Brooks Takes a Step Toward ’93 : Baseball: He gets three hits to help his cause for a contract next season and helps Angels beat Twins, 5-1.

Hubie Brooks doesn’t have to be reminded that with his 36th birthday a few days away and a batting average in the low .200s, his baseball future hinges on his performance in the last month of the season.

He just doesn’t want to have a sense of urgency weighing on his mind every time he goes up to bat.

“If I went up there thinking about that all the time, I would be carrying around luggage I don’t need,” Brooks said. “I’ve had a rough enough time the last year and a half, with my neck (surgery). . . . I want to be free in my mind to just go out and play.”’

On Saturday, Brooks took what Manager Buck Rodgers called “the first step, but just a step” toward showing he merits a contract for next season. Brooks matched his season-high with three hits and drove in a run to support the five-hit pitching of Julio Valera, sparking the Angels to a 5-1 victory over the Twins before 29,131 at Anaheim Stadium.

“He swung the bat a little bit better and hit the ball hard,” said Rodgers, who also managed Brooks in Montreal. “He hit hanging breaking pitches he hadn’t been hitting and a fastball that was off his wrists. We’ll see what happens. He’ll have to just show his form is still there. The first guy he’s got to show is himself.”

Junior Felix had three runs batted in--his first RBIs in 15 games and his most productive night since a six-RBI game against Cleveland April 30--and Chad Curtis had two hits and stole two bases to set up the third run. However, Curtis left the game because of a sprained left ankle he sustained while sliding into third base. His status is day-to-day.

Valera (8-10) lost his shutout with two out in the ninth when a single by Kirby Puckett scored Chuck Knoblauch, but he settled for the victory.

“I finally got my win against Minnesota,” said Valera, who struck out six and walked none in recording his fourth complete game of the season. “I was 0-2 and it was time. . . . The location on my fastball was good and I was pitching inside more than I did last time out (a 6-2 loss at Minnesota last Sunday). That was the key.”

But of all the principals who figured in the Angels’ second victory in 12 games against the Twins this season, none needed a big night more than Brooks.

Acquired from the New York Mets last winter for Dave Gallagher, he got off to a fast start only to be slowed by a recurrence of the neck problem that forced him to undergo surgery last September. His average fell to .213 and his run production dwindled; after an absence of more than two months, he looked rusty and had only one RBI in 11 games before facing Kevin Tapani (15-11) Saturday.

His timing, he said, “isn’t totally there. There’s good and bad. You’ve got to work your way through it, battle through it.”

He battled Tapani successfully. He led off the second with a double down the right-field line, moved up on Curtis’ sacrifice and scored on Felix’s sacrifice fly. His single in the third scored Luis Polonia, who had ended an 0-for-12 slump with a double and moved to third on a ground out; Brooks got his final hit, a single to center, off Larry Casian in the eighth and scored after Curtis and Felix singled.

“I just found a few holes tonight,” Brooks said.

He hopes there’s a hole he can fill for the Angels next season. “I just think it’s about the direction they want to go, who they think can help them, how healthy I’ll be and how healthy I’ll stay,” he said. “I’d like to be here. It’s really not up to me. It will probably be hard to find a job. It might be hard to play baseball in ’93 for anybody (if there’s a lockout). Hopefully, I’ll have a chance to come back here.”