13th Lucky for Angels

Angel starter Chuck Finley continued to struggle with his control Monday night and once again paid dearly for his indiscretions beyond the strike zone.

Toronto closer Mike Timlin had no trouble throwing strikes--he made 25 pitches in the ninth inning, 22 of them strikes, and eventually struck out the side--but he couldn’t close out three Angel hitters and therefore couldn’t close out the game.

In the end, it was an intentional walk to a guy batting .150 and a bizarre balk by Blue Jay reliever Paul Spoljaric that lifted the Angels to a 13-inning, 5-4 victory in front of 13,417 at Anaheim Stadium.

With one out in the 13th, Luis Alicea lined a double down the left-field line and Toronto Manager Cito Gaston decided to issue Craig Grebeck the second intentional walk of his major league career. With Alicea and Grebeck dancing off the base and Blue Jay first baseman Joe Carter well back, Spoljaric inexplicably threw to first.

First-base umpire Dan Morrison immediately signaled balk as Carter made a nice running catch to keep the game from ending right there.

Darin Erstad followed with a high bouncer to second baseman Carlos Garcia. Garcia’s throw and catcher Charlie O’Brien’s tag were a little late to get the sliding Alicea, who had sprinted toward home at the crack of the bat.

“You might as well give it a shot at that point,” Manager Terry Collins said. “Luis got a good lead and made a good break. You just figure with one out, you might at well go for it.”

It was the second time the game had turned on a microscopic measurement. Timlin came about one-16th of an inch from picking up his third save almost two hours earlier when Jim Leyritz just tipped a 1-2 fastball with two out and two on in the ninth. Orlando Palmeiro, Erstad and Leyritz all fouled off two-strike pitches before singling as the Angels battled back to tie the game, 4-4.

“He just got a piece of a slider that kept him alive,” Collins said. “But we all know Jim likes to be on the stage when everything counts, and he came through again tonight.

“We played our whole first week like this, so we can always look back and say, ‘Hey, we can like this.’ Heck, I’m old anyway. A few more gray hairs won’t hurt.”

Finley was making his 289th start as an Angel, lifting him past Nolan Ryan for the top spot on the club’s all-time list. But in the end, it was another outing he would just as soon forget. When a bat slipped out of James’ hands and slammed into Finley’s face during batting practice in Tempe Diablo Stadium five weeks ago, it did more than break a bone in Finley’s eye socket. It put a serious dent in his preparation for the season.

Finley, who struggled through a five-walk, four-run, two-inning ’97 debut last week in New York after making two rehabilitation starts with Class-A Lake Elsinore, was determined to start anew Monday night.

He gave up only four hits and struck out six, but he walked three and fell behind in the count to two Blue Jays who proceeded to hit home runs that accounted for all of Toronto’s runs.

With one out in the second, he walked Ed Sprague and then Juan Samuel beat out a bouncer to third. Jacob Brumfield, who suffered a hamstring injury during the spring and was making his second appearance of the season, worked the count to 3-1 before slamming Finley’s next delivery over the left-field fence for a 3-0 Blue Jay lead.

The Angels responded in their next at-bat, scoring a run after Leyritz’ leadoff double into the right-field corner and Garret Anderson’s RBI single to right. Just as quickly, Toronto regained the three-run advantage when Finley fell behind Sprague, 1-0, in the third inning and the Blue Jay third baseman launched a towering shot that finally came down a few feet beyond the 370 sign in left field.

Otis Nixon saved two runs for Toronto in the fifth, climbing the wall and timing Erstad’s drive to dead center perfectly, snatching the ball out of the air a yard above the wall.

Finley retired 11 in a row after Sprague’s homer, but gave way to Pep Harris after yielding a two-out ground-ball single to left by O’Brien in the seventh on his 110th pitch, the limit the Angel staff had set for him for this outing.

Toronto’s Woody Williams--who has nine major league victories in 10 seasons--scattered six singles and a double over 6 2/3 innings and left with a 4-2 lead.