Date:         Sun, 6 Aug 2000 15:19:14 -0500
Reply-To:     beau@sharbrough.net
Sender:       Texas Rangers MLB Discussion <RANGERS@TAMU.EDU>
From:         Beau Sharbrough <beau@SHARBROUGH.NET>
Subject:      Re: Rangers vs. Toronto Game Update

That was an interesting series of two at-bats - Palmeiro and Kapler.

Carpenter has a pretty good curve ball. Raffy looked really comfortable at the plate, and I said, "If you thro that curve ball to Raffy he's gonna hit it where you can't find it." I was thinking of the weeds past the outfield when I was a kid, but what happened was close enough to be funny. Palmeiro hit a bullet to Delgado, and when it bounced up, he couldn't find it. By the time that he found it and ran to the bag, Raffy was safe and a run scored.

Raffy looks like he's slower than Wazgis. I mean I think he's slower than Brian Downing, who said that he "can't run a lick." And he made a very ugly slide into first base. Little league coaches everywhere cringe when a big leager slides into first - it's not the fastest way. Raffy looked like he was slowing down to get ready to slide. On that one run to first the seasons changed outside Skydome, as the leaves reddened and then fell from the trees in Toronto.

After that lucky play, Gabe came up with his 20 game streak already intact. Carpenter threw him the curve and it was really obvious that he locked Kapler up big time. But the next pitch, he threw a fastball away and Kapler hit a hard grounder to right. Tom Grieve was ecstatic that Kapler is driving the ball where it's pitched. I just thought it was one of those examples in baseball where a guy looks like me on one swing and like Joe DiMaggio on the next one. I may never figure out how they turn themselves around so fast.

One more note - Rusty has been hitting, but he's starting to rush his tempo and I'm predicting a slump for him. He didn't make any one-swing recoveries after the middle of the game today. He looked like he was trying too hard on all of them.

I have the unfortunate responsibility of surveying the PC hardware and software in a testing lab next week, in Puerto Rico. If I see any baseball I'll tell you guys when I get back.

Ciao for now,

-Beau