Recently in 2004 Game Recaps Category

The last game of the season ended on both a bright note and a scary note. Unfortunately, they're the same thing. Chan Ho Park pitched the way he should have been pitching. Which means we'll probably try and go with him again next season. Damn. On the other hand, he pitched really well again in a park that he always pitches well in - Seattle. I wonder if something could be worked out where we send Park to Seattle for something. Park does well there, Seattle has to know that. Park went 7 innings, gave up no runs on 2 hits (3 BB/3K). A stellar performance (unfortunately).

Francisco Cordero got his final save of the season, his 49th. A record breaking season for him, as no Ranger reliever has ever had that many saves. He looked good, and fans seemed to like it when he came in. I think we have this position solved for awhile. :)

We didn't have a lot of offense ourselves, but we had enough to get three runs across. Texas 2-4, but didn't score, or get an RBI. Nix had a HR, and Huckaby had a double. Mike Young drove in the other two that Nix did not. As I said, not a lot of offense, but enough.

And the season comes to a close. By every account, this was a huge success, we didn't drop out of the race until after Game #158 of the season - a major accomplishment. Buck Showalter should be manager of the year.

I also sincerely hope that Rudy Jaramillo comes back next year. He's a great portion of our success, and I would hate to have him leave. As I've said before, if he left to get a manger's job, I can't fault him for leaving for that. However, if he leaves and becomes a hitting coach somewhere else, then I'll be pissed. If he takes a lateral move, it means the Rangers didn't do enough to keep him.

Kenny Rogers had a career season, winning 18 games. His previous was 17 wins, but he topped it by one this year, and in my opinion should have been a 20 game winner, but he had a few leads blown for him. :(

Mike Young went 3-5 with a home run and 4 RBI's to lead the Ranger hitting attack. We also had a home run from Mench, and a 3-5 game from Teixeira and Mench. Hell, Manny Alexander went 2-3 with an RBI and 2 runs scored. We had a total of 16 hits with five doubles. A nice offensive display.

For a meaningless series, the games certainly seemed to be lively. Last night was Ichiro. Tonight was Edgar Martinez, who had a ceremony for his career tonight. He also took one pitch over at third base, his position for a long time before becoming a permanent DH.

161 down. One to go.

Ryan Drese has run out of gas, he's gotten bombed the last few starts he made of the season. However, I don't think his season can be called anything less than a total success. He had a spectacular season.

However, this game wasn't about the Rangers really. We were witness to Ichiro Suzuki's record breaking 258th hit of the season, breaking an 80 year old or so record by Mr. George Sisler for hits in a season. Not a record to be taken lightly (although some wankers in the press are). Was really great to have seen that.

The final home game of the season ends on a good note, with a 6-3 win over the Angels. Rookie starter Chris Young pitched well, going six innings, giving up three runs, and looking like a good candidate for next season's rotation. The home season ended the way it started, with RA Dickey on the mound pitching well. Too bad RA didn't pitch all that well inbetween the start and end of the home schedule most of the time. :(

Of the 81 games at home this season, we won 51 of them, tying our best season for home winning record at 51-30. Overall, an outstanding season at home. Now if we can just get rid of the Gold Club behind home plate, things might go better.

Vlad Guerrero continued to be on a torrid streak here, having another two home runs today (he went 4-4 in this game). That gave him a 12 for 17 streak during this series, with a total of FIVE home runs in this series (two 2 HR games). Amazing.

However, the best part of the game by far was the "Thank you" lap the Rangers made around the stadium at the conclusion of the game. A very nice touch by the team, and probably won them a few season ticket holders for next year by doing that. I'm sure a lot of fans (and Randy Galloway) might see it as a cynical move, but I very much liked it - to me it showed there was some heart there. And that's always a good thing.

The party is over, as we were formally eliminated from the playoff race with this loss.

The only other thing I'll write about the game is that it was nice that Mike Young set a new Ranger record for hits, getting his 211th in the bottom of the ninth. He's also the only Ranger ever to have more than one 200 hit season.

