Power Outage : Even With No Home Runs, Millan Produces

Cal State Fullerton junior Adam Millan is a rarity in college baseball, a cleanup batter on a nationally ranked team with no home runs in 22 games.

That’s like a point guard going an entire game without an assist or a kicker going an entire season without a field goal.

With aluminum bats turning some college players from ping to power hitters, you expect your cleanup guy to provide more pop than snap and crackle.

But if Millan keeps hitting like he has, the Titan coaching staff probably wouldn’t care if he goes the whole season without a home run.

Millan, a 6-foot, 195-pound transfer from Cerritos College, leads Fullerton (15-7) with a .410 average and 12 doubles and is tied with Dante Powell for the team lead in hits (34) and runs batted in (23).

The designated hitter/catcher has scored 19 runs and struck out only seven times in 102 plate appearances. His 16-game hitting streak ended Saturday against New Mexico State, but he has been a key producer in the Titans’ seven-game winning streak entering tonight’s game at USC.

“We thought he’d have more home runs and not quite as high an average, but he’s been more of a line-drive, alley hitter who uses the whole field,” said George Horton, Fullerton’s associate head coach.

“If we just taught those kinds of guys to pull the ball and swing for the fences, he’d be more of a home-run hitter, his average would suffer and he wouldn’t be as effective with two strikes. But home runs are not what we’re teaching.”

They’re what Horton and Titan Coach Augie Garrido were expecting, though. Millan set a Cerritos College career home-run record with 18 in two seasons on a field with cavernous dimensions--350 feet down the lines and 410 to center.

The fences in the Titan Sports Complex are closer--330 down the lines, 400 to center--so it was only natural for Garrido and Horton to expect Millan to help fill the power void left by Phil Nevin and Jason Moler, the heart of last season’s lineup.

“When they recruited me, they needed a guy who can pop the ball out of the yard, and I’ve been categorized as that kind of guy,” said Millan, a four-year starter at Montebello Schurr High School. “I’m really surprised I haven’t had any home runs, but I’m still productive.

“Everyone likes home runs, but when you start trying to hit them you get into trouble. I’m not depressed because I don’t have a home run. I’m hitting gaps, getting doubles and RBIs.”

Millan refuses to fall into the trap of trying to be someone he isn’t. He puts pressure on himself to perform, as do most good players, but not to the point where his statistics become an obsession and a distraction.

“They had some big guns last year with Nevin and Moler, but I didn’t come here saying I had to replace so-and-so,” Millan said. “If I came in thinking I had to hit 20 home runs and win the Golden Spikes Award, I would have put too much pressure on myself.”

Millan may not match Nevin and Moler in the long-ball department, but he’s proving to be just as tough an out. He has developed a knack for fouling off tough, two-strike pitches and battling pitchers until they make mistakes.

While some batters choke up, widen their stance and assume a more defensive mindset with two strikes, Millan seems to get more aggressive when he’s down in the count.

“I don’t think about striking out--I just think about driving the pitch,” Millan said. “You can have the perfect stance and hand position, but if you don’t have the mentality to hit with two strikes, you’re not going to hit. You have to think no one can beat you, that you’re the best at the plate.”

Millan hopes to develop that kind of confidence behind the plate as well. He doesn’t have the arm strength or receiving skills to overtake starting catcher Bret Hemphill, but Millan’s experience and tenacity earn him a spot behind the plate at least once, and sometimes twice, a week.

Millan is the Titans’ designated catcher when junior Dan Ricabal pitches.

Millan faced Ricabal for three years when Ricabal pitched at San Gabriel High School and caught Ricabal for two years at Cerritos College. Ricabal is 3-1 with a 3.57 earned-run average and three complete games.

“Maybe it’s over-thinking on our part, but they’re used to each other, they played together in the summer and in junior college, and if it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” Horton said. “It’s not like Bret can’t catch Dan, but why mess with it?”

The same could be said for Millan’s offense. Sure, it would be nice to have a few home runs out of your No. 4 batter, but why risk ruining a good thing?

“It is uncharacteristic for a cleanup guy to have no home runs after 22 games,” Millan said. “But the home runs will come.”