Finley OK, Feeling Lucky

Chuck Finley was putting on his uniform for the first time since being struck just above his left elbow by a line drive--the second time he was drilled by a baseball in a week--and had the audacity to use the word “lucky.”

“I guess I’ve got to feel lucky in some ways,” he said. “I’ve been smoked with two line drives in the past seven days and I don’t have a cast. On the other hand, I’m still getting hit.

“In the last year and a half, I’ve been smoked with line drives in the butt and now twice in the arm . . . I just hope they’re not moving their way up.”

Considering what was going through his mind in the minutes after Jeff King’s line drive hit him inches above his elbow Friday night, Finley was indeed fortunate.

“I thought that was it this time,” he said. “I thought my elbow was shattered. My hand went numb. It was like putting your arm on a table and telling someone to slam it as hard as they can an inch above your elbow with a sledgehammer.”

But Finley, who made a few tentative tosses in the bullpen before Sunday’s game, soon regained a philosophical perspective.

“You get knocked down, you pick yourself up again and you keep doing it until you can’t get up anymore,” he said. “I’m not going to walk out there thinking, ‘What’s going to happen today?’ I just say, ‘Bring it on.’ ”

*

X-rays of Matt Walbeck’s collarbone showed no fracture. He was injured Saturday night when a Rich DeLucia pitch in the dirt bounced up and hit him. The bruise was being treated with ice and electrical muscle stimulation and he was available Sunday in an “emergency situation,” according to trainer Ned Bergert . . . . Right-hander Jack McDowell, on a rehabilitation assignment with triple-A Vancouver, pitched three innings and gave up two runs and four hits Saturday night.

TONIGHT

ANGELS’ ALLEN WATSON (3-6, 6.64 ERA) vs. ROYALS’ PAT RAPP (9-9, 4.80 ERA)

Kauffman Stadium, 5 p.m. PDT

TV--Channel 9. Radio--KRLA (1110), XPRS (1090).

* Update--Darin Erstad, who has three hits in his last 25 at-bats, was not in the starting lineup for only the second time this season Sunday. Garret Anderson singled in the second to improve his career-best hitting streak to 23 games.