I suppose the thing that bothered me most about this game is that we have the season on the line. We're up against the wall, and we're sending Chan Ho Park out there. The biggest pitching disappointment in the entire history of the franchise, and we send him out there to save our slim playoff hopes. If there's anything that will dash the goodwill of Ranger fans, it's got to be that. I really hope the Park experiment is cut loose in the off season. It will cost Hicks a gob of money to do that, but he is NOT helping us, and as we move forward from this season, I can't see Park playing a part in it (a good one anyway), so after three years, it's time to cut him loose.

We lost this game mostly because of the four home runs given up by our pitching. Two by Park, and two by John Wasdin. Two of them were by Vladimir Guerrero, who definitely seems to have a power stroke here in this series.

After this loss, I said to my wife, "Well, we're not technically out of it, but we might as well be". There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of fire in there right now.

Aw dammit! Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing.

P.S. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing.

This was bad. Bad bad bad. At least it didn't do any overall damage, we're still only two out of first with 7 to go. Still workable.

I was at this game, it was my final season ticket game of the season, was nice to see all my usual friends around me who had tickets too, so if any of you read this - hi! Was a great season. Hope to see some of you in October. :)

Chris Young started off great, was pretty dominant through the first three, except for a solo HR in the first. Wasn't as much of a see-saw in terms of the score, but it sort of felt like it sitting there. When Young faltered, RA Dickey came in and save for one walk, was perfect in his 3.2 innings of work. Spectacular. We needed it too, with our pen mostly drained.

Offensively, we had just enough. Not a ton, but some power from Soriano, and a few almost home runs and a triple from Mike Young were all we needed to get this win which brings us back to two out.

A back and forth game. There were a ton of pitchers on both sides. Seattle used 6. Texas used 6. I thought Showalter had a bit of a quick hook with Benoit - I thought he could have at least finished 5.

I'm not writing much because I fell asleep (twice) on the sofa watching this game. Even with TiVo, I could have backed it up, but I was so groggy, I just gave up and went to bed.

Shame we couldn't pick up the win, as it drops us to 3 back now.

WOW! What a finish! An absolutely amazing win in a great game means we now are only 2 games out of first place with 10 games to go in the season.

I spent most of the morning at the law firm that represents my company, so when I returned, I didn't have much time to pay attention to the game. I was buys doing work work and didn't pay much attention. I know the game changed hands a few times, and when Park gave up a HR ball three pitches into the game I wasn't filled with a lot of excitement about our chances for a sweep.

I didn't really get to start paying attention to the game until the 8th inning. We were down 3-2, and then we went down 4-2 when Jeff Nelson gave up a home run ball - the third we gave up today. Then after a 10 or 11 pitch at bat, Blalock jacked a solo home run to bring us back to one run. Following that, Mike Young (who went 4-5 and is now 6 hits shy of setting a new record for hits with a season - he currently has 205) doubled down the line to bring the tying run to the plate. Ken Macha walked Mark Teixeira intentionally (which was his second free pass of the game, his 5th in the game, and a new Ranger record for walks in a 9 inning game). That brought up Brian Jordan who grounded out, in what sounded like a DP ball on the radio. So now we've got runners at the corners with two outs. Down a run.

Up steps David Dellucci who has been in an 0-20 slump or something like that. Dellucci gets down with two strikes. We're down to our last strike, and he then jacks a double (I don't remember where it went exactly), which scored both Mike Young and Brian Jordan to win the game in walkoff fashion.

My words here simply cannot do justice how cool this win was. I wish I was there, and I might have been had I not had to spend all morning at a lawyer's office. We're done with Oakland for the season. Next up is Seattle. Bring it on!

We won again on Eric Young's first home run of the season - what a great time for it.

I can't spend much time, as I just got back from the law firm who represents my company (spent the morning there), and I need to go do some work now. :)

As I write this, it's 5:30PM and I realized I totally forgot about today's update. I have to leave in 10 minutes, so I have just enough time to slap together an update, but can't write much.

I was at this game, and boy was it great to see us spank Mulder again for the second time in a week. It was capped by Mike Young's grand slam which was most awesome in person. If the hit that McLemore botched in the first inning wasn't called a hit, it would have made the grand slam his 200th hit of the season. He's got 201 now, and needs 10 more in the last 12 games to set a new Ranger record. That's probably pretty likely to happen.

