COMMENTARY : Amazingly, Angels Still Alive as They Head Into Final Day

The Angels will take it to the final Sunday, which flatly qualifies as amazing, no matter which way you look at it.

For the wall-banging Angels of July and August to scrape and scratch and bunt the runner over and run the bullpen out there and sweat and grind just to remain mathematically viable on the last day of the regular season . . . amazing.

For the withering, whimpering Angels of September to shake off two nine-game losing streaks in the span of four weeks, overcome two starts by Shawn Boskie in the final week and win four in a row to keep the Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees nervous and uncertain until the first Sunday in October . . . amazing is the only word for that too.

One way or another, this should have been over a good while ago. But because Mickey Tettleton and Ivan Rodriguez played home run derby Saturday against Andy Benes and a cast of a thousand Seattle relief pitchers, and because the Angels rallied from a 3-1 deficit to pummel Oakland, 9-3, the race for the last two playoff berths in the American League has come down to this:

If the Angels win today and the Yankees lose, the Angels will fly to New York for a one-game playoff for the wild card Monday.

If the Angels win today and the Mariners lose, the Angels will fly to Seattle for a one-game playoff for the AL West championship Monday.

If the Angels lose today, or the Yankees and Mariners win, the Angels will fly and drive their separate ways to their individual winter homes and, probably, stock up on the food staples and canned goods. It could take some time to muster up the courage to venture outside the house after the collapse of all Angel collapses becomes part of the game’s folklore.

Finally, ultimately, it will come down to Chuck Finley versus Oakland’s Todd Stottlemyre. Finley--the dean of this Angel team, one of only two active Angels who can remember the postseason of ‘86, the man who resuscitated the Angels three days earlier with 6 1/3 scoreless innings in a 2-0 victory in Seattle--against the A’s best starting pitcher, a 14-game winner who ranks second to only Randy Johnson among American League strikeout leaders.

On the other fronts, 10-game winner Sterling Hitchcock pitches for the Yankees in Toronto and Tim Belcher, who lost Wednesday’s duel with Finley in the Kingdome, tries to clinch Seattle’s first division title on his own in Arlington.

The deck would appear stacked against the Angels, but at this point, they have to consider themselves lucky just to have cards to play. This was the great slight hope Manager Marcel Lachemann harbored when he set his rotation for the final home stand:

Mark Langston Thursday, Jim Abbott Friday, throw Boskie out there Saturday and cross the fingers, burn some incense and hope for some kind of invention--divine or Chili Davis, either will do--to get to Sunday and Finley one more time on three days’ rest.

After Boskie’s last outing in Seattle, a 2 2/3-inning disaster that left the Angels down, 10-2, and all but out after Tuesday, Lachemann was getting first-guessed for his decision to trot the ex-Cub, ex-Phillie, ex-Mariner out there Saturday night on the brink of elimination.

Why not Brian Anderson, the second-year left-hander who used to have a bright future in this organization, but hadn’t started a game since Sept. 5? Certainly, he’d be well-rested.

Why not Mike Harkey, if you’re absolutely, positively determined to throw an ex-Cub out there?

Why not Troy Percival for as long as he can go, until he throws his arm out cranking the radar gun up to 98 m.p.h.?

It’s now or never, right?

Lachemann calmly reasoned that Boskie was his man because right-handed pitchers generally fare better against the Oakland lineup and because he is one of four Angels to have pitched a complete-game victory since the All-Star break, a claim neither Finley nor Langston can make.

The decision nearly backfired on Lachemann. Boskie was shakier on Saturday than he was on Tuesday, managing to record only five outs before leaving with a 3-1 deficit.

Harkey was Option B and after weathering a bases-loaded, one-out predicament in the third inning, he held the A’s scoreless through the eighth--buying the Angel offense enough time to hack away at Oakland’s John Wasdin and Mark Acre.

Davis’ three-run home run in the fourth brought the Angels back from oblivion and J.T. Snow’s three-run shot in the fifth iced it early, for once.