LEFT IN OR LEFT OUT?

The first time Meticulous Mo met Blithe Benny, he was taken aback. Benny approached Mo and asked for the shirt off his back.

Mo had one thought: “Who is this guy?”

Moments later, Benny skipped to the mound for the Orange County team in the 1994 Area Code games wearing Mo’s sleeves. He pitched a couple of shutout innings, wadded up the shirt and tossed it to Mo with a grin and a nod of thanks.

Mo mumbled no problem, folded the shirt neatly and made a mental note to include it the evening’s laundry.

It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Benito Flores and Erasmo Ramirez are vastly different in personality and strikingly similar in performance. Both are 21-year-old junior left-handed pitchers for Cal State Northridge who substitute guts and guile for a lack of velocity.

Flores, carefree and comical, is no joke to opponents, posting an 11-3 record and 3.15 earned-run average. He is 18-5 the past two seasons.

Ramirez, steady and serious, is 10-4 this season after earning All-American honors in 1996 by going 14-1.

The pair is 42-10 the past two years and a major reason Northridge led the nation with 52 victories in 1996 and is 41-18-1 this year.

Another victory or two probably is necessary for the Matadors to get a second consecutive NCAA tournament berth. Flores will face USC today in the first of a two-game series and Ramirez will pitch at UCLA on Tuesday in a regular-season finale.

When one is on the mound, the other charts his pitches. Off the field, they complement one another as well. Blithe Benny keeps Meticulous Mo laughing. Meticulous Mo keeps Blithe Benny on the straight and narrow.

Said Flores: “Mo pitches the same way he folds and puts away his clothes. Everything is in its right spot. Everything is in order.”

Said Ramirez: “Benny is the funniest guy I’ve ever met. He keeps me loose. And I love watching him pitch because he pitches just like I do.”

The two were dormitory roommates as freshmen, struggling on the field and with living away from their close-knit families for the first time. After the season, they went off to Kenosha, Wis., to play on the same summer league team.

Even now, they are roommates on road trips.

“We’re each other’s biggest fans,” Ramirez said. “We don’t throw hard, and that’s what everybody wants, but we get the last laugh.”

Both turned their careers around after mediocre freshman campaigns by developing sidearm deliveries that put more movement on their pitches. They now throw fastballs, curves and changeups from two different release points, in effect giving them six pitches.

And both have impeccable control. Ramirez (6 feet 1, 180 pounds) has struck out 88 and walked only 19 in 100 2/3 innings this season; Flores (6-0, 175 pounds) has struck out 99 and walked 34 in 108 2/3 innings.

“They can throw any of their pitches for strikes,” Northridge Coach Mike Batesole said. “They get great movement on their pitches. They get ahead in the count. Benny and Mo know how to pitch.”

Movement over velocity was the mantra of Dan Cowgill, Northridge’s pitching coach last season. Cowgill, who is not coaching this season, also introduced a weight and flexibility arm training regimen that the pitchers still employ.

Three seasons, three pitching coaches. Former Coach Bill Kernen filled the role two years ago and assistant Tim Montez is the current pitching coach.

“We picked all of their brains,” Ramirez said. “Coach Cowgill I owe so much to, but Coach Montez is great too.”

Montez didn’t try to fix what wasn’t broken. But he pushed the pair to update the pitching patterns that worked so masterfully last year. Opponents use scouting reports, and as in chess, every move must be countered.

“Benny made the adjustments first,” Montez said. “Mo was a little afraid to change. It’s not a knock on him. It was understandable because he was coming off a 14-1 season.”

Ramirez’s tidiest outings have come against teams he didn’t face last year. Mo mowed down Pepperdine (one earned run in eight innings), Clemson (in the Las Vegas tournament final) and Wichita State (one earned run in 9 1/3 innings).

He shut down Long Beach State, allowing one earned run in eight innings of a victory April 2, but when he faced the 49ers four weeks later, they torched him for 10 runs in two innings.

“I have so much confidence in my two-seam fastball that I pump it in for strike one over and over,” Ramirez said. “Now, they take it to the opposite field. So I’m learning to manage my game and make adjustments.”

Flores didn’t become a starter until the middle of last season, but by the postseason he was in a groove. He allowed one run in a complete-game victory over Santa Clara to help the Matadors qualify for the NCAA tournament, then eliminated host Stanford from the Western Regional by allowing three runs in eight innings.

The success carried over. Flores, who has two saves to go with his 11 victories, is the one bucking for All-American honors this year.

Despite the way they carve up Division I hitters, neither pitcher is considered a top-flight pro prospect. Ramirez might hit 86 mph on a good day and Flores’ fastball is in the low 80s.

They are resigned to realizing they won’t be drafted high enough to bolt Northridge before their senior years.

“The selfish part of me says, ‘Yes!,’ ” Montez said. “But part of me wants them to go out and prove themselves at the next level.”

Eventually, the Benny and Mo Show probably will go professional. Major league rosters are dotted with soft-throwing left-handers.

“They’ll get their chance because they are left-handed and they know how to pitch,” one area scout said. “They won’t get any money to sign, but I wouldn’t have a problem sending either of those kids out because they want to play and they know how to win.”

The lack of attention is nothing new. Neither was recruited heavily out of high school and both planned on attending junior college until Northridge came calling. Flores attended high-profile Placentia El Dorado High and Ramirez is from lower-echelon Santa Ana Saddleback High.

Batesole, himself an Orange County product, was a Northridge assistant scouring the area for overlooked jewels on the diamonds. He found two, although they didn’t toss many gems as freshmen: Both posted ERAs of over 8.00.

“We lacked confidence,” Flores said. “College was a big adjustment.”

More adjustments await. Neither likes to envision life without baseball, but both are practical enough to do so.

Ramirez, a sociology-criminal justice major, wants a career as a law enforcement forensics specialist. To Meticulous Mo, carefully labeling and categorizing evidence would be a fine way to spend 40 hours a week.

Flores’ plans aren’t as focused, but chances are he’ll work somewhere he can laugh out loud. Or make other people laugh. Shag balls in the outfield during practice with Blithe Benny and prepare to be peppered by a jetstream of jokes, imitations and one-liners.

Things go from funny to funnier on Sundays when Flores visits his parents, Felipe and Bertha, and his two brothers and two sisters.

“I get the humor from my brothers,” he said. “When we get together I laugh so hard I’m crying and my stomach hurts.”

Ramirez also visits his parents, Cipriano and Ramona, and two younger brothers on weekends. The mood is far more sober.

“I get my neatness from my mom,” he said. “She’s a great cook and my dad is a great guy, a very hard worker. But it’s real quiet. My parents go to bed at 8 and are up at 5:30 in the morning.”

Products of their environment? Clearly. But underneath the differences is the same solid foundation.

“From the character they’ve shown, they obviously come from good families,” Batesole said. “They brought something here I could build on. They are accountable. They are reliable. If my two sons turn out like Benny and Mo, I’ll be the proudest dad there is.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

BENITO FLORES

*--*

G IP H SO BB ER W-L ERA 21 108 2/3 109 99 34 38 11-3 3.15

*--*

ERASMO RAMIREZ

*--*

G IP H SO BB ER W-L ERA 17 100 2/3 119 88 19 56 10-4 5.01

*--*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Three to Go

Cal State Northridge closes out its season with a three-game stretch that could determine whether it receives a berth to the NCAA regionals. The schedule:

TODAY: USC at Northridge, 1 p.m.

SUNDAY: Northridge at USC, 1 p.m. at Dedeaux Field

TUESDAY: Northridge at UCLA, 6 p.m., at Jackie Robinson Stadium