Anyway, Drese got the win, the Rangers got the win, and the bullpen didn't give up anything. A really nice win that seemed like a no doubter from the start. And Owen, it was a blast going with you, we should have done that more this season.,

As is Ichiro's pursuit of the all time hits record as well. It's possible that might happen when we finish up the season in Seattle, although if Mr. Suzuki gets a couple more 5 hit games like he did last night, it won't be a problem.

We did something we haven't done in about four years or so. Won a 1-0 game. I mean. WOW. There were a total of NO earned runs at all this game, as the one we got was unearned due to a Guerrero muff in right field of a fly ball. I thought Saturday's 2-0 win was great, but this was better. Four pitchers for another shutout. Was really great. I just wish we could do this to the A's. Speaking of that...

We come back home to play the A's this week. It's make or break time now, I think. If we lose the series at home against Oakland, that's probably it for the season, I would think.

Wow! Just when I thought things were looking to cave in on the season (suspensions, Soriano gone, didn't gain any ground on Oakland), this happens. A 7 pitcher 6 hit shutout of the Angels in their stadium. The best thing I can do is to copy the pitching line here:

TEXAS                        ip       h   r  er  bb  so  hr    era
J Benoit                      4       2   0   0   3   6   0   5.83
E Ramirez (W, 5-3)            1 1/3   0   0   0   0   1   0   4.41
J Nelson (H, 8)               1       0   0   0   0   2   0   5.48
R Mahay (H, 13)                 1/3   0   0   0   0   0   0   2.67
D Brocail (H, 3)              0       2   0   0   1   0   0   4.87
B Shouse (H, 9)                 1/3   0   0   0   0   0   0   2.50
F Cordero (S, 45)             2       2   0   0   1   3   0   1.83

The best part is that Benoit came in and gave 4+ innings of two hit shutout ball, something I wouldn't have expected from him. This wasn't as great as that 6 pitch no hitter the Astros had against the Yankees recently, but this was great! I was at the office at the time, but I did get to listen to a good portion of it. Was really nice - wish I was home to watch it on TV. There may yet be a road to the playoffs, but time is definitely running out. We need to step up and stop treading water like we've been if we want to get to the dance in 2004.

When this game started, I thought we were going to walk away with it. We had a couple of home runs in the first inning, and were up 3-0 right away. But our pitching couldn't hold it. Chan Ho Park gave up 5 runs in his 5 innings. RA Dickey gave up 3 runs (2ER) in his two innings. And Frankie Francisco, appealing his suspension, gave up a solo shot. Longballs did us in. We tried to come back with a couple in the ninth, but it wasn't enough.

However, the bigger news of the day was the handing down of suspensions by Major League Baseball for the fracas in the bullpen last Monday. Frankie got 16 games, which is effectively the rest of the season, but I think it was declared to be 16 so that if he has a failed appeal, the games will carry over into next season, too. Doug Brocail got seven games, Carlos Almanzar got five games, and hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo got five games. All are appealing, and were in uniform for tonight's game.

Additionally, it was found out that Alfonso Soriano is out for the rest of the season. There's a lot of speculation that he may have played his last game as a Ranger. There's a lot of options available if we want to go that way, but I'd be surprised if Ranger brass has made the decision on that for 2005 already.

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We did something I was quite surprised we did. We bombed Mark Mulder. Coming into this game, he was something like 17-4 I think with an ERA right around 4. One of his 4 losses was to Texas earlier in the season in Oakland. This time we got Mulder for 8 earned runs (including two home runs) over his 6 innings pitched. What surprised me most about the three home runs were not that two of the three were off Mulder. It was how hard they were hit. All three of them seemed liked HR's that just got out of here really fast. All of them appeared to be no doubters.

Drese got the win with another quality start, going 6 innings and giving up just two. If we can hold on this afternoon with Kenny Rogers, who has an excellent record pitching in Oakland, we can leave Oakland down only three in the standings. Seattle's helping too, but allowing us to get closer to Anaheim as well.

I've decided I'm not going to talk about the problem with the chair throwing. In fact, all future news stories about it will be linked on yesterday's game coverage. It's an ugly incident for sure, and I've decided that I'm not going to continue to talk about it.

Right now, I have to go to a meeting, so I'll post this, and update my summary later today if I get time. If I don't, it was nice to see a big win, although there was no pitching on either side, it would seem. :)

Last night I was watching the game on TV. About halfway through I decided to go into my computer room and listen to the game on the radio, so at about the fifth inning or so I stopped watching TV. In the top of the 9th I started watching TV again. More on that later.

