"He's already throwing fastballs up to 93 mph. He struggled early, and he's still learning, but he's beginning to put it together. ![]() "I kept asking them (Astros officials) to let him come here this season, to let me work with him, even though I knew it was a big step. "Darryl has made amazing progress considering he pitched last year in the Gulf Coast Rookie League," Gladding says. ![]() "And he's had games when he has completely overmatched the hitters," Wiedenbauer says. In 76 innings, he has allowed only 45 hits, walked 40 and struck out 68. Since May 11, however, Kile is 7-4 with a 1.77 earned run average. "Darryl's first five starts were not enjoyable," Wiedenbauer says. Wiedenbauer knows, too, that two months ago, Darryl Kile was almost a mirror image of Bowen. And when he throws strikes consistently, nothing can stop him." But he's already got a major-league curve. And in fairness to Ryan, he missed almost all of last year (because of an injury). "But now, I'd say he could come around real fast. "In my younger days of doing this, I probably would have said, `No chance,"' Wiedenbauer says of the 6-foot-0, 185-pound Bowen. Watch Bowen throw, however, and it's obvious why Gladding and Columbus Manager Tom Wiedenbauer sing his praises. Eighty-two walks.Ī misprint? "No," Gladding says. 1 draft choice in 1986, took the mound against Charlotte last week, a glance at Columbus' up-to-date statistics showed this hard-to-believe line:Įighty-two innings pitched. Indeed, as Bowen, who unlike Kile was highly coveted as a Hanford, Calif., schoolboy and was Houston's No. Taking nothing away from the others, Kile, 20, and Bowen, 21, are simply dazzling in terms of their raw ability.Įach still is learning to pitch. His current pupils include at least four young men - starters Kile, Ryan Bowen and Randy Hennis and reliever Fred Costello, all right-handers - who could form the nucleus of the Astros' pitching staff well into the 1990s. "He's got the best arm I've seen in the Houston organization in a long, long time," says Fred Gladding, a former Astros star reliever and now Kile 's pitching coach at Houston's Class AA Columbus, Ga., affiliate.įorgive Gladding if he whistles and smiles while going about his business these days. And though Kile waited a year before signing, he finally joined the Houston organization last season. Heeding Sapp's recommendation, the Astros chose Chaffey, Calif., Junior College freshman Kile in the 30th round that June. I had no idea any scout even knew I existed."Īstros scout Ross Sapp knew. "Why would anybody draft me? I was so far behind everybody else. Some of the other kids in school had pulled the same trick on another guy a year earlier, and I wasn't going to let them fool me, too. "And I hung up," he says, recalling his surprise two summers ago. "You've been drafted by the Houston Astros baseball team."
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |