Winning His Mind Game : Baseball: New attitude and extra batting practice have helped Angel shortstop Gary DiSarcina mature.

For players assured of spots in the starting lineup, the two most important aspects of spring training are stretching and remembering to put sun block on the back of your neck.

It’s a time for languid preparation, not instant revelation.

But Gary DiSarcina claims the turning point of his career came during one trip to the plate in Arizona. And a most unlikely turning point it was.

“It was the best at-bat I’ve had this year,” DiSarcina said. “(San Diego’s) Andy Benes struck me out on three pitches and I didn’t swing at any of them. I can remember walking by Rod (Carew) and he was just waiting for me to throw my helmet or explode, but it didn’t happen. It was the first time I ever just gave a pitcher his due and tipped my hat.

“It was turning point for me in terms of maturation. Two or three years ago, I was such a hot-head that I’d be messed up two or three days because of one bad call. It might cost me 10 at-bats. It’s taken me a long time to learn that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. If you go 0 for 4, you can’t beat yourself up.”

Self-inflicted pain is out of the question these days. DiSarcina has gone 0 for 4 only once since April 17. Armed with this new maturity, DiSarcina is hitting .327. He’s third on the team with 29 runs scored and even has two home runs.

Before they send a thank-you note to Benes, the Angels might want to give Carew, their hitting instructor, a pat on the back. DiSarcina, a career .236 hitter, isn’t doing this Cal Ripken Jr. impression solely on lack of emotion. A couple hundred hours of extra batting practice hasn’t hurt.

“Gary had it in his mind that he was going to be a great fielder and hit .240,” Carew said. “I told him, ‘I’ll be damned if you’re going to hit .240. You’re going to hit .285 at least. And we’re going to work until you’ve disciplined yourself to that point.’ I didn’t want him to settle.

“We do a lot of drills, working with his hands and he’s getting the bat on the ball more consistently. And he’s taking what the pitchers are giving him, not trying to juice the ball to a certain area.”

Carew, who made it look so simple, can make it sound simple too. But DiSarcina, who at 26 is in his third year as the Angels’ starting shortstop, admits there were times when he was satisfied to concentrate on defense.

“I knew I could do better,” he said, “but you can get comfortable in the big leagues when you’re doing really great in the field and there’s no one there to push you. There’s no higher league, nowhere else to aspire to.

“I can remember going two or three months of working really, really hard on hitting my first year and not seeing any results. You say to yourself, ‘Why go through all this? Just be happy with what you’re doing.’ But then in the off-season, I’d look at the numbers and say, ‘I can do so much better.’ And I’d vow to keep working no matter what, and not get disheartened.”

This was not a case of simply refining raw talent. DiSarcina, who is smooth and quick in the field, is not a gifted hitter. But he has attacked the first quarter of this season with an almost military approach, using a combination of a solid tactics and skills learned by repetition.

“I’m not blessed with the best swing or the strong hands that you would expect from a talented hitter,” he said. “But I take pride in how relentlessly I’ve worked with Rod on my swing. When you have the luxury of being around a guy who has that much knowledge about the art of hitting for three years, it starts to rub off. I really think most of the credit has to go to him.”

There are a number of other factors that are playing a part in DiSarcina’s sudden emergence as a bat man:

HAROLD AND REX

Last season, he felt the burden of being the leader of an inexperienced infield. Now, when he looks to his left, he sees a veteran, Harold Reynolds or Rex Hudler.

“In Seattle, I went through being a young guy surrounded by young guys and being expected to be a leader,” said Reynolds, who was signed as a free agent during the spring. “It’s not easy. I think with Hud and Spike (Owen) and myself around this year, it takes a lot of pressure off him.

“Just having experienced guys around to reassure you that you’re making the right (defensive) calls, gives you confidence and no doubt that’s carrying over to his hitting.”

DiSarcina said playing alongside Reynolds and Hudler, coupled with sitting next to veteran shortstop Owen on the bench and in the clubhouse, has had a distinctly calming effect.

“They keep me from pressing the panic button,” he said. “They just won’t allow it because they know that not trusting yourself is the worst thing that can happen to you in this game.

“Insecurity is your enemy.”

MONEY MATTERS

On March 3, DiSarcina signed a three-year contract worth almost $1 million a year. He was paid $265,000 in 1993 and was being offered $350,000 for this season until the Angels came up with the multiyear deal.

He knows he might have done better had he waited, but then he might not be doing so well if he had waited.

“For the first time in my career, I can solely concentrate on one thing, helping this team win,” he said. “And it’s going to be very nice not having to spend the off-season on the crap that goes with working out a contract, worrying over what’s fair and what’s not.

“Now, I know what’s in front of me for the next three years, whether I hit .220 or .320, and that relieves the pressure of a ‘must’ season. People react differently to that kind of pressure, but for me, I think it allows me to relax and play my game.”

THE BUM THUMB

DiSarcina had played in 211 consecutive games before a fastball by Baltimore’s Ben McDonald broke his right thumb on Aug. 26 last season. The streak wasn’t going to scare Ripken, but this was the first time an injury had kept DiSarcina off a baseball diamond. And it scared him.

It wasn’t a very happy new year in the DiSarcina house in Massachusetts. Four months after having three pins surgically placed in the thumb, he still couldn’t bend it.

“I didn’t see how I would be able to hold a bat by spring training,” he said. “The thumb was definitely not where it should’ve been and I was just hoping I’d be able to swing a bat again some day.

“It puts things in perspective, to be physically removed from the game and have to sit and watch someone else do your job. I not only learned not to take the game for granted, but it also rekindled a lot of desire in me.”

DiSarcina doesn’t figure to win any batting titles and he certainly doesn’t have to hit .300 to have a successful year. He is, after all, a shortstop and fielding his position is No. 1 on his job description.

This year’s steady offensive output--he had a career-best 12-game hitting streak stopped Saturday and has only gone hitless in consecutive games twice this season--is merely a bonus when compared to his even-more-consistent defensive performance.

DiSarcina has made only two errors, the last coming almost a month ago, and his .989 fielding percentage is second in the league to Ripken.

“Baseball people want consistency out of that position,” Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann said, “and to have a shortstop that you can play every day who’s not only good defensively but can contribute offensively, is a great foundation for a ballclub.

“The thing is, I’d much rather have a guy who makes the routine plays all day long than the guy who makes a great one here and there but blows a routine one every once in awhile. There are a lot more routine plays in a game.”

Owen, who set a National League record for shortstops by playing the first 63 games without committing an error for Montreal in 1990, thinks the “steady” tag pinned on DiSarcina is a bit of a bad rap.

“Gary has a knack for making great plays and making a lot of tough plays look easy too,” Owen said. “You can make a routine ground ball look flashy if you want, but that’s not the way he plays and I think that’s why he makes some really great plays that kind of go unnoticed.

“Right now, I don’t see too many that are better and I’m not saying that just because he’s on my team. He’s quick. He has very good range. And he’s really smooth out there and to me, that’s more of a compliment than saying a guy is spectacular.”

DiSarcina, who has learned over the years that some of a shortstop’s best plays are the ones he doesn’t try to make, isn’t going to start turning somersaults after he throws the ball to first in an effort to get more air time on This Week in Baseball.

“A lot of people don’t give me a fair shake, call it underrated or whatever,” he said, “but I know I’m not an embarrassment to this team. The shortstop has to be the anchor out there.”

And if the Angels manage to stay moored near the top of their division, he’ll probably be high on their list of reasons why.