This game was annoying me. We balked in a run (after two consecutive balks), hit a batter, gave up two home runs, gave up a sac fly, gave up a run on a walk, and a good ol' single up the middle. We certainly weren't boring in the runs we gave up. Juan Dominguez had the double balk maneuver, but I didn't think he pitched all that bad. Wasn't great, but wasn't bad. I mean he did have a quality start - 6IP 2ER. Our pen though was very much not like the 2004 edition. Fracas aside, Frankie Francisco gave up a run in an inning. Mahay gave up 2 in 0.1 innings. Cordero gave up two in his 0.2IP. Not good.

We tried to win it. Soriano had the first and last runs of the game - both solo home runs. Both of Soriano's were quite meaningful - they both had a lot of meaning behind them. Mark Teixeira continued his hot streak. Tex went 4 for 5, scoring twice. He had two doubles, a triple, and a solo shot for his lone RBI. He is by far our best offensive player at the moment. However, the most offensive part of the night belonged to Frankie Francisco.

In the ninth inning, I was listening to the radio, and Eric Nadel said "A fight has broken out in the Rangers' bullpen". So I immediately went back to the living room. I always TiVo every Rangers game just in case something happens (even if I don't intend on watching it). This was the reason why. I got to see all of what the Rangers coverage showed of a melee between our bullpen and the fans in Oakland. I'm sure most of you have seen it by now, as I'm writing this at 6PM on Tuesday evening. However, the short of it is that we saw all the Ranger players run over there, and a big pileup with our guys jawing with the Oakland fans. Then the bad part. Frankie Francisco tossed a chair into the stands, and it hit two people, one woman bore the brunt of it, and TV coverage showed her bleeding fairly well from her nose. There was a 20 minute delay while security talked to Buck, the umpires and Ken Maccha. It was a mess.

Francisco was arrested on Tuesday morning, and has a court appearance on Wednesday. In my opinion he deserves to be tossed out for the rest of the season. Is he totally responsible? No. The jackasses in the fans who were taunting them are as much to blame, IMO. Yes, Francisco should be held accountable for the chair. However, the asswipes who were taunting them are the ones who REALLY caused it (and to a lesser extent stadium security which didn't stop anything). Players get heckled and insulted all the time. That's part of the game. Players can take that. However, for a player to respond this way there has to be some really serious crap going on. Not the usual "Your momma, you guys stink, you're gonna lose, etc.." I'd wager it was into racial garbage, and really nasty stuff. Buck Showalter had said there were problems earlier in the game, too.

Of course we finally heard from the guy who started it. He said this in an interview.. "There was absolutely no profanity at all, just normal heckling, like 'who's going to take the loss?' 'you're going to lose the game' And apparently the guy who threw the chair and injured my wife wasn't even in the bullpen in the game. Its just sad that professionals would act like that, I mean, these guys are 6'5" we were fearing for our lives. I'm just going to concentrate on looking after my wife right now". OH YEAH RIGHT. Like only that would have provoked someone into throwing a chair. You lying piece of shit.

Again, as much as Francisco deserves a huge penalty for throwing the chair, the fans who started it and the failure of Oakland security to prevent it from ever getting that far are to blame as well. Stupid fans. I guess the guy who threw the cel phone at Carl Everett last year in Oakland didn't really do that, it was Carl doing it to himself, right? Jackasses.

More Stuff:

Addtl link on fight at mlb.com

Link with video of fight on mlb.com

This is a game that no one saw unless you were there, or were watching Toronto coverage. For some reason this game wasn't televised. Thing is, I probably wouldn't have watched much of it anyway, as it was Week 1 in the NFL. Now I don't like the Cowboys, I was watching other teams on the satellite. I love baseball, but there's something about opening weekend. It's just awesome. :)

It was nice to see Mark Teixeira get two home runs - his power has really come on, and at the right time too. We swept the Blue Jays, scoring 27 runs over the three games. Nice to see. We'll need all of that as we go into Oakland where we realistically have to come out of there with at least a 3-1 record, otherwise, we won't have enough games left, IMHO to overtake the lead in the division. It could still happen, but it's not terribly likely.

