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Kellen Raab

Kellen Raab is a 23 year old pitcher in the Arizona Diamondbacks organization. In 2004, Kellen's first season of professional baseball, he posted a 3-3 record with a 4.38 ERA while striking out 56 batters in 62 innings for the Yakima Bears of the Northwest League.

Journal Entry 5-18-2005

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I'm not really sure whether there is such a thing as reverse deja vu, but in my case I think there is. Last time I had talked about how I had put in one bad performance, followed up with one of my best. Well, I went and did the exact opposite of that in my next two starts.

Coming off my first start and first win, two weeks ago now, we went to West Michigan where I was almost identical to my performance against Clinton. I went six innings, allowing one run on four hits. I swear I had 9 strikeouts that days but somehow only 8 showed up in the box score.

Things were going great. Our team was riding an 8 game win streak which finally ended on the final game of that road trip. The streak though had put us into first and we have kept it to this point.

My next start, against Kane County, was much like the performance I had against Wisconsin. I have never fared well against Oakland teams in the past and this seemed to be another one of those games.

I started out hot with a 1,2,3 first and it all went downhill from there. I allowed at least 1 run an inning after that. Through five innings I allowed seven runs, of which six were earned. I also allowed my first home run of the season to Tommy Everidge. We ended up coming back to tie the game only to leave the bases loaded with no outs in the 9th and lose it in the 10th.

Its crazy how these four appearances had a mirror effect like it did. Hopefully things will change back to good when I start again Thursday in Beloit. I'm looking forward to that series because I went to college very close to Beloit, so some of my friends will be coming out to see me.

I have several positive things going right now for me this season. I am currently 2-0 and hope to keep building on that. I have a 4:1 K/bb ratio with 34 strikeouts and 8 walks. The number that stands out even more there is my ratio as a starter is 17:1 K/BB right now, and I plan to build on that.

Congratulations are also in order for my old college Wisconsin-Parkside. They tied for the regular season crown, and then went on to win their first conference championship in school history. They will return to the regional tournament for a second season, hopefully making it to the college world series this time around.

I wish them the best of luck and hopefully they can make it all the way. They have one of the best coaches I have ever played for so I am sure they will do their best.

That's it for now, next week I will start going over some of the players in this league who I think could be Major League caliber players. Until then, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.

Kellen

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