Bottom Line: Finley Getting More for Less : Angels: After 10 starts, left-hander's earned-run average is up from last year's but so, too, is his number of victories.

Bottom Line: Finley Getting More for Less : Angels: After 10 starts, left-hander’s earned-run average is up from last year’s but so, too, is his number of victories.

By HELENE ELLIOTT

June 4, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

ANAHEIM — There are two ways to analyze Chuck Finley’s curious season.

First, there’s the serious, scientific method. That would show Finley is making more pitches per start than he did last season, has pitched more innings and given up more walks and more runs.

Then there’s the Angel left-hander’s unscientific but colorful analysis of his first 10 outings.

“Some have been good, some have been decent. I haven’t had any where I got tore up,” Finley said.

Neither method explains conclusively how Finley can give up more runs than he did in his first 10 starts a year ago--and have the Angels score fewer runs for him--yet have a better record.

One of a handful of major league pitchers with eight victories, Finley takes an 8-2 record and 3.68 earned-run average into his start against the Boston Red Sox tonight at Anaheim Stadium.

A year ago, his record was 7-3 but his ERA was stingier, at 2.91. He gave up only 19 walks in his first 10 starts of 1990, which encompassed 65 innings, but issued 32 in 71 innings in his first 10 outings this season. And despite their fortified offense, the Angels scored fewer runs in Finley’s first 10 starts this season than in 1990. A year ago, they outscored opponents, 58-31. This year, they’ve scored 54 runs and given up 34.

All of which says Finley shouldn’t have as good a record as he does.

After his last start, an 8-4 victory over the White Sox at Chicago last Wednesday, he was asked about his goals. His reply: “I’d like to pitch a lot better.”

Still, Finley knows what counts. If winning means relying on guile and guts, which he has done often, until he regains the precision and consistency to overpower hitters, he’ll do it gladly.

“The bottom line is winning. Which would you rather have, a 2.20 ERA and be 4-11, or be 11-4 and have an ERA that’s three-point something?” he said.

“What’s hard for me is coming off two years when (his ERA) was two-point something. You look at it now, and say, ‘God, that’s terrible,’ ” said Finley, whose 2.40 ERA last season was second only to the 1.93 compiled by Boston’s Roger Clemens. “But I remember when it was four-point something and it went to three and that was a big thing.

“I’m never satisfied. There’s always some part of the game you can improve. That’s the part of competing that makes us strive to excel. Right now, the way everything is going, I’ll take it.”

It has taken more effort and more luck this season for Finley to win than a year ago. He threw 130, 142 and 126 pitches in his past three starts and 136 in the two starts before that; he exceeded 120 pitches only twice in his first 10 in 1990.

“He kind of spoiled us,” catcher Lance Parrish said.

Finley has also been fortunate this season. He won May 13 at Cleveland when the Angels came back after a rain delay to score three runs and break a 5-5 tie. On May 18 at Baltimore, the Angels scored two in the top of the ninth to break a 2-2 tie and Bryan Harvey saved the victory. A six-run, sixth-inning rally May 29 at Chicago overcame the White Sox’s four-run third inning against Finley.

“I would say he hasn’t been as consistent with his pitches as he would like to be. He seems on occasion to be working behind a little more,” Parrish said. “Last year, I remember him going through streaks where he’d make one good pitch after another. He didn’t have to struggle. It was boom, boom, boom.

“It’s not that he’s not capable of it. It’s that he hasn’t really zeroed in to that point yet. To his credit, he’s winning despite that. He has a chance to have a really good year. This might be the year he wins 20. The better times are still ahead for Chuck.”

Not that times are so bad now. He can reasonably be sure of his third successive All-Star selection, and being named the starter isn’t far-fetched.

“It doesn’t really matter to me. I made it two times and the days off would have been nicer, but you never turn it down,” Finley said. “I don’t want to sound like I’m bored, because starting would be the ultimate.”

Reducing his ERA is Finley’s first goal. Twenty victories isn’t on his mind now, and isn’t likely to be unless he wins 19.

“What frustrates me most is I’ll throw three, four good pitches and one bad. It comes and goes,” Finley said. “I’d like to be consistently good, start to finish. . . .

“Last year and the year before I never set goals for how many wins. If something happened, I might start pressing and thinking, ‘God, I’ve got to get a win.’ I don’t need that type of pressure. It’s enough to go out there and pitch well and keep the team in the game. I got close last year (he was 18-9) and I knew with a break here or there, I might have done it. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen.”

Chuck Finley After 10 Starts

Year W-L ERA IP H R ER BB SO 1991 8-2 3.68 71 62 33 29 32 65 1990 7-3 2.91 65 57 28 21 19 40