Angels Find Their Back Pages

Many players say they don’t pay attention to what’s written in the newspapers, but pitcher Chuck Finley has taken a keen interest in media coverage of the Angels this year.

“It’s been a good analogy for our season,” Finley said after Saturday’s 4-3 loss to the Texas Rangers, who fielded a lineup more suited to the American Assn. than the American League.

“We started out the year on the front page, but now we’re back there above the hair-transplant ads. You just watch how you move to the back of the sports section. Heck, we’ve done an injustice to the ecosystem this year. . . . You cut down another tree for this?”

Saturday’s loss came right out of the Angel recycling bin.

Poor starting pitching, a lack of clutch hitting, an error that led to an unearned run. . . . Sound familiar?

It has been the formula for failure many times this season, only Saturday there was a slight twist in the script.

The Rangers clinched the AL West Friday night--they will play their first playoff game ever at New York on Tuesday--so they fielded a lineup of reserves, with the exception of starting pitcher Darren Oliver.

And they still beat the Angels’ best pitcher.

“It was a team I felt I should have beat, obviously,” Finley said. “But this might be a subtitle for my season. People say, ‘Hey, he’s been a triple-A pitcher all year.’ It’s a strange game.”

Saturday’s game, played before a crowd of 45,651 at the Ballpark in Arlington, had no impact on the standings and meant virtually nothing to both teams, who close the regular season with a noon game today.

But Finley had plenty to pitch for. He wanted to finish on a high note and above the .500 mark, but after giving up solo home runs to Luis Ortiz and Damon Buford, he was tagged with the loss and closed with a 15-16 record--the most losses in his 11-year career.

“I don’t like being under .500,” said Finley, whose annual tax bill is probably more than the combined income of the Rangers’ Saturday lineup.

“I didn’t want to go out on a losing note. What’s weird is of all the starts I’ve made this year, this was the worst I felt. And to think, this was the last game of the season. . . . It’s just terrible.”

Finley went 5 1/3 innings, giving up four runs--three earned--and seven hits, walking six and striking out five. He finished with 215 strikeouts, second best in the league behind Boston’s Roger Clemens.