Mike Moustakas is heating up just when the Royals need him the most

There amid the ceaseless sprawl of Southern California sits a baseball field at Cleveland High School, a worn patch of grass in the suburb of Reseda.

If you stand behind home plate at Cleveland High, you can look out toward right field, to a series of chain-link fences that separate the field from a faculty parking lot. The first is the outfield fence, which stands 8 feet tall and sits close to 370 feet from home plate in right-center field. Walk back 20 feet and there’s another fence, this one maybe 12 feet high, protecting the cars and asphalt.

Art Stewart can tell you this from memory, because he was there on that May day in 2007, when the shortstop phenom from Chatsworth High School crushed a baseball that cleared both fences and shattered the windshield of a Mercedes-Benz.

“It was the principal’s car,” said Stewart, the long-time Royals scout.

The phenom’s name was Mike Moustakas, the greatest home-run hitter in California high school history. And on that day in May, Stewart had come to the San Fernando Valley to see the future.

Nearly three weeks later, the Royals made Moustakas the No. 2 overall selection in the 2007 draft, the first official first-round pick by general manager Dayton Moore, who had arrived in 2006.

Seven years later, Stewart was back amid the sprawl on Thursday afternoon, walking through the Royals clubhouse at Angel Stadium on Thursday afternoon, hours before the Royals’ game against the Angels. He spotted Moustakas and offered a brief greeting.

“Well,” Stewart said, “Back at home, Moose.”

Seven years later, the future would play out inside Angel Stadium as the Royals took a 2-0 lead over the Angels in the American League Division Series.

On Thursday night, Moustakas raked a solo shot into the seats in right field, a decisive 11th-inning blow in a 3-2 victory. On Friday, he rose to the moment on defense. With the score tied 1-1 in the bottom of the eighth, Angels pinch runner Collin Cowgill tested Jarrod Dyson’s arm by tagging up at second. The throw was strong, but Moustakas had to range to his left before diving back to the bag to apply the tag.

“This is how this team goes about our business,” Moustakas would say. “Everybody contributes in their own way.”

It was late Friday night, past midnight in Kansas City, and Moustakas dressed for the flight back to the Midwest. He slipped on a pair of black Air Jordans, then reached for a patterned suede blazer. His forehead glistened with moisture.

“I’m still sweating,” Moustakas said.

Standing before a cluster of reporters, Moustakas wanted to stay in the moment. He had little interest in reflection. He did not want to concern himself with the memories of another disappointing season at the plate, or a career arc that has seen him transform from wunderkind slugger to a demotion to Class AAA Omaha during his fourth major-league season.

“My journey,” Moustakas said, “it is what it is.”

Late on Friday, Moustakas was more worried about the next day’s workout at Kauffman Stadium. Nothing else mattered, he said.

But here are the Royals, in the midst of a postseason awakening, just one victory from their first American League Championship Series since 1985. And here is Moustakas, once viewed as a franchise model, coming alive at the same time.

“Failure brings experience,” Moustakas said. “Everything brings experience. We’re learning as we go right now. But we’re fighting and we’re scratching.”

The homer came first, then the gooey taste of home. In the afterglow of his go-ahead blast on Thursday night, Moustakas met his family for a ritualistic postgame feast of In-N-Out Burger.

The meal was brief, but the moment was welcome. Moustakas is 26 now, no longer the confident kid who set a state record with 52 career homers at Chatsworth High; no longer the Baseball America darling who tore through the minor leagues and anchored the greatest farm system in baseball.

He is older now, more mature and hardened by the failures.

Moustakas was married in January to his longtime girlfriend, Stephanie; Eric Hosmer stood to his right as a groomsmen. He spent most of the winter in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, re-working his swing with then hitting coach Pedro Grifol, attempting to unlock the potential in his bat. After hitting 20 homers in 2012, Moustakas had slumped badly in 2013. He needed a restart.

Moustakas would mash during spring training in the thin air of Arizona. But once the season began, he was flailing again. At times, he simply looked lost at the plate. On May 22, with his batting average at .152, the Royals optioned him to Class AAA Omaha.

When Moustakas arrived in Omaha, his goal was simple: He needed to figure out his swing.

“It’s been a battle for pretty much the entire year,” Moustakas said then. “(I’m) trying to get comfortable, figure out where I want to be.”

For the Royals, it was the latest frustrating setback for a franchise that had invested so much in a young player. In the years after the 2007 draft, Royals general manager Dayton Moore would point to Moustakas’ intangibles — his competitive fire, his love for the game.

Back at Chatsworth, Moustakas was a legend, one of those mythic prep players who bashes 450-foot homers and throws 98 miles per hour as the school’s closer. Moustakas’ high school coach, Tom Meusborn, will tell you how intense Moustakas was for a teenager, how much he cared about the game.

“If he wasn’t a position player he’d be a late first-rounder or second-round pick as a pitcher,” Moore once said. “He’s a pretty special athlete.”

But here was Moustakas, still struggling at the plate in his fourth season in the big leagues. He batted just .212 with 15 homers. His .271 on-base percentage ranked 147th out of the 149 big leagues with at least 500 plate appearances.

“Everything that I went through this year got me to this point,” Moustakas said on Friday. “All the ups and downs, all the struggles and what not, it got me here. I know what I have to do to help this ballclub win.”

Mike Moustakas couldn’t stop screaming. It was late Friday night at Angel Stadium, and Hosmer, another former first-round pick, had just drilled a two-run homer and tossed his bat to the side.

“I was so pumped for him,” Moustakas said. “I know how pumped he was.”

As the Royals’ dugout exploded, Moustakas greeted Hosmer in the crowd of players. Here were two former first-round picks, two players whose careers have run on parallel tracks. They experienced the same minor-league success, experienced the same big-league struggles.

Now they were in the playoffs, and each had hit a home run in extra innings, and they couldn’t stop yelling at each other:

We gotta get three outs, we gotta get three outs.

“They love to compete, they love to play,” Moore said, standing in the clubhouse after the game. “Individuals with those types of character traits love being in situations with the game on the line, and they’ve responded.”

Moments earlier, Moustakas found himself back in the clubhouse, shifting his focus forward. The postseason, he says, has been rejuvenating. He could forget the regular season, forget the numbers, and just focus on doing something to help his team win.

“Nothing else matters,” Moustakas said. “No stats. No home runs. No RBIs.

“Nothing else matters.”

This story was originally published October 4, 2014 at 8:57 PM with the headline "Mike Moustakas is heating up just when the Royals need him the most."