Angels Forget to Cover Home : Baseball: Lapse proves costly to Finley, as Rangers score 2-1 victory.

It’s a bizarre phenomenon, one that the Angels don’t try to explain, or even dare to discuss publicly.

It’s unpredictable. The only thing they really know about the occurrence is that it seems to arrive every five days.

More specifically, on the days that Chuck Finley pitches.

Once again Friday night, Finley found himself victimized by a defensive blunder, turning a magnificent performance into a 2-1 loss to the Texas Rangers before 35,479 at Anaheim Stadium.

Finley (5-7) realizes that he should be used to this by now. He realizes 20 unearned runs were scored last season during his starts, and more unearned runs have occurred during his starts this season than any other pitcher.

Yet, there he stood on the mound in the fifth inning Friday, staring at the heavens.

The Angels (31-43), losers for the fourth time in the last five games, and 17 of their last 25, dropped to 3 1/2 games behind the first-place Rangers, primarily because of one mental lapse.

“I’ve had it all happen to me this year,” said Finley, who pitched a six-hitter, striking out 10, including the first five batters. “A guy steals home on me (in Boston). And now this. My crisis tends to be around home plate right now.”

This one occurred in the fifth inning.

Manny Lee hit a one-out single to center. Center fielder Rusty Greer followed with a single to left, and Lee stopped at second.

Then it happened.

Chris James, the No. 9 hitter, swung away, only for the ball to dribble off the end of his bat. It trickled up the third base line. Catcher Chris Turner pounced on it, and off-balance, threw James out by a step.

It was a marvelous play, one that the Angels surely would be talking about afterward, but there was one problem.

While the Angels were admiring the play, Ranger third base coach Dave Oliver alertly realized that no one was covering home. He sent Lee home. By the time the Angels noticed, it was too late. First baseman J.T. Snow threw the ball to Finley, but all he could do was hope Lee fell while running home.

Greer, meanwhile, ran all the way to third. Finley walked back to the mound fuming. Third baseman Spike Owen tried to comfort Finley, but it was of little use.

“I just stood there,” Finley said, “watching to see if he was out. We were both at the line just watching.

“You like to think that wouldn’t make or break the game, but unfortunately it did.”

Jeff Frye, activated from the disabled list earlier in the day, capitalized on the mistake, slapping a single to right, scoring Greer for a 2-1 lead.

“There was a little confusion,” Angel Mangel Marcel Lachemann said, “but that’s not what cost us the game. We didn’t execute some things, some fundamental things. That’s what cost us.

“My job as manager is to make sure we do the fundamental things. If we don’t do that, then it’s my responsibility.”

Ranger starter Kenny Rogers (9-4), who has lost only one game since May 7, made sure the Angels’ flaws became glaring. He pitched a six-hitter, yielding only three hits after the second inning.

Rogers’ most difficult task was surviving the play of his shortstop. Lee committed two errors in the first five innings and left the game with a pulled right rib-cage muscle. Esteban Beltre came in, and to make sure he didn’t destroy the continuity, kicked the first ball he touched in the seventh inning.

The Angels considered the loss critical, particularly considering it was against the Rangers. Certainly, if this were just another game, Chili Davis wouldn’t have been roaming the outfield for only the second time in two years. Lachemann, desperately wanting Bo Jackson’s bat in the lineup, gambled by putting Davis in left field.

That strategy worked. There was only one fly ball hit to Davis, and Jackson went two for four, raising his career average to .429 off Rogers.

It, of course, was spoiled by the fifth-inning blunder.

“We’ve just to go out and start playing solid baseball,” Finley said. “We can’t sit here and think there’ll be a strike in two weeks, three weeks or four weeks. We’ve got to start playing the game right, right now, or it won’t matter.”