The Philadelphia Eagles are 1-0! \o/ :)

This was a game I attended. As it was September 11th, there was a big military salute at the start of the game. It was a nice ceremony, but I wonder why Buck Showalter gave his jacket to one of the vets - I wonder if Buck knew that kid.

Anyway, the game had a bit of everything. Power, defense, plenty of offense, and a really nice comeback win for the Rangers. I felt bad for Kenny Rogers, as he should have had his 17th win of the season. He's got 4 starts left, and he has to go 4-0 to get to 20, which I'm sure everyone was hoping he would. Either way, I feel barring a meltdown, he'll break his previous record of 17 wins (in 1995).

I'm not writing much about the game, as there wasn't a lot to say for me beyond it was nice weather, the Rangers won, and the lead flipflopped about half a dozen different times it seemed.

It was nice to see the offense get in gear, as we're about to hit the most important part of the season, if we still want to get to the post season. I just hope it all doesn't get lost since we'll be batting first the next seven games.

Well, I'm back. I've spent most of the last week sick. In fact, I'm still not right today, but it's the best I've felt in a week. I just didn't have the energy to do any of that. Additionally, I've kind of burnt out on scoring the games. The only ones I'm going to score for the rest of the season are games I'm going to.

For this particular game, it looked like Ryan Drese was pitching like he did earlier in the season, not the last 3 or so outings of his. He was pretty strong, and went seven innings, gave up just one run (a home run to Carlos Delgado), and striking out seven with one walk. The Eraser and Jeff Nelson followed up with an inning each, both giving up one earned run.

Miguel Batista was not the pitcher we saw in Toronto where he just shut us down. He gave up 10 hits in 3.1 innings of work, 7 runs, and had 3 wild pitches. It helped us get out to the win, which we needed, especially as Oakland lost.

Offensively, we were led by Kevin Mench who is swinging the bat VERY well now. Kevin had two solo home runs in this game (that gives him 5 in his last 5 games), All told, Kevin went 3 for 4 with 2 RBI and 3 runs scored. A great night for him. He was backed up by Teixeira who had a two run bomb of his own into the upper deck in right. Barajas was also 3 for 4, it was just a nice night for the offense with a total of 17 hits.

I'm sure like most people after the White Sox series, you were feeling pretty gloomy, like "this is it". The best case scenario is that we come out of the Toronto series two games back of Oakland (or Anaheim, as they might pass Oakland if the A's keep losing). However, that's best case scenario. I think we'll come out of it 4 back, which is manageable, but still a tough assignment going to Oakland and Anaheim. We can still do it, but it's not looking good for the home 11 right now.

I didn't see or hear most of this game, as I was first grocery shopping, then spending some time with my wife who wasn't feeling well. Listened to the end of it where I found more enjoyment in watching the Yankees get annihilated over on another channel, anyway. ;) Besides, Torii Hunter was busy destroying us.

I'm not ready to proclaim us done yet, but a feeling of dread is starting to creep in. We can either do good against the AL West in September, or get buried. Either way, I never expected us to even be here at this point. This season is a success no matter what happens from here on out.

Also, I've kind of slowed down on scoring the games. It was starting to burn me out, so I'm only going to be posting scorecards from games that I actually am at and score from this point out.

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Sorry for the lack of updates the last few days, been horribly busy at work, I didn't even have time to put a page together, and I just figured I've give myself a mini break as we head down the stretch.

We got a little bit of revenge last night against the Orioles, as we beat 'em 6-4. Surpisingly, we got another decent starting pitching performance from someone you weren't expecting it from - John Wasdin. Wasdin went six innings, giving up 2 runs on four hits, striking out four and walking two. A really nice performance. Our pen was it's usual good self, except for Carlos Almanzar, who had a bit of a rough time out there (0.2IP, 3H, 2ER, 1BB). But, we got the job done.

Speaking of the pen, Francisco Cordero got his 40th save last night (in 42 chances). It was his 20th consecutive save in 20 chances, which beats the streak he had going earlier in the season. A most pleasant surprise there. I don't think anyone doubted his ability, but I think most everyone thought he wouldn't be this good for another year or so.

Offensively, we were led by Eric Young. Eric went only 2 for 2 officially, but he also walked twice, had a stolen base, two RBI, and was everything your leadoff guy wants. I'm not ready to proclaim him our leadoff guy, but he usually does good there, and he did get the job done tonight.

