Stevens’ Patience Pays Off : Angels: After wearing the mantle of heir apparent, he has first shot at replacing Wally Joyner at first base.

Lee Stevens stood patiently in line behind Wally Joyner at first base for years, knowing that soon enough either Joyner would leave or the Angels would trade Stevens, their young prospect.

Now Joyner is gone, to the Kansas City Royals as a free agent.

Stevens expected to be alone when this day came, but suddenly he has company in Alvin Davis, standing ready if Stevens falters.

Davis is there because Stevens’ injured right wrist wasn’t healed when he returned to the batting cage this winter, hurting so badly that he knew he couldn’t continue to swing a bat. The Angels responded by having the wrist immobilized in a cast for three weeks--and by signing Davis, a former Seattle Mariner coming off his poorest season at 31, to a bargain free-agent contract worth $800,000.

Stevens’ chance has come. He simply has to share it.

He is progressing well, but cautiously, in spring training. He continues to take batting practice against Angel coaches, instead of the pitchers, taking care not to rush the wrist, which was slow recovering from a sprain suffered last season.

Though Stevens has played in intrasquad games, Manager Buck Rodgers says he plans to hold him out of exhibitions until Stevens is taking batting practice against Angel pitchers.

“I know my strength is not at 100% yet, but I’m swinging the bat pretty well in the cage,” Stevens said. “I’m trying to talk them into letting me play some games so I can know where I stand.”

If Stevens can play, the Angels insist he gets first crack at the job, and that they want to give him the opportunity to prove he can handle it. Will Davis’ presence make it tougher? Stevens shrugged.

“If Wally were here or Alvin is here, either way I’ve got to produce,” he said. “It’s going to help me, having Alvin here.

“I don’t think the job has been given to me. I’m walking in playing first base. I still have to play.”

And he still has to face being unpopular with fans, simply because he is not Joyner.

Stevens will probably get as many questions about Joyner as he will at-bats.

“It’s usually the same question, ‘How do I feel replacing him?’ ” Stevens said. “Eventually somebody was going to have to do it. He couldn’t play forever. It probably ended here a little earlier than he and some people around here wanted.”

Stevens, 24, got his first taste of the big leagues two seasons ago, when Joyner was put on the disabled list in mid-July with a fracture in his knee.

Stevens and his wife, Kim, were celebrating their first anniversary when they got word that he was leaving triple-A Edmonton for Anaheim. He started at first base on the first day he wore a big-league uniform, and he got his first hit and his first run batted in. He got his first home run four days later, when he had four RBIs.

By the second week in August, he was hitting .310 and playing nearly every day, a rookie sensation.

There were even some murmurs that the Angels should trade Joyner before he could become a free agent and let Stevens be the first baseman.

Then Stevens swooned. In his last 47 appearances, he batted .166. He finished the season hitting .214, with seven home runs.

The next season, Joyner hit .301, and Stevens, a 6-foot-4, 220-pounder who needed to learn to become a hitter, was back in Edmonton.

He had seen enough of the majors to know he had to change.

“(Whether I did) worse or better, I think it helped,” Stevens said. “I got to see it, play a little. I learned a lot the first year.”

Last year in Edmonton, Stevens made the kind of adjustments that might mean he can stand up to major league pitching the next time around.

He hit .314 with 19 home runs in 123 games before being called up. His strikeouts dwindled.

With the Angels in 1990, Stevens, standing in for Joyner, struck out 75 times in 248 at-bats.

In Edmonton last season, he struck out about half as often: 78 times in 481 at-bats.

When he was called up to the Angels, Stevens hit .293 in 18 games, with 12 strikeouts in 58 at-bats.

Strangely, some of the credit for Stevens’ success goes to Lenn Sakata, a lifetime .230 hitter who spent 11 seasons in the majors, mostly with the Baltimore Orioles, who is now a coach with the Trappers. By his own admission, Sakata is a coach who preaches: “Do as I say, not as I did.”

Stevens became more patient, more selective and has learned to hit off-speed pitches.

“Unfortunately, I got hurt last year,” he said. “I’d like to carry it over, do it for a full season.

“The timing is real good. I’m just on the verge of producing enough to be able to stay.”

He will need to make the most of his chance.

Davis hit .221 with 12 homers last season, but for his first seven seasons in the majors, he averaged 21 homers while batting .289.

Stevens said the signing of Davis made no difference to him. But his wrist, which seemed to be threatening to take away his chance, kept him worried. He has been encouraged with his progress this spring, and says that, although the wrist is still sometimes tender, the original pain is gone.

“I didn’t sleep much this winter,” he said.

It wasn’t the pain, but the prospect of losing his long-awaited chance that kept him awake.