Road Is Smooth for Valenzuela : Comeback: Former Dodger pitches six shutout innings for the Angels’ double-A Midland, Tex., farm club--but still must take a long bus trip with team.

On a night with more humidity, more fans in the stands and more talent on the field than when he pitched at Palm Springs last week, Fernando Valenzuela threw much better.

Five days after pitching for the Angels’ Class-A team, Valenzuela moved up to the Angels’ double-A team, the Midland, Tex., Angels. Cut by the Dodgers before the season, Valenzuela is trying to come back with the Angels.

Valenzuela gave up no runs in six innings against the Jackson Generals. He walked three, struck out seven and left the game with a 4-0 lead. The Angels won, 7-1.

Unlike last Wednesday, there were no beach balls bouncing around the stands. But in a touch of Dodger Stadium, fans parked anywhere they could, prompting plaintive pleas from the public address announcer to “please move your cars.”

The gates opened an hour early and 6,252 fans poured through, triple the norm for a Generals game. Even allowing for a fireworks display after the game, most of the increase was attributed by General officials to Valenzuela.

The crowd welcomed the visitor with loud applause, but the Generals watched his pitches go wide of the strike zone in the first inning. Valenzuela walked the bases loaded with one out in the first, but got a double play to escape.

In the second, the leadoff batter doubled and the Generals eventually had runners on first and third with one out.

Valenzuela got one batter on a short pop to right field and the next on a strikeout with a screwball.

After that, although he was often behind the batters, he pitched strongly in the muggy, 86-degree heat.

“I’m happy with the way the breaking ball was working, especially the screwball,” Valenzuela said after the game.

He threw mostly fastballs at the start, in an effort to get loose, but acknowledged that “those pitches weren’t even close to the plate in the first inning.”

A radar gun clocked him at 85 to 87 m.p.h. on several pitches. And Valenzuela said having his old battery mate from the Dodgers, Alex Trevino, catch him for the Angels helped.

Valenzuela is next scheduled to pitch Saturday for Midland at Little Rock, Ark. Angel officials said he will ride the team bus from Jackson to Midland, an unaccustomed trip for someone who pitched his way out of the minors in 1980, became the first player to win the rookie of the year and Cy Young awards in 1981, and stayed with the Dodgers until this season.

Asked about the Dodgers, he jokingly bellowed: “Who?” Later, he referred to them as “that team.”

Angel President Richard M. Brown watched Valenzuela pitch Monday night, calling him a “good athlete” when the pitcher made two sharp fielding plays, and a “class act” for patiently signing autographs for children after the game. But he declined to make an overall appraisal of Valenzuela’s performance.

Valenzuela had faced Jackson before--in 1980. He was then with the Dodger farm team at San Antonio in the Texas League and pitched at home against the Generals, then a New York Mets farm team. Valenzuela won that game, 3-2.