Edmonds Has Big Night but No Big Catch : Angels: Not being able to preserve no-hit bid spoils outfielder’s first multiple homer game.

At the crack of the bat, Jim Edmonds turned and sprinted toward the deepest part of Anaheim Stadium.

And the race was on.

Edmonds and the screaming line drive he chased arrived at roughly the same moment. He crashed heavily against the fence, but the ball fell to the ground. The crowd of 14,952 groaned.

Chuck Finley’s no-hit bid was history thanks to a sixth-inning triple off the bat of the New York Yankees’ Russ Davis. Edmonds had done his bit to preserve it, but simply couldn’t hang on.

Instead of walking to the dugout at the inning’s conclusion, Finley waited for Edmonds to jog in from center field, greeting him with a handshake and a pat on the back. Davis was stranded at third and the Yankees never threatened again.

“I told him I was sorry I couldn’t come up with it,” Edmonds said. “He just said, ‘Great effort.’ I think he said he thought it was going to be a home run when it left the bat. I knew it wasn’t going to be a home run.”

To be sure, Finley, who pitched a two-hitter with 15 strikeouts in the Angels’ 10-0 victory, seized the game and made it his. Edmonds’ play in center might have been pivotal if the Angels hadn’t been on their way to a rout. Or if it had been the only Yankee hit of the game.

“All I could think of was, ‘Please don’t let that be the only hit,’ ” Edmonds said.

It wasn’t, but that didn’t make Edmonds feel any better.

In the end, that’s all he could talk about. He knew few would remember his first multiple home run game of his career. What mattered most of all to him was missing Davis’ liner.

When someone asked about his offensive contributions--a three-run homer in the fourth and a homer in the seventh--he answered quickly and returned to the play in the sixth.

“I was here when Fred Lynn and Brian Downing hit the wall together (years ago) when I was a kid,” Edmonds said of an outfield collision that is replayed in a stadium Jumbotron feature on past Angel highlights.

Edmonds did a fair job of hammering the fence. But what hurt most of all was that he hit one of the posts that hold up the wall. He had to be attended to by trainers immediately after hitting the wall, and later said his back was sore.

“It’s a tough way to lose a no-hitter,” he said. “[But] I’m happy for Finley. He deserves it. He deserves a no-hitter.”

Edmonds said the ball hit the heel of his glove first.

“It popped out, then I had it again, then it popped out again when I hit the ground,” he said. “I took three or four swipes at it. The last thing I saw was it going over my head as I was lying on the ground. I even took a swipe at it with my bare hand.”