Big day for Rabelo
Mike Rabelo and Joel Zumaya were a battery again tonight. It should've been a comforting feeling, since they've been teammates since 2002, but this had a whole different feeling. Zumaya was nervous about his save situation, and Rabelo was nervous about his first major league start. Zumaya said he was more nervous, but Rabelo insisted he was. Yet when they were working together, they both said it felt like old times.
I've written before about Rabelo being a good story, but this was a good night for him. He was hoping for someone to test him early, and Gregg Zaun did the trick by taking off in the second inning. He had to deal with Maroth mixing in everything he had up there and a set of signs he hadn't used in a game before, but Maroth eventually got him straight. He didn't get the ball out of the infield in four at-bats, but he didn't care.
"I'm very pleased with how everything went," Rabelo said. "Of course you want to get that hit, but I think with our manager, what I did behind the dish was more important than getting one measly hit and getting blown out by five runs or whatever. I'm pretty confident I'm not going to go 0-for-my-career."
As for what Leyland told him beforehand, Rabelo said his instructions were to calm down. "This is not prison," Rabelo quoted Leyland as saying.
Yeah, they're not in prison, they're in first place! If only OrdoSheff can get an RBI or two sometime this year, things will be looking good>
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A picture is worth a thousand words:
Why I think Rock Polanco is so important to our club is evidenced in the photo of him greeting Inge after his homer early in the game.
The HR shot did not put the game on ice or win it. Yet it evoked a clear expression of genuine happiness from Polanco. That expression was FOR Inge. Polanco is a classic team player and probably the best move DD has ever made.
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