With This Team, There’s Never Margin for Error

If there were justice for the Angels, if there were somebody watching out for this team that seems perpetually cursed, then the Angels would have scored six runs in the first inning Tuesday and four more in the second and maybe a couple more in the third. That way, when pitcher Chuck Finley fielded a bunt and turned to make the throw to first base in the top of the seventh inning, and when that throw went so far away from first base that there was nearly silence at Edison Field because no one could figure out what happened, it wouldn’t have mattered.

But there never seems to be justice. Not for the Angels and surely not for Finley. So Finley’s error did matter. It mattered so terribly much.

For at the time, the Angels hadn’t scored and the Rangers had scored only once. If these Angels had started the game holding on to the wall that is the American League West division race by five fingers, they were down to one finger by the seventh inning. And so was Finley.

His arm is spaghetti, that is clear. Finley is pitching on heart and will and not much else. He has thrown more pitches than anybody in the league and Manager Terry Collins switched his spot in the rotation for this series, trying to give his ace one more day of rest. But it’s too late for a day to do any good, so Finley walked to the mound Tuesday night knowing that he would need all of his head, whatever little he has left in his arm, a lot of support from Angel bats and a little luck.

Yet here in the seventh, Finley had no batting support and less luck. The only run to have scored had been unearned, in the first inning. Finley had pitched only one routine 1-2-3 inning and yet no other Ranger had scored until it was top of the seventh. There was, first, a walk to Royce Clayton. Then another to Luis Alicea. Runners at first and second when Roberto Kelly tapped the ball weakly to Finley.

It seemed Finley might have been able to throw out Clayton at third and maybe Finley thought this too, for he seemed to hesitate for just a second before turning to throw out Kelly at first. Except he didn’t. The ball went away. Far away. Clayton scored. Alicea went to third, Kelly to second and Finley’s head went to his hands. From there the Rangers scored two more runs in the seventh and the game pretty much was over.

And this was a moment Finley shouldn’t have had, doesn’t deserve. The smart, engaging, introspective, all-around stand-up guy, has been through so much--everything, really--that has happened bad to the Angels.

Finley has been here since 1986 and had to experience the pain of a former teammate, Donnie Moore, committing suicide. He was on the Angel team bus that crashed on the New Jersey turnpike and Finley was a hero who rushed back into the bus to rescue his manager, Buck Rodgers. He was here in 1995 for the big collapse, a collapse that would have been so much bigger had Finley not won two crucial games in the last couple of weeks, two wins that forced a one-game playoff with Seattle. There was, then, the broken wrist last year that ended his season in August, and essentially ended the Angels’ season as well and of course a broken wrist isn’t Finley’s fault but that didn’t make the internal pain any less.

It was a defiant Finley that spoke after the 9-1 setback Tuesday. “We’re all right,” he said. “We’ve been ahead for awhile, we’ve been down for awhile. It doesn’t seem to bother us. Next five days, we’ll see what’s up. I don’t think you can sum up an entire year in two games. It might sound corny and cliche, but there’s never a question about the effort of this team. There’s a lot of teams, teams with 100 wins that got it wrapped up but look in the clubhouse and there might be seven guys that play hard every day. The other guys work hard three days, take four days off. Not in here.”

“Knowing the history of this club,” Collins had said before the game, “if I could give the ball to someone in the locker room tonight it would be to [Finley]. He’s done it before. I’m well aware of his record against Texas. I know he’s fatigued. But if there’s one guy that can reach down, it’s him.”

And after the game Collins hadn’t changed his mind a bit. “With all the speculation of whether he was the right guy or not, he proved tonight he’s the guy you hand the ball to. He gave us a great outing and we gave him absolutely nothing to work with.”

Back in 1986, when Finley was a nervous rookie and totally surprised that he had even made the playoff roster, he ended up pitching in the 11th inning of Game 5 of the American League championship series against Boston. “I pitched in Game 5 in Anaheim when we were one pitch away or whatever they called it,” Finley told The Times last year, “and I finished an inning and could have gotten the win. I’ll never forget walking out to that mound when I got in the game and looking around, the cops lining the field, and thinking ‘Damn, there’s not one place to hide in here.’ ”

There was nowhere Tuesday for Finley to hide. Again.