Finley’s Two-Hitter, 15 Strikeouts Turn 0-4 Start Into Faded Memory : Baseball: Left-hander retires first 15 batters he faces on way to his 100th career victory, a 10-0 rout of Yankees.

Winless in his first five starts and a loser in four of them, Chuck Finley quickly found a number of reasons to feel good Tuesday night.

Finley tied his career high with 15 strikeouts, the most in the majors this year, and retired the first 15 batters he faced.

Finley finished with a two-hitter and his 100th career victory as the Angels routed the Yankees, 10-0, in front of 14,952 at Anaheim Stadium.

“It was one of those nights when everything just fell together,” said Finley, who has been working on his mechanics to improve his forkball. “It was one of those games where if they took the forkball, it was a strike, and if they swung at it, it was in the dirt.”

Center fielder Jim Edmonds came a few inches shy of keeping Finley’s perfect game alive in the sixth. Russ Davis led off with a shot to center and Edmonds sprinted back, arriving at the fence at the same instant as the ball. He got his glove on the ball as he crashed into the fence, but it popped free as he fell to the ground.

Davis ended up with a triple.

For a moment, it looked as if he might be able to snare the ball with his bare hand.

“I had a couple of swipes at it as I was falling, but I just couldn’t grab it,” he said. “All I could think of was, ‘Please don’t let this be the only hit.’ ”

The Angels averaged only 2 1/2 runs in Finley’s first five starts this year, but the veteran left-hander was the beneficiary of a long-ball barrage that included four homers by the Angels in the outfield.

Edmonds hit two and drove in a career-high four runs, left fielder Tony Phillips hit a three-run homer and right fielder Tim Salmon had a solo shot.

“I’m just so glad we got this one for Chuck,” Edmonds said. “He deserves it. After I hit that homer [in the fourth], I thought, ‘Great.’ Five runs is usually enough for Chuck.”

It was more than enough on this evening. His bid for a perfect game dashed, an unfazed Finley struck out seven of the next eight hitters. Bernie Williams then blooped a two-out single to center in the ninth that a charging Edmonds couldn’t quite run down.

“I wasn’t concerned about the perfect game or the no-hitter or any of that,” Finley said. “I just wanted to stay aggressive and go after the hitters like it was a 2-1 game.”

Angel Manager Marcel Lachmann had warned Finley that “you can’t make yourself 4-4 in one game and you can’t win until you get the first guy out and you can’t get the first guy out until you throw the first strike.”

Strikes were no problem for Finley Tuesday night, and the Angels provided plenty of support.

A couple of runs is the kind of support Finley has been accustomed to over the years. There was a time, not long ago in fact, when a rookie pitcher would give up half his first year’s salary to make his major league debut against the Angels.

But pity poor Yankee right-hander Mariano Rivera. He wandered into the Big A where the reborn, recharged home team is all of a sudden chewing up pitchers and spitting out line drives.

Rivera, who had not allowed an earned run in his last three starts at triple-A Columbus, was rocked for eight hits and five runs in 3 1/3 innings.

The Angels scored twice in the third on Greg Myers’ bases-loaded single and three more in the fourth on Edmonds’ towering homer to right-center. Phillips hit his sixth homer in 10 games in the fifth, a three-run shot to center that put the Angels ahead, 8-0.

Then Salmon, who had not homered since May 5, led off the sixth with a line drive into the seats in left. And Edmonds, who extended his hitting streak to a career-high nine games, hit his sixth homer of the year in the seventh inning.

Edmonds, who lifted weights in the off-season in an attempt to improve his power, had only five home runs in 94 games last year.