As usual, the other teams around us in the playoff hunt won again, so we're not making up any ground. Was also interesting to see Steve Busby back in the TV booth tonight. I just wish he could be the backup instead of Bill Land. Bill's a bit too boring for my tastes.

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The game was 7-4, although it was 7-1 through two outs in the bottom of the 9th. The game feels like we lost 15-1, actually.

Johan Santana. That's about all that needs to be said about this one.

Fire's out. The winning streak is over at 8, tying a mark we set earlier this year.

Fortunately, the A's also lost today, so we remain .5 games out.

Unfortunately, the Angels did win (although they swept the Yankees in the process), so they're now tied with us for second, also at .5 games out.

Zack Greinke was masterful. He looked spectacular, and he did look like a high school kid out there, quite young looking. If he can keep that up, he'll be an awseome pitcher for a long time.

Erickson was ineffective, giving up way too many walks, and a grand slam. Calvin Pickering, just called up today to replace former Ranger Ruben Mateo who was DFA'ed before the game, had the grand slam, as well as a second home run and 6 RBI total. Benoit wasn't terribly great either, giving up a few more runs in his time on the mound. He was supposed to pitch Tuesday, but that's not going to happen now, we need another starter for Tuesday's game - likely the guy from the minors who was talked about (can't remember his name right now).

Oh well. Disappointing, but I can't say I'm unhappy with a 9-1 record over the last 10 games.

We got two runs, but we really didn't deserve them - one came on a balk, and right now I can't remember how the other showed up (sac fly, I think). It really feels like we got shut out.

Not much time to write. 8 in a row. Manny Alexander came through with a big hit, and Tex hit his 30th home run. Cordero was shaky again for the second day in a row, but still got the job done. Sunday afternoon we go for the sweep - would be our 9th in a row, and three consecutive series sweeps.

Not a whole lot to write about for this one. Ryan Drese labored a bit in the first inning, but settled down, and only allowed five hits and three runs over his 7+ innings of work to get the win - his 11th, and a career high. Almanzar and Cordero came on and didn't allow any runs, but Cordero was a little shaky this outing; still got the save.

Offensively, we didn't have much going on overall. We only had a total of four hits the entire game. However, THREE of them were home runs (one three run by Mench, and two solos by Dellucci), which accounted for all of our runs. One of Dellucci's was a cool one into the fountain in right field.

We've won seven in a row, but aren't making any progress, as the A's and the Red Sox are winning as well.

Six in a row. Two sweeps in a row. 4 games left till bald TV announcers. Although it's not as big of a stretch for Tom Grieve. ;)

I was at the game with my wife last night, and we were in some really good seats (Sec 29, Row 15), which I got hooked up with from my ticket agent. We had a great front row (well, almost) seat to watch the 6th Ranger win in a row, and the second consecutive series sweep, as well. I figured coming into this game that we'd lose, because Kenny Rogers hasn't been pitching well since the All-Star game. More though the fact that the Indians are a high powered offense, and had lost a couple in a row, including the absolute stomping we gave 'em on Tuesday. However, that was unfounded, as Kenny Rogers went 6, giving up two runs.

Offensively, we were powered by three home runs, that drove in all five. One by Dellucci, and then two by Blalock - one solo, one two run. And on a night when Blalock's wife was in labor, Tom Grieve & Josh Lewin "called" both Blalock home runs, and the Hanks' Homies were on the field with Hank before the game.. Was a great night for #9, that's for sure! There was no movement in the standings as both the A's & Red Sox won. However, it's got to be great going out on the road behind 6 in a row, and two sweeps in a row.

Oh, and this morning on The Ticket, one of the guys (forget who) compared the Rangers to a cockroach - a great analogy. They just won't go away!

Anyone who follows me and this site knows that I love baseball, and always love going to the ballpark to attend games. I go to a ton of them. By my count, I'm going to 34 games this season at the Ballpark (been to 25 already). Why is that important? Well, of all the games I am going to this year, I miss the history setting night - DAMMIT! :) Here's a short list of some of the cool stuff that happened at Tuesday night's game.

