. And we give them a few gumdrops as treats--they eat those up.”