Finley Gets Job Done by Himself

Troy Percival returned to the Angel bullpen after a 5 1/2-week absence Friday night, but there was no need for the Angel closer, or the rest of the Angel relief corps, for that matter.

Chuck Finley threw a complete-game, five-hitter with seven strikeouts, and Jim Edmonds, Luis Alicea and Dave Hollins each homered as the Angels beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 5-1, before 26,033 in Anaheim Stadium.

The victory extended the Angels win streak to five and the Brewers’ losing streak to four. The Angels turned three double plays, hit a pair of two-run homers, and Finley improved his win total this season to one.

That’s right. It’s the middle of May, and the ace of the Angel rotation has one victory in six starts.

“But Chuck was as ready for this game as any pitcher I’ve ever seen,” Angel Manager Terry Collins said. “He wanted this game badly. This is a man with tremendous pride. You’re the horse, you’re struggling, and you want to pull your end of the rope.”

The Brewers, who bunched three first-inning singles for their run, didn’t put up much of a fight against Finley . . . until the ninth inning, when a brawl almost erupted.

Angry words were exhanged in the bottom of the eighth when Milwaukee starter Ben McDonald, apparently upset because Tim Salmon stole second with a four-run lead, hit Garret Anderson on the inside of the left forearm with a pitch that was headed directly for Anderson’s face.

McDonald was pulled for reliever Doug Jones after the pitch and hurled a few expletives toward the Angel dugout before taking a seat on the bench. Anderson left with a contusion on his forearm and is listed as day-to-day.

Finley countered with a brush-back pitch to Jeff Cirillo to open the ninth, and his next pitch hit Cirillo in the middle of the back.

Both benches and bullpens emptied, and players and coaches gathered in the infield for the obligatory glare-down and exchanging of unpleasantries. No punches were thrown, there were no ejections, and Finley went on to close out the Brewers for the 53rd complete game of his career.

“They threw at Garret’s head a couple times in Milwaukee [last weekend],” Finley said. “I understand pitching inside is part of the game, but you can’t be throwing at guys’ faces like that. You hit one of our guys like that and one of their guys is going to get hit.”

McDonald insisted there was no purpose to his pitch. “It was a 3-1 pitch that I was trying to put right on the inside corner,” he said. “I was trying to make a pitcher’s pitch. With first base open, it’s going to be a strike on the corner or a ball . . . I just tried to make a good pitch. I don’t know what all the hell-raising was about.”

McDonald entered with a 12-4 lifetime record and 2.45 earned-run average against the Angels--6-1 with a 1.65 ERA in the Big A--and was nearly invincible for five innings, giving up two hits and striking out five.

But Darin Erstad walked with one out in the sixth and Edmonds blasted a 1-and-1 fastball over the wall in right for his seventh homer of the season, third in the past five games, and a 2-1 Angel lead.

Anderson opened the seventh with a single, extending his hitting streak to 11 games, and stole second. Eddie Murray struck out, failing to advance Anderson, but Alicea, who struck out in his first two at-bats, made McDonald pay dearly for a grooved fastball, drilling it over the right-field wall for his first homer of the season and a 4-1 lead.

The Angels weren’t through, though. McDonald got a fastball up to Hollins in the eighth, and the Angel third baseman lined it over the right-field fence for his second homer of the season and first since April 8.

The Brewers took a 1-0 lead in the first when Gerald Williams, Cirillo and Matt Mieske each singled. The Brewers added a double in the second and a single in the fourth, but they didn’t have a hit against Finley in the final five innings, as an overworked Angel bullpen breathed a sigh of relief.

That bullpen got a major boost earlier Friday when Percival, out since April 7 because of a nerve problem in his right shoulder, was activated.