Catcher DiFelice Way Off Base

Angel third baseman Jeff Huson almost felt bad about it, but he had to do it. Huson had caught left fielder Darin Erstad’s throw on Kevin Stocker’s two-out eighth-inning double Sunday, and he saw that Mike DiFelice, who was on first in the scoreless game, had overrun third base and slipped.

Huson dove toward third, putting himself between DiFelice and the bag, and the Tampa Bay catcher had nowhere to go. Huson tagged him out, the inning was over, and the Angels went on to a 4-0 victory in 10 innings.

“I could see him crawling back to the bag,” Huson said. “We’ve all been there before. It’s that helpless feeling, like that dream where you can’t get away from the bad guy or you’re running in quicksand.”

As far as baserunning mistakes go, this was nothing compared with Thursday’s Baltimore brain cramp, when the Orioles’ B.J. Surhoff, on third with the bases loaded, ran home on Jeff Conine’s one-out infield popup and was tagged out for a double play, snuffing out a potential rally in the Angels’ 6-4 victory.

But combined with Angel pitcher Chuck Finley’s pickoff of Dave Martinez at first earlier in the eighth--Martinez would have taken second when DiFelice reached on a strikeout/wild pitch and scored on Stocker’s double--it was a crushing one-two blow.

“I did a couple of backstrokes trying to get back to the base,” DiFelice said. “It’s a shame. We could have won the game, and to make the third out of an inning like that is very frustrating.”

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Finley and Angel third base coach Larry Bowa have a little running joke going. “He asks me when I want my one run,” Finley said, “now or later.”

The Angels scored only once for Finley on May 12, when Finley outdueled the Yankees’ David Cone in a 1-0 victory. They scored three behind Finley in Tuesday’s 5-3 loss to the Orioles and ace Mike Mussina. The Angels have averaged 3.7 runs a game in Finley’s nine starts.

The Angels went scoreless through nine innings Sunday, but Finley kept them in the game, blanking the Devil Rays through nine. In 22 career innings against Tampa Bay, Finley has not allowed an earned run.

“That’s three games in a row where Chuck had to pitch when an opponent wasn’t giving up anything,” Manager Terry Collins said. “He couldn’t make a mistake, and he didn’t. It seems like every time he pitches, he has to battle. He’s never in those easy games.”

Finley, who Sunday became the 52nd pitcher in major league history to accumulate 2,000 strikeouts, is accustomed to these pitchers’ duels.

“You look up, and the next thing you know it’s the seventh or eighth inning and no one has scored,” Finley said. “It’s fun to pitch in these games, but they’re brain-racking because there’s little margin for error.”

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Devil Ray designated hitter Jose Canseco, who leads the major leagues with 17 home runs, was scratched from Sunday’s game because of a stiff back. . . . Sunday’s game ended an 18-game stretch in which the Angels played 15 games on the road. The Angels went 9-9 in those games, winning two of three in Baltimore and two of three in Tampa Bay on this trip. The Angels return to Anaheim to play host to Baltimore in a three-game series beginning Tuesday.