Two-Hitter Ends Finley’s Search for an Answer : Angels: Left-hander snaps out of 0-4 start by striking out 15 in 10-0 rout of Yankees.

Chuck Finley, winless in his first five starts and a loser in four of them, quickly found a number of reasons to feel good Tuesday night. His forkball had that old snap, his teammates were spinning around the bases at an Indy-car rpm and the Yankees were going down like dominoes.

Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann had warned 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.”

Finley got the first strike and then 86 more, tying his career high with 15 strikeouts, the most in the majors this season. He got the first guy out--in fact he got the first 15 guys out--before giving up a triple to Russ Davis leading off the sixth.

In the end, Finley had 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 was a few inches shy of keeping Finley’s perfect game alive in the sixth and then preserving his one-hitter in the ninth. Davis led off the sixth 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.

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.

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. Bernie Williams then blooped a two-single to center in the ninth that Edmonds couldn’t 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 2-1 game.”

A couple of runs is the kind of support Finley has been accustomed to over the years. There was a time, when a rookie pitcher would give up half his first year’s salary to make his major league debut against the Angels.

He wandered into the magic kingdom of the Big A where the reborn, recharged home team is all of a sudden chewing up pitchers and spitting out line drives.

But pity poor Yankee right-hander Mariano Rivera. 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 1/2 innings.

The Angels scored twice in the third on Greg Myers’ bases-loaded single and three in the fourth on Edmonds’ 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 just only five home runs in 94 games last year.

But then everybody in the Angel lineup seems to be flexing their muscles these days.