#48 07/29/97 – Jacobs Field, Cleveland - Chuck Finley Sets Career Wins Mark

 The Angels were 2 ½ games behind the Mariners in the AL West as they got set to play the Indians with their ace, Chuck Finley, on the mound. Chuck, who was pitching his twelfth season with the Halos, had already become the Angels’ career leader in several categories, but he entered this game tied with the great Nolan Ryan in the most coveted pitching stat of them all – career wins. They each had won 138 games as an Angel, and only the Indians stood in Chuck’s way of win #139.

            Finley set down the Tribe in order in both the first and the second. In the top of the third, the Angels struck first on an RBI single by Gary Disarcina. In the bottom of the inning, Cleveland answered, touching Finley for two runs on three hits. Finley wouldn’t allow another hit for the rest of the game. The Angels, on the other hand, scored two in the fifth on Jim Edmonds’s single, two more in the sixth on Jack Howell’s home run, and their final two in the eighth on Howell’s second two-run blast. In the ninth, Finley again retired the side, sandwiching his ninth strikeout of the evening between two groundouts. His complete game three hitter was his 10^th win of the year, and pulled the Angels to within a game and a half of Seattle.

With the win, he was also halfway to yet another Angel record. In each of his next three starts, Finley would win; each time giving the Angels a half game lead in the West. On Aug. 19, 1997, Finley broke his wrist backing up home plate and was out for the season - finishing the year at 13-6 after ten consecutive wins. It was the last day the Angels would spend in first for the remainder of the season. But he would pick up where he left off in 1998, winning his first four decisions to set an Angels' record with 14 consecutive wins.

Finley would pitch two more seasons for the Angels, finishing his career with an Angels’ record 165 wins, including ten seasons of double digit win totals.