Some turning points are born only in retrospect. Others are so immediately identifiable, so instantly clear, that they can be nothing but -- for better or for worse.

August 11 was one of those times for Ben Sheets. He stood atop the mound as Vladimir Guerrero strode to the plate, each step putting Sheets closer to yet another defeat. Sheets had lost seven of his last eight decisions and stood 5-14 on the year. He had thrown 119 pitches with two outs in the eighth. Thanks to a botched double-play grounder runners danced at first and second, and Guerrero -- who had homered in three straight games, including one off Sheets the inning before -- was another monstrous swing away from splattering Sheets' hard-fought 4-2 lead.

	Ben Sheets is 4-1 with a 3.28 ERA over his last five starts.

Milwaukee manager Jerry Royster and pitching coach Bill Castro decided to leave Sheets in. Sink or swim, kid. The crowd grew louder in anticipation. Sheets threw a high fastball past Guerrero for strike one and worked the count full. Then, with his 125th pitch of the game, he uncorked a 96-mph heater that even Guerrero couldn't catch up to.

Inning over. Seminal moment over. Sheets walked off the mound with that one at-bat having aged him several years -- in the best of all possible ways. The young right-hander has won four of five decisions since that strikeout.

"I needed that. I needed to be out there," says Sheets, now 9-15 with a 4.36 ERA. "It definitely pumps you up. And the momentum's carried on."

Momentum and Milwaukee is usually a dangerous mix, but Sheets has managed to salvage some of the good stuff as his club winds down its dreadful season. He enters his Friday start against Cincinnati having shown why he was considered one of the game's best young pitchers last year, and how there's hope for him to emerge from his season-long irrelevance.

His stat line is a jumble. He's 9-15, but the Brewers' horrible offense (15th in the league at 4.0 runs per game) has scored just 23 runs in his 15 losses. Then again, he has mixed 209 hits and 64 walks in his 182 innings, which isn't exactly a recipe for success.

But Sheets, one of the most intense but bouncily positive pitchers you'll ever run into, knows enough about baseball history -- he's more of a fan than most fans -- to understand that this is the muck many young arms must slog through.

	Ben Sheets Starting Pitcher Milwaukee Brewers Profile
	2002 SEASON STATISTICS GM W-L IP H K ERA 29 9-15 181.2 209 142 4.36

"I'm learning the hitters. I'm learning myself," says Sheets, still just 24. "You get hit in the head often enough and you figure it out."

Batters are hitting .292 against him. Sheets is among the NL leaders in number of batters faced and pitches thrown; those are not necessarily good signs, of course, but more batters and more pitches only add to the volumes of experience he will carry into next year and beyond.

Castro replaced Dave Stewart as pitching coach in midsummer and made some changes with Sheets that have apparently helped. He has raised his hands from his belly to the letters to keep his delivery more compact and allow him to bring his arm more directly behind his head, hiding the ball from hitters more effectively. Castro has encouraged Sheets to aim more between the catcher's feet to keep the ball on more of a downward plane.

Sheets must develop a better changeup to allow his mid-90s fastball and sharp curve to become the weapons they by all rights should be; he often relies on the tried-and-true too much and hitters are smarter than that.

"I think it's there, it's just fitting it into my arsenal even more," he says of the changeup. "I have confidence throwing it. I can locate it. I got one in my last start against the Reds -- I threw a 1-2 changeup instead of a breaking ball to Reggie Taylor. And I got him out. It shows that if you have confidence in it, it works."

Despite being a first-round pick, Olympic hero and rookie who made the All-Star team last year before shoulder trouble set in, Sheets always has been open to instruction, Castro says -- and that enthusiasm, along with his on-mound intensity, has made him a team favorite. The guy named his newborn son "Seaver," for crying out loud. "He brings out the kid in all of us," outfielder Jeffrey Hammonds says. "He's one of the guys you get dirty for."

The Brewers got a bit of a jolt in their otherwise dreary season -- euphemized by many of them as "a big learning experience" -- a few weeks ago when Sheets, last year's Chosen Phenom, faced off against this year's, the Cubs' Mark Prior. Sheets outdueled Prior, winning 2-1, by pitching eight strong innings, striking out eight and walking just one, suggesting that perhaps we shouldn't forget about him as more and more young pitching talents enter the game.

"He was fired up and challenging hitters," Cubs first baseman Fred McGriff remembers. "It was like he wanted to show everybody else that he was a good pitcher also."

Perhaps Sheets will have to wait until next year to give people a full lesson. Meanwhile, he'll keep soaking in his.

Alan Schwarz is the Senior Writer of Baseball America magazine and a regular contributor to ESPN.com.