• First win for Scott Erickson in a long time
• It was Buck Showalter's 700th win as a major league manager
• Mike Young went 3 for 3 with a walk
• We had 17 hits & 16 runs
• All the starters had at least one hit
• Four guys scored 3 times (M Young, Soriano, Teixeira, Mench)
• Kevin Mench almost hit for the cycle

Oh yeah. Mark Teixeira hit for the cycle. It was a very cool moment - in the excitement of having 16 runs at the time, Tex's pending cycle was something that kind of snuck up on me. Josh mentioned it on TV, but I didn't pick up on it until it happened, so I had no kind of emotional buildup. It was definitely cool. Some quotes by Tex after the game said he didn't want to show up the Indians being up 16-1 or something like that. I'm sure he could have done a curtain call for the fans, and the Indians probably wouldn't have minded.

However, the best thing is that our offense seems to be getting back on track, and I'm not just talking about the explosion of this game. Overall, the "vibe" - at least to me feels to be like it's coming back, although Blalock still hasn't joined the party yet. This is good, as we're coming into the home stretch, the time when we have to play well. The time when we play only AL West is coming up soon, and it'll be a catfight till the end, I'm sure.

The game was actually more of a dominating performance than 16-4. It was 16-1 up until the ninth inning when Doug Brocail gave up three runs in the top of the 9th. That's about the only real bad thing of the night.

One last thing about the first paragraph, and going to more games. It's starting to look like the Dallas Cowboys are going to be moving to Arlington - or at least the real possibility exists. If that happens, it will make parking at the Ballpark hell for awhile as the location is supposed to be "next to the Ballpark". Not to mention the hell it'll be when there's a Cowboys game and a Rangers game at the same time. I sure hope they improve the roads around there. Cowboy traffic is a nightmare. However, if they build the rumored Dart high speed train out in that direction, I won't care, as I'll be taking the train all the time.

I didn't get to watch very much of this game - my wife and I had company over last night, and the baseball game wasn't on the agenda. When the company left, I was pretty tired, so I whizzed through the game in about 20 minutes on my TiVo. A nice comeback win. A few thoughts: Callaway looked a bit rusty in the first, but seemed to get it together. Perhaps he can be someone to help down the stretch. Goodness knows he can't be any worse than all the kids we put out there.

Brian Jordan appears to be looking like he might be able to help as well. We're not talking an OBP of .475 and a slugging of .850, but at least someone who won't strike out every time.

No change in the standings as everyone around us in the division and the wild card won, too.

Anyone think if they get to 10 wins in a row Josh & Tom will shave their heads like was talked about on TV last night? ;)

Well, this Sunday afternoon brought a nice day to the Rangers, who have definitely had a hard time with the "dog days" of August. We swept the Devil Rays, which was nice as division leader Oakland lost. In fact, everyone moved up. In fact, the AL West is essentially a three way tie, as right now, the Rangers and Angels are .5 back of the A's. We're technically in second place due to percentage points. What makes it even more interesting is that we're tied with the Red Sox for the lead in the AL Wild Card race, too. Most interesting, as we're rounding the corner into the final stretch of the season. The only thing that concerns me is our recent wins are against the Devil Rays & the Tigers. While a win is a win, you'd rather them be against better teams. Yeah, there's the story about they're all Major league teams, but let's face it. Beating the Yankees and the Red Sox is way different than beating the Devil Rays & the Tigers.

The game itself was led by pitching aberration Ryan Drese. I call him that, because no one is supposed to be able to pitch like this at our ballpark. He has a home ERA of like 2.1 something, which is the best in all of the American League. He's top 5 in overall ERA. It's amazing. I said it before, and I'll say it again. I was way wrong on Ryan Drese. I wanted him out of here almost as bas as most people wanted Chan Ho Park out of here. Drese appears to have figured it out.

Our outfielders appear to be picking it up again, especially since the change in lineup Buck did a week ago or so. Dellucci is doing great in the #2 hole. I've always been a proponent that it shouldn't matter WHERE you bat in a lineup, your job is to hit the ball. However, if it makes them play better, than go for it. Blalock is really starting to concern me, though. Laynce Nix had a home run today, and looked a lot better overall. Mark Teixeira added a home run in the bottom of the eighth. That solved a couple of things. First, it took away a save chance for Cordero, who probalby needed a day off, not to be pitching three days in a row like that. Second, it just proved how amazing his power is this year - he's got more HR than his rookie year, and he spent 4-5 weeks on the DL. If he had a full number of at bats, I believe he'd be in the lead for homers in the league. Assuming he gets a full season next year? Look out. I just know it'll cost us big time when his contract is up for renewal in 2006, as he has Satan as his agent.

