It’s Party Time for Finley, 7-0 : Baseball: It’s champagne and pizza time for the Angels as pitcher breaks out of his slump by beating the Athletics.

A celebration awaited Chuck Finley when he walked into the clubhouse after the Angels’ 7-0 victory over the Oakland Athletics on Sunday at Anaheim Stadium. There was champagne on ice, hot pizza, happy teammates and congratulatory handshakes.

So what was the big deal about a victory over the sad sack A’s?

Finley won his first game this season, and that was cause for a much-delayed celebration as far as the Angels were concerned. They hope Finley has conquered whatever threw him into the funk that caused him to go winless in his first six starts.

“It’s going to be nice to get to bed before 2 o’clock in the morning,” said Finley, who ended the Angels’ 31-game streak without a complete game by throwing a three-hit shutout.

“I’ve been staring at the ceiling all season. I kind of miss the days when you’d wake up and the TV would be on and all you’d see was snow. Now, there’s all these infomercials on until 5, 6 in the morning.”

He appreciated the sentiment, but was a little miffed that Bo Jackson didn’t spring for more expensive champagne.

“Coming from Bo, I thought it would be a $100 bottle, but that stuff was $4.20,” joked Finley, 1-3 with a 5.55 earned-run average.

“I knew it was going to come,” he said of his first victory of the season and only the fourth of his career against Oakland. “I just wanted to go out and throw well. If I won, I won. If I didn’t, I didn’t. All I was concerned about was throwing the way I knew I could.”

In his last start, a 6-5 loss to the New York Yankees Tuesday, he had showed marked improvement, but still he was behind, 6-0, after giving up nine hits, including two home runs in six innings.

“We saw last time out that his delivery was starting to come around,” Manager Buck Rodgers said. “He wasn’t really pitching bad, but he was making bad pitches.”

Finley’s victory Sunday, aided by run-scoring singles from Tim Salmon and RBIs by four other Angels, capped an 11-game home stand that was equal parts bizarre, disappointing and pleasing.

The Angels went 4-7, lost rookie starter Brian Anderson (3-1) for a month because of a broken left thumb and won three of four against Oakland to become the first American League West team to reach the 13-victory mark.

Salmon, batting .253 when the home stand began, raised his average to .273 on Sunday. He went seven for 15 with two home runs and four RBIs in four games against Oakland. Salmon’s run-scoring singles in each of the first two innings gave Finley a 4-0 lead and eased the left-hander’s burden.

“There are a lot of clubs out there that have problems to solve,” Rodgers said. “We’re just starting to solve some of ours.”

Of course, the A’s (9-22) played a central part in Finley’s turnaround. They floundered at the plate, particularly late in the game.

Finley gave up a first-inning double to former Angel Stan Javier, a fourth-inning single to Geronimo Berroa and a sixth-inning single to Rickey Henderson. Then, Finley retired the final 11 batters. He had seven strikeouts and, for the first time this season, did not walk a batter.

“That’s the Finley we’ve seen before,” Oakland Manager Tony La Russa said. “I thought he was really tough today. Finley deserves a lot of credit. It was excellent pitching.”

And what of the A’s? They are 2-17 in their past 19 games yet dropped only three games in the standings.

Go figure. Rodgers has been trying, but he can’t seem to get a handle on the woeful AL West.

“You wonder what the hell is going on,” he said. “Thank God for realignment right now.”

The Angels, with one victory each from Finley and Mark Langston, are only a game out of first place.

That, too, was worth a party as they headed off Sunday evening on a six-game trip to Texas and Seattle.