Snow Comes Back to Familiar Sight : Angels: First baseman returns in time to see Finley’s two-hitter wasted in 1-0 loss.

Angel first baseman J.T. Snow leaned back comfortably on the chartered flight to Baltimore, boarded the team bus on the tarmac without having to get his luggage and checked into the luxurious harbor hotel.

He opened the door to his room, walked inside, and that’s when it finally hit him. There was a fancy color TV, an alarm clock and two pieces of chocolate atop his pillow case.

Yeah, he was back in the big leagues.

Snow arrived Tuesday at Camden Yards, watched teammate Chuck Finley pitch a two-hitter--and still lose, 1-0, to the Baltimore Orioles--when it hit him again.

Sorry, you’re still with the Angels.

Finley (13-10), who has lost four of his nine complete games this season, was left with nothing to show for a 10-strikeout effort. He yielded a two-out, two-strike single up the middle to Cal Ripken in the first inning and allowed only two baserunners the rest of the game. Still, he came out a loser.

The Angels (56-68) mustered only four hits (two of them infield hits) against starter Jamie Moyer (9-6) and reliever Alan Mills and lost a 1-0 game to the Orioles for the first time since Aug. 18, 1984, when Mike Witt suffered the indignity against Mike Boddicker.

“I didn’t think at the time (Ripken’s single) would be such a big factor,” said Finley, whose bullpen blew his 6-2 ninth-inning lead in his last start. “After awhile you just say, ‘Wow, I must have pushed some old lady off the curb or something in my past, and now somebody’s paying me back.’

“It’s very unsettling. It’s like a guy leading the Indy 500 for 499 (miles) and then running out of gas. You can see it, you can see it, you can see it, but the results aren’t what you want them to be.”

No wonder when Snow was asked how it felt to be back in the big leagues after a monthlong exile in Vancouver, he said: “It feels like I never left. Really, it feels like I’ve been on one long road trip.”

There are a few things that have changed since Snow last was with the Angels. He had never even met third baseman Eduardo Perez or second baseman Kurt Stillwell. The only pitchers that remain in the rotation since he left are Finley and Mark Langston. And the Angels still had a flicker of hope of being in the division race, not trailing Chicago by 13 games.

But while the Angels have the identical record of a year ago after 124 games--managing the feat by going 43-65 since April 29--Snow wants to show the world he is a changed man.

When Angel Manager Buck Rodgers and his teammates last saw him, he was completely lost at the plate, swinging at the bad pitches, watching the good ones and trying to go four for four every game.

The player who appeared in front of 46,284 fans at Camden Yards was much more confident, relaxed and showing similarities of the J.T. Snow who tore up the American League for the first three weeks in April.

Snow was aggressive at the plate Tuesday night, producing one of the Angels’ four hits, popping to second base and flying to right in his three appearances.

“I could feel the difference between the old hitter and the new one,” said Snow, who batted .340 with five homers and 24 RBIs at Vancouver. “The big thing was that I didn’t put any pressure on myself. Earlier in the year, if I didn’t have a hit in my first two at-bats, I’d be getting down on myself. This time, I didn’t panic or anything.

“I think going down was good for me. It got me going again. Don’t get me wrong, it was tough, and it took awhile just to get over the shock of being there. But it gave me time to work things out at my own pace and just relax.”

Rodgers isn’t predicting a magical turnaround for Snow, nor does he expect to see the Snow that made everyone forget about Wally World in April. Still, Rodgers hopes to say by the end of the season that he has his first baseman for 1994.

“The thing that people forget is how tough it is playing in front of your hometown friends and family,” Rodgers said. “He’s a guy who’s got to play 81 games in front of mom and pop, grandma and grandpa, classmates and old girlfriends. It’s never going to be easy, but I think now he’s gone through the rough part.”

Most of all, Snow says, he hopes the days of getting up at 4 in the morning, catching flights from Vancouver to Spokane to Denver to Albuquerque, and going straight to the ballpark, are over.

“I tell you, when you get up to the big leagues,” he said, “you get awfully used to it. Believe me, I don’t ever want to go back.”