Finley Again Shocks Powerless Yankees, 3-2 : Baseball: He takes shutout into ninth, and then Allanson’s throw saves victory for Angels.

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld gave Yankee Stadium a charge Friday night, but the Angel battery of pitcher Chuck Finley and catcher Andy Allanson simply overpowered the home team.

And by the time the Angels were through unplugging the Yankees, 3-2, before an announced crowd of 16,959, the team considered a pennant contender was in last place in the American League East, 7 1/2 games behind the Boston Red Sox.

“That’s a good team that has lost a lot of people,” Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann said of the Yankees, who have four starters on the disabled list. “I don’t want to be around when they put it together, because some people are going to pay.”

The Angels, though, keep banking victories against New York. They swept a three-game series in Anaheim last week, outscoring the Yankees, 28-3, and they manhandled them again for much of Friday night.

Finley, in a near replica of his 15-strikeout effort against the Yankees on May 23, took a perfect game into the fifth inning and a shutout into the ninth.

The left-hander walked Gerald Williams and gave up a two-out, RBI double to Randy Velarde in the ninth, and closer Lee Smith was tagged for an RBI single by pinch-hitter Dion James that cut the Angels’ lead to 3-2.

But Allanson, who plays about once a week as Greg Myers’ backup, snuffed out the rally by throwing out pinch-runner Luis Polonia at second base.

Smith had a 3-1 count on cleanup batter Mike Stanley when Polonia tried to steal--”He was on his own,” Yankee Manager Buck Showalter said. Stanley swung through the pitch, and Allanson fired a strike to second baseman Damion Easley.

“It was right on the money, a perfect 10,” Easley said. “All I had to do was catch it.”

That Smith recorded his league-leading 13th save seemed an injustice to Allanson, who was more deserving of the honor.

“It’s still a save for us when you make a throw like that against a pretty good runner,” designated hitter Chili Davis said.

Finley (3-4) gave up four hits, struck out eight and walked one in his 8 2/3-inning, 98-pitch performance. How does he explain his mastery of the Yankees, who have six hits and have struck out 23 times against him in two games?

“I don’t know--maybe because I’ll be a free agent at the end of the year?” he said.

Finley, who faced only one over the minimum 24 batters in the first eight innings of a game that lasted a season-low 2 hours 24 minutes, said: “I looked up and it was the seventh inning already.”

Then came Seinfeld’s less-than-stirring, public-address rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” during the seventh-inning stretch.

“That was distracting,” Finley said. “I’d hate to see the ratings on that. If he put that on TV, his show would probably get canceled.”

Seinfeld got higher marks for his pregame introductions: “Batting fourth, the designated hitter, which I do not agree with, Chili Davis. . . . And pitching, with his left hand, Chuck Finley.”

A wave of laughter rippled through the stadium, but Tony Phillips quickly quieted the crowd, smacking a double off the right-field wall against Yankee left-hander Andy Pettitte to open the game. Phillips scored on Easley’s bloop single to center.

The Angels got their second run in the fourth on Gary DiSarcina’s double and two groundouts, and DiSarcina came through with a sacrifice fly in the seventh, which scored Jim Edmonds after Edmonds had advanced to third on Allanson’s single to right field.

“This is a good win,” said Finley, who relied a lot more on his fastball and curve than his forkball. “It’s a big lift for us because we’ve always had trouble on this trip.”