Don’t Wake Him Up : Dream Season With Moorpark Follows a Year of Frustration for Suarez

Mike Suarez and his batting stroke spent a trying 1989 season at Valley College. Pitchers were getting superegos as Suarez’s id went into a skid. He was playing like Pavlov’s dog, and his only reward was added frustration.

In short, Suarez was psyched out.

This season, since transferring to Moorpark, Suarez has been simply unconscious.

After learning he can’t stress for success, second baseman Suarez has been the hottest hitter on a surprising Moorpark team that has climbed into a three-way tie for first place in the Western State Conference at 8-2.

Little more than halfway through the schedule, he has already broken the school single-season record for home runs with seven and has had at least one hit in all but one of Moorpark’s 20 games.

“I just figured I’d come back home and get relaxed and play like I used to play,” said Suarez, who graduated from Westlake High in 1988 and lives in Thousand Oaks. “This year, I’ve practiced a lot of fielding, done a lot of hitting. Everything came slowly but surely, and I’m just relaxed now. This is exactly what I wanted to do.”

Suarez says that, rather than arising from a conflict at Valley, his transfer to Moorpark gave him a chance to start anew and eliminated the onerous commute. He was looking to return to a comfort zone after never finding his niche at Valley.

Things had become so bad last season that Suarez even tried switch-hitting, but the only switch for him was when he got a hit.

“Last year, if a guy threw the ball to me and I was hitting I couldn’t see it because I was so screwed up in the head,” Suarez said. “I would be thinking about things I’m doing wrong hitting, about my fielding error that I made earlier in the game, be thinking about so many things, and I couldn’t see the ball. If you don’t see the ball, you might as well hang up your spikes.”

Instead, Suarez traded his sparkless spikes for hitting shoes and followed his nightmare season with a dream season. Previously not a power hitter, Suarez, 5-foot-11, 185 pounds, hit three home runs two weeks ago against Santa Barbara and is tied for the WSC lead with 13 RBIs in conference games.

“He’s been successful this year and I’ve been happy for him,” Valley Coach Chris Johnson said. “I’ve seen some freshmen struggle before, but boy, you talk about struggling, he was really struggling. . . . He had some high expectations, but he did a little better than he felt like he did.”

Indeed, Suarez hit nearly .300 at Valley, but, compared to his .400-plus averages his last two high school seasons and his team-leading .418 average this year, high-.200s was enough to drive his blood pressure to nearly the same level.

Suarez began to regain his confidence during the American Legion season. His summer performance, a whopping 31 stolen bases but only two home runs for Westlake-Agoura, gave no premonition of things to come, though.

“When I came here, I just wanted to hit for average, get base hits,” Suarez said. “In the winter I started to hit home runs, and I thought maybe if I hit three home runs in a season it will be a pretty good year. I never expected seven, no way.”

The home runs may be a surprise, but first-year Moorpark Coach Ken Wagner says Suarez hasn’t been lucky in sending seven balls beyond the fence.

“I really feel like he’s a major college hitter right now,” Wagner said. “It’s been a big asset for our program to pick up a kid like that. . . . Another thing that’s kind of helped him is that he’s got some good hitters in front of him and behind him.”

Suarez bats third and has picked up 28 RBIs this season. Darin Furlong, who leads the conference with a .555 average in WSC play, sets the table ahead of Suarez, and the Moorpark lineup has battered conference pitchers for nearly eight runs per game.

With Suarez putting the pressure on opposing pitchers rather than himself, WSC teams are feeling the brunt of bat-induced shock therapy on hits like the bullet single Suarez knocked off pitcher Matt Whisenant at Glendale Tuesday.

Suarez says he has begun using his lower body more to generate power, although his greatest power is that of positive thinking. His outlook has also helped him in the field, where he has reacclimated himself to the infield after playing several different positions at Valley.

“I’m really at ease,” said Suarez, who hopes to play for a Division I school and then in the minor leagues. “I don’t want to expect more from myself because I just want to take it the way it comes.”

For now, he’ll just continue being a testament to the power of the unconscious.