Moises Vazquez knows why he’s in Andrean’s lineup.
The 5-foot-9 junior’s position in the outfield and his spot near the top of the batting order are indicative of the skills he has developed since he started playing baseball. But Vazquez’s ability to catch, throw, bat and run isn’t the only explanation.
“I’m always sliding, always hustling on and off the field, always doing the little things like that — all the things that make a ballplayer tough,” he said.
That toughness has made Vazquez a fixture in the lineup for defending Class 3A state champion Andrean (16-4-1), and coach Dave Pishkur said Vazquez’s mental makeup is a key reason he was called up from the junior varsity team late last season.
“He’s a good baseball player, first of all,” Pishkur said. “But besides that, he’s got that rough edge to him. He’s going to play the game hard. Give me nine of those guys who are hard-nosed, tough son-of-a-guns who have baseball ability, and I’ll take my chances with them.”
Vazquez’s baseball ability is evident in his improved numbers this season. Through Monday, he was hitting .385 with an OPS of 1.267 and had team highs with five home runs, 16 walks and 15 stolen bases.
“I didn’t hit that well my sophomore season,” he said. “So I’ve been trying to work on that.”
Vazquez’s work involved eliminating the arm bar from his swing. That occurs when a batter’s leading arm straightens out, slowing down the speed of the swing.
He sought the help of a hitting coach in the offseason and was constantly tweaking those mechanics. Sometimes there was a bat in his hand. Other times Vazquez would be swinging air. But there was usually evidence of his progress.
“I’d take video of myself and send it to my hitting coach, or I’d be working on it in my room or in the basement — wherever I could go to fix it,” he said.
Vazquez’s dedication is part of the package that caught Pishkur’s eye toward the end of last season.
“We were struggling to find that last piece,” Pishkur said. “So we brought him up and played him at third base one game. Then we played him at second base one game, and then we moved him to the outfield. And I don’t know if he’d played any of those positions before.”
Vazquez, who had been a catcher, fared well enough in those games to earn a start in right field in the state championship game, and he made a diving catch for the first out of the game. Pishkur values such effort.
“It’s that winning mentality, that you’re going to do whatever it takes to help the team win,” Pishkur said. “It doesn’t have to be pretty all the time, but you can guarantee that they’ll put all of their energy into it.”
Pishkur said there’s a sophomore this season — outfielder Blake Kouder — who is following a similar path, earning a call-up late in the season because he has the toughness Pishkur wants to see in his players.
“I wasn’t really supposed to be in this position,” Kouder said. “But I went out and played hard and made one for myself.”
Pishkur raved about Kouder’s first at-bat during Andrean’s 11-2 win against Lafayette Jefferson on Friday. On a fastball up and in, Kouder stayed in the box and took the hit-by-pitch.
Pishkur said such moments show Vazquez and Kouder have important leadership traits.
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“Those guys are captain material,” Pishkur said. “You can’t have a captain who says one thing and does another thing. Those kids, if they say that we need to play harder, they’re going to show it by their examples.”
Dave Melton is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.