Two Angels Go to Top of the Class : Baseball: Joyner No. 1 among AL batters after getting three hits in 9-5 victory. Polonia gets five and is close to No. 2.

CLEVELAND —  Once, he ruled over the mythical land of Wally World. After his three-hit performance Monday in the Angels’ soggy 9-5 victory over the Indians, Wally Joyner ruled the American League batting race.

“I’m king for a day,” the Angel first baseman said after he took the AL batting lead with a .364 average. “Hopefully, it’ll stay for a while.”

It took the Angels more than a little while to subdue the Indians in front of a crowd that began at 5,880 and shrank to perhaps a few hundred by game’s end. But the few who remained through 3 hours 18 minutes of playing time, a 1-hour 20-minute rain delay and five pitching changes saw Joyner surge to the head of the AL batting race, with Luis Polonia close behind.

Polonia enjoyed his first five-hit game as an Angel and the second of his career, raising his average to .357. Oakland’s Dave Henderson is also at .357, but percentage points ahead of Polonia. “I’ve got to do something or Luis will pass me,” Joyner said.

What mattered most to the Angels was that they were able to pass the Indians with a three-run sixth after 80 minutes of contemplating a tie.

Despite squandering leads of 4-1 and 5-4, Chuck Finley joined Boston’s Roger Clemens as the AL’s only six-game winners with his sixth victory in seven decisions. He was angry with himself for giving up the fifth run--an RBI-single by Carlos Baerga on a field made slick by a steady rain--and grateful to his hot-hitting teammates for putting him in position to win.

“Wally had a great night and Luis over there, he’s Mr. Donation,” Finley said. “That’s because he always donates something in the games I’m pitching. He never stops hitting.”

Joyner hasn’t started hitting so well so early since his remarkable rookie season of 1986, when he had eight home runs by the first week in May. He has a nine-game hitting streak and is 17 for 37 (.459) in that span.

Although he didn’t figure in the Angels’ two-run flurry in the first, his single to right gave the Angels a 4-1 lead in the second. He also walked in the fourth, singled and scored in the sixth and singled again in the eighth but was thrown out at the plate in a call that appeared on replays to be erroneous.

“I feel like I have a pretty good approach to every ball that’s being thrown up. I’m not too anxious, not too lazy,” he said. “I feel like if I have to make an adjustment after a pitch is thrown, I can make it without worrying what I have to do next. . . .

“I don’t think I’ve ever led the league in hitting or was even tied after my first at-bat. It’s real fun, but I realize and I think everybody else realizes when you go through this, that you need to have some breaks once in a while. You need to have some luck. They can go away as quick as they came.”

Polonia’s line-drive stroke came back after he got a day off Sunday. His previous five hits had all been infield hits, but on Monday he had two sharp singles to center, a triple to the gap in left-center that scored Donnie Hill to give the Angels a 6-5 lead and two infield hits.

Polonia, who flied to left in the seventh in his only unsuccessful at-bat, became the 11th Angel to enjoy a five-hit game and the first since Bob Boone on June 17, 1988. All but Polonia were five for five.

“I wasn’t hitting the ball good, but I was getting a lot of hits. This is the first time in five days I’m hitting line drives,” Polonia said. “It was fun. I hope I get some more like that.”

Finley will gladly do without repeats of Monday’s game conditions. What began as a sprinkle from dark clouds that loomed over Cleveland Stadium turned into a downpour by the third inning, making footing treacherous.

Finley didn’t blame the field for his failings, but having mud stuck in his spikes didn’t help his concentration. In the first inning he gave up a double to Mike Huff, hit Felix Fermin and walked Mark Lewis; he almost escaped unscathed when Gary Gaetti very nearly began a triple play on Albert Belle’s grounder to third, but Huff scored when Belle beat the throw to first by a step.

Cleveland got to Finley for three runs in the third, with the key hits being Belle’s two-run double and Baerga’s single.

“It was pretty gummy out there. My shoes had a little Clydesdale work in there,” Finley said, referring to the big-footed horses. “I put the ball beneath my armpit between pitches to keep it dry every time (home plate umpire Jim McKean) threw me a new ball, but by the time I put it behind my back, it was soaked.

“I was waiting to slide off the front of the mound. I threw those shoes out. I should have taken those shoes and this outing and thrown them out. But it looks pretty good now. The sun game out on me late.”

Polonia (triple and run scored), Joyner (single and run scored) and Gary Gaetti (RBI-single) stood out in the three-run sixth.

The Angels added a run in the eighth to give Scott Bailes and Jeff Robinson some breathing room, and Robinson pitched the final 1 1/3 innings to earn his second save.

“It was ugly, but you’ve got to win some like these,” Finley said.

Everything looks good to Polonia right now. “I’m going to keep swinging and hope this doesn’t end,” he said. “I wish I could win the batting title.”