ShareThisTEMPE, Ariz. - Last year Kendry Morales' job was, fair or not, to replicate as best he could a Mark Teixeira kind of year.
This year, the task is no less daunting -- trying to replicate a Kendry Morales kind of a year.
"I want to keep doing it on a daily basis," said Morales through a translator Tuesday. "I want to try to do the same or better."
The Angels would take it.
Morales' 2009 performance -- in his first full season as a regular -- was at the top of baseball's "pleasant surprise" chart.
After four years bouncing in between Angels' minor league stops and Anaheim, Morales was handed the first base job. He hit .306 with 34 home runs and 108 RBI.
The numbers were good enough to place him fifth in American League MVP voting, three spots behind Teixeira, who had another typically solid season for the New York Yankees.
The Angels, of course, had been unable to re-sign Teixeira, a free agent All-Star, after his half-2008 in Anaheim.
The perception was that the organization was crossing its collective fingers and making a wish on its prospect. If Angels fans were inclined to calculate what the statistical drop-off would be, Morales says he paid no attention to Teixeira or anyone else.
"There are a lot of great first basemen in the American and the National leagues," he said. "I never compared myself to any of them. I was just trying to do my job and get better."
He did. His power numbers, in particular, were significantly better. His previous high was 22 home runs in a combined Class A and AA year in 2005. He also had a career-best 43 doubles and a .569 slugging percentage. Statistically, he had a better major league season than any of his minor league years.
"The pitching is different," said Morales, who seemed to revel in it. "In the minors they throw off-speed, sliders, 14 curves in a row. The majors, they show you more fastballs."
Morales had his most at-bats in the sixth spot last year, but he won't be that low this time around.
"He has the potential in his career to be in the middle of our lineup -- I should say this year," Manager Mike Scioscia said. "Like in April, May, June."
Scioscia said Morales "can hit anywhere from third to fifth," and isn't worried about a regression in his performance.
"This wasn't a fluke," said Scioscia of Morales' big season. "It could be challenging for him this season. He's just going to have to make adjustments to how people are pitching him."
The Angels were hoping the 26-year-old Morales would get to this point after he defected from the Cuban national team in June 2004, and they signed him later that year. It was his ninth attempt to leave the island nation.
The past six years haven't been just a baseball odyssey for him, but a cultural one. He established residency in the Dominican Republic and still deals with visa issues. He was late to camp this spring, playing his first game just last week.
He said he's still "adapting to the U.S. and a different lifestyle" and disputes the suggestion that playing baseball in America may be the easier adjustment.
"Baseball is not easy to play anywhere," he said, smiling. "From the outside it may look simple, but on the inside, it's hard."
His swing, though, already looks comfortingly familiar to the Angels. Including his RBI single Tuesday against San Diego, he has seven hits in 21 at-bats, with five RBI and a home run.
Call it a Teixeira -- uh -- make that a Morales kind of line.
(Contact Gregg Patton at gpatton(at)PE.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
columnMust credit The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif.
