No Snow Job for This Angel : First Baseman’s New Approach in Fifth Spot of Batting Order Is Paying Off With Consistency

There were the winter words of encouragement from Manager Marcel Lachemann, the sage advice from hitting instructor Rod Carew, the occasional heart-to-heart talks with veterans Chili Davis and Tony Phillips.

All have contributed to first baseman J.T. Snow’s becoming the productive offensive player the Angels need him to be.

But center fielder Jim Edmonds also put his signature on Snow’s hot start. More specifically, it was on the bats Snow used for much of a season in which he was batting .291 with nine home runs and 34 runs batted in before tonight’s game at Seattle.

Players usually receive a shipment of several dozen bats during spring training, but Snow’s never made it to Tempe, Ariz., in April. He borrowed a few from Edmonds.

“I finally got my first order the last week of May, but I used Jim’s bats for another week after they came in,” Snow said. “I didn’t want to break up that karma.”

The names on his bats are now his own but the results--and that karma--have remained the same. After a solid spring, Snow opened the season with a pair of two-hit games and has remained a picture of consistency. He is the only Angel who has not gone two consecutive games without a hit.

Snow has 16 walks and only 28 strikeouts in 199 at-bats, and since moving to the fifth spot in the order, behind Tim Salmon on May 19, is batting .293 with six homers and 18 RBIs.

With the exception of an eight-for-14, eight-RBI stretch during four games in late May, Snow has not really gone on a tear. But he wouldn’t mind going the whole season without such a streak if he could maintain his current pace.

Snow has tried the mercurial route and wouldn’t recommend it. Remember 1993? He hit .407 with six homers and 17 RBIs in the first 15 games of his rookie season. He hit .205 over the next six weeks and was demoted to triple-A Vancouver.

The Angels had all but traded him to the New York Mets in the spring of 1994 but pulled the plug on the deal when Met pitcher Anthony Young was injured. Snow opened the season at Vancouver, was called up in June and hit only .220 for the Angels.

“I’ve had a taste of everything in my short career,” Snow, 27, said. “I’ve had spectacular times, where I’ve been on fire, and other times when I’ve hit poorly. Now I’m getting a taste of consistency, and I like it.”

It suits his personality.

“I don’t like the spotlight,” said Snow, one of three players acquired from the New York Yankees in the 1992 Jim Abbott trade. “I was never comfortable with all that attention in 1993. I’d rather be the guy who quietly goes about his business, and then you look up and say, ‘Hey, he’s having a good season.’ ”

Snow has emerged as one of the American League’s best defensive first basemen. Teammate Mark Langston said Snow is as good as New York Yankee Gold Glover Don Mattingly, “who is the best I’ve seen in 12 years.”

But Snow knew he would have to produce offensively to stay an Angel. He played winter ball in Venezuela, at Lachemann’s request, and worked on taking a more pressure-free approach at the plate.

“Call it maturity or what you want, but before each game I know I’m going to get four at-bats, and I just try to have a good at-bat each time,” Snow said.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean getting a hit. A good, quality at-bat could be a walk, a hard ground ball, a line drive. . . . Even if you strike out but you battled, saw five or six pitches, it can be a good at-bat. I didn’t think like that in the past.”

Snow is better now at hitting pitches he can handle and laying off trouble pitches, and he has become more of a clutch hitter, batting .294 with runners in scoring position and two out.

According to Stats Inc., Snow was a .169 hitter when behind on the count and a .120 hitter with two strikes before this season. He has improved those marks to .276 when behind on the count and .195 with two strikes.

“It goes back to having good at-bats,” he said. “When I’m ahead in the count I think about driving the ball hard, and when I’m down I’ve got to give in a bit, open up the strike zone and just try to put the ball in play.”

Carew has worked extensively with Snow on pitch selection, but perhaps his best advice was for Snow to stop listening to so much advice.

“When you go bad, every Tom, Dick and Harry tells you how to get out of it, and that only compounds the problem,” Carew said. “That’s what happened in 1993. He got away from what he does well, which is being a gap hitter, and he started trying too many different things.

“The next thing you know, the kid gets in a rut, and everyone is wondering whether he can hit in the big leagues. But I never lost confidence that he could hit.”

Snow acknowledges that his confidence wavered.

“But I’ve learned to feel I belong here,” he said. “I know I can play on this level. When I struggled in the past, there was a lot of self- doubt, but I took a whole different attitude going into this season. I just decided to lay it on the line, and if I was good enough to stay around I would, and if I wasn’t, I’d be somewhere else.”