His Walk--and Strikeout Pitches--Return : Titans: Senior pitcher James Popoff has regained his confidence and strut after struggling last season. He’s 6-1 and has struck out 70 batters in 71 1/3 innings.

James Popoff never really left the Cal State Fullerton baseball team, but the real James Popoff, the one with the confidence, the command of his pitches, the pinpoint control--and, yes, a bit of a strut--has returned.

The senior has come full circle in three years, reclaiming the tag of staff ace that he held firmly as a sophomore but dropped like a resin bag as a junior.

“Coming into the year, out of our three starters, he was the biggest question mark,” said George Horton, Titan associate head coach. “But James has surfaced as our best pitcher.”

It wasn’t as if Fullerton coaches were ready to file a missing persons report on Popoff last season. His record (7-3) and earned-run average (4.81) weren’t bad.

But clearly, the Popoff of 1991 was not the same as the 1990 model, a smooth-operating pitching machine that helped propel the Titans into the College World Series.

Popoff went 12-5 with a 3.98 ERA as a sophomore and was a first-team, All-Big West Conference selection. The 6-foot-2, 210-pound right-hander won two games in the NCAA Central Regional playoffs at Austin, Tex., including a four-hit shutout of Texas in the title game.

But last season, Popoff went from team ace to the king of clubbed.

He led the staff in home runs allowed with 12. Opponents batted .305 against him. In his sophomore year, his average was .256. He pitched 27 fewer innings in 1991 than he did in 1990 but allowed two more hits (124-122). He led the team in runs allowed (73) and wild pitches (nine).

Popoff had five no-decisions and kept the Titans in many games, but he just wasn’t sharp, a fact that was reflected in the professional baseball draft last June--Popoff wasn’t selected.

Popoff went from Fullerton’s Friday night starter--Big West teams traditionally use their best pitchers on the first night of three-game weekend series--to a Saturday starter, Sunday starter and was even used occasionally as a reliever.

But Popoff doesn’t work many weekends anymore. You can usually find him on the mound on Friday nights, along with the other top Big West pitchers.

Popoff has a 6-1 record and 3.15 ERA this season for the Titans (25-10). He has struck out 70 and walked 14, and opponents are batting only .208 against him, with 56 hits in 71 1/3 innings.

He had a rough relief outing in Sunday’s 7-6 loss to Fresno State, but Popoff has won his last five starts, including five-hitters over Pacific (4-0 victory) March 27 and Fresno State (2-1 victory) last Friday. He was named conference pitcher of the week Monday.

The biggest reason for Popoff’s success is that his confidence is back. You can see it in the way he strides to the mound, sticks his chest out a bit and glares at batters.

“This year I’m getting mad more often, ticked off at hitters--I’m taking it more personally than I did last year,” said Popoff, a Whittier California High School graduate.

“Since high school, I’ve always been the best pitcher on the team, but not being the best last season and not pitching to my capabilities really stung inside me. I don’t like not being the best. That, and not getting drafted, was my biggest motivation to improve.”

Horton hasn’t sensed a drastic change in Popoff’s attitude, because the pitcher didn’t have an attitude problem last year. But he has noticed a slight change in his work habits--he’s in better condition and is concentrating better in practice, and that has carried over to the games.

“Confidence is a huge factor in athletics and he just lost it last year,” Horton said. “But he’s rallied. He’s more committed to having an outstanding year, whereas last year maybe he assumed it would happen.”

Popoff is not a power pitcher. He probably threw harder in high school, where he went 13-3 with a 0.75 ERA and 148 strikeouts as a senior, than he does now. His success stems from an ability to locate a variety of pitches well.

His repertoire consists of a fastball, curve, slider, changeup and, on rare occasion, a knuckleball. Because he can change the velocity of each pitch, Popoff often lulls batters with off-speed stuff and is able to sneak fastballs by them, even though he doesn’t throw that hard.

“The advantage of mixing changeups and off-speed pitches is that it makes his fastball appear better to hitters,” Horton said. “He’s getting his pitches into quality areas. Last year, he pitched too fat within the strike zone and got hurt because of it.”

Many of those fat deliveries were knuckleballs, a pitch Popoff relied on heavily as a sophomore but replaced with a slider this season.

“I’ve thrown two knuckleballs all season,” Popoff said. “Last year, what hurt me was leaving the ball up in key situations, but this year I’ve been putting away guys with two strikes. The slider helps me keep the ball down.”

Popoff hopes his new pitch helps his professional stock rise. He wasn’t drafted out of high school--he thinks it’s because he told most scouts he was leaning toward going to college--and he wasn’t selected after last season, but Horton believes this could be Popoff’s year.

“I think he’ll get the opportunity to play pro ball,” Horton said. “He’s too good a pitcher not to.”