Struggling Finley Clueless as Angels Collapse Again

The Angels have no answers. Really, they’ve run out of clues. All they know is that this shouldn’t be happening.

Chuck Finley, considered one of the finest left-handed starters in baseball and coveted by virtually every contender, should not be losing games.

Some of it can be explained by bad luck. Some by bad defense. And some by bad pitching.

Finley wasn’t sure which was most responsible for his demise in the Angels’ 7-4 loss to the Detroit Tigers on Thursday night before 20,963 at Anaheim Stadium, but he’s getting tired of it.

Here he is, the man who’s supposed to carry the pitching staff, and he has won only four games this season. Finley, 4-5 with a 4.61 earned-run average, has the same amount of victories as Tiger reliever Joe Boever (4-0), the winning pitcher.

Most disturbing is that the Angels (25-35) are 4-9 in his 13 starts in a season quickly fading away.

This is the year that the Angels believed they could win the American League West title, particularly given the dismal play of their peers, but they suddenly find themselves a season-high 5 1/2 games behind the Texas Rangers.

“We can’t watch Texas or Seattle, or Oakland for that matter,” Finley said. “We have to get ourselves straightened out. We’ve got our own problems here and we’re not playing very well right now.

“We’ve had opportunities to score with runners on second and third and less than two out. . . . The pitching has been up and down. We’re just not playing well.”

Said third baseman Spike Owen: “It’s frustrating to know the situation we’re in, because of the opportunity we have to win the division. We just have to play better baseball.”

The Angels need someone to start rolling off victories. Finley figured he would be the man, particularly after winning four consecutive starts May 8-24, but he hasn’t won since.

Finley’s troubles this night actually occurred swiftly, and really, without warning.

The Angels built a 4-2 lead through six innings, and Finley was breezing along. The only mistake he made after the first inning was yielding a solo homer to former teammate Junior Felix in the fifth inning.

Finley opened the seventh inning by inducing Cecil Fielder into a weak ground ball. Well-aware of Fielder’s power, Finley took a deep breath, and perhaps subconsciously, momentarily relaxed.

Alan Trammell hit a single to left field. Mickey Tettleton followed with a broken-bat single to left. No problem, Finley felt as if he was in complete control.

There was no reason for him to worry, he said, until Felix singled to left, loading the bases. That brought pitching coach Chuck Hernandez to the mound, who told Finley to relax.

Instead, pitching to Juan Samuel, Finley threw a wild pitch that bounced in front of the plate and hopped onto the backstop, scoring Trammell. Samuel hit the next pitch just inside the third-base line for a two-run double.

Just like that, the Tigers were winning, 5-4, and Finley was wondering how everything could go wrong so quickly.

“I felt like I pretty much had the game in hand,” said Finley, who gave up eight hits and six earned runs in eight innings. “But that one inning, I left a pitch up to Felix, and the one that Samuel hit, he kind of rolled over it and put it down the line. It all came down to those two at-bats.”

The Tigers, who have scored at least seven runs in six of their last nine games, compounded the Angels’ misery when Travis Fryman hit a solo homer in the eighth off Finley, and Samuel hit a run-scoring single off reliever John Dopson in the ninth.

The Angels tried to rally off closer Mike Henneman in the ninth. Owen and Chad Curtis drew one-out walks. Tim Salmon then hit a sinking line drive to left. It appeared that it would score one run, and at the least, load the bases.

But Tony Phillips dived to his right and snared the ball just before it hit the ground. Henneman then struck out Chili Davis, ending the game.