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 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 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 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, will and not much else. He’s 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 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 1-2-3 inning and yet no other Ranger had scored until it was the 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 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. 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. Of course a broken wrist isn’t Finley’s fault but that didn’t make the internal pain any less.

So if the world was fair, Finley’s pitching one-run ball into the seventh inning on this night when the Angels were trying to recover from Monday night’s 9-1 pasting, would have been enough, would have earned Finley a win, would have given the Angels a tie for first with Texas, would have given Finley’s team enough momentum to go from here into the playoffs. But of course there is no fairness here. The Rangers went on to win again, 9-1, again.

Speaking after the game, Finley was defiant. “We’re all right,” he said. “We’ve been ahead for a while, we’ve been down for a while. 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.”

This is always Finley’s way. To stand up and take it, win or lose.

Before this game Angel Manager Terry Collins had said “knowing the history of this club 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.”

Collins was right about Finley reaching down. Finley reached down deep. Remember that he has twice taken line drives off his pitching elbow that have knocked him out of games this year. He ripped open his knee when he took a dive while trying to cover first base and had to leave another game, and still Finley came 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 said 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.