Oh, and they keep talking on TV about how we have 9 guys with 10 home runs or more. If we get a 10th, it will tie a major league record. As of right now, the 9 guys with that many home runs are Teixeira (28), Blalock (24), Soriano (24), Mench (16), Mike Young (14), Barajas (13), Nix (13), & Fullmer (11). The next one is Gary Matthews, who has 9. I figure he's good for one more the rest of the season, so that will give us our record tying 10. If we wanted to break the record, it might be a stretch, as the next closest guy is Herb Perry, who has 5. We only have two other guys on the roster with any home runs at all, and they're Jordan with 2, and Adrian Gonzalez with 1, and he's not even in the majors. So unless Herb goes on a tear and gets 5 the last 6 weeks of the season, I doubt we're getting to 11 guys.

One other thing. The Devil Rays have some absolute greased lightning on the bases. Carl Crawford was bad enough, but this new kid they called up? Joey Gathright? I don't know if I've ever seen anyone run that fast - it was absolutely amazing. Oh, and BJ Upton? He was born two YEARS after I graduated high school, and I'm double his age. ACK!

Boy, this game started off ugly. In the top of the first, Bacsik gave up three hits, and hit two batters. Surprised we only gave up two that inning. We stormed back to take the lead in the bottom of the second behind a two run double by Brian Jordan, who is doing well the last week or so, perhaps he's turned it around. Would be a nice boost in the last 6 weeks of the season.

However, we couldn't hold it. Nor could the Devil Rays hold the lead once they took it back. This game went back and forth with runs scored in 6 of the 10 half innings between the first and fifth. In fact, the last run scored in the bottom of the fifth when Kevin Mench hit a home run to left off of Devil Rays reliever Franklin Nunez, who was making his major league debut (he got the loss, too). Soriano made a great double play, tagging a runner and throwing to first. There also was a goofy 1-3-6-1-4-6 pickoff play, too.

We probably should have scored more, as did the Devil Rays, we both left a lot of players on board. Both sides committed an error, and our bullpen was great again. The game ended with a thrill, as Gerald Laird threw out the major league steals leader Carl Crawford to end the game.

We go for the sweep tomorrow.

A win is a win. I'd like to say it's a great win, like a 2-1 win over the Yankees, but it wasn't. 5-3 over the Devil Rays is still a win, and right now, we need wins any way we can get them. It's absolutely amazing that on August 13th, we're still only 1.5 games out, and in the hunt of things. Earlier in the season, I didn't want to get worked up because I felt it was too soon. OK, NOW I believe in it. It's 6 weeks to go, and we're in the playoff hunt. Our rotation is in shambles, and we're still here. I would think that Showalter would have to get consideration for manager of the year for all this.

Anyway, about the game. Kenny Rogers took the mound, and Kenny's last few starts have been unlike the start of the season for him. It was getting to the point where I think people were starting to think that Ryan Drese was the only reliable starter we had now. Kenny stepped up a bit. He wasn't masterful, but he did go long enough to keep us in the game, and get his 14th win of the season. I think those dreams of him having a 20 win season are gone. It mathematically still could happen, but I don't see him winning 6 more for the rest of the season. My guess is he wins 17-18 now. Prove me wrong, Kenny!

Offensively, we scored 3 of our 5 runs on two home runs. Another alarming stat. We are not the club we were at the start of the season, when we'd drive in a ton of runs w/o home runs. It seems to be back to traditional Ranger baseball, whack it lately. Tex & Dellucci had the other RBI's, besides Nix & Sori's HR's.

Our bullpen was good, although not as lights out as it was in the past. Cordero had to pitch 1.1 innings for the save, and he made it interesting; he even mixed in a balk. But he got the save in the win - and I guess that's the bottom line. We won the game.

N/A

N/A

I don't have much time to write about this, so here's a few highlights.

1) Drese was great
2) Kevin Brown lost to the Rangers again
3) THE YANKEES LOST!

That about sums it up.

Ugh 2. We got swept in Baltimore and will now limp home to meet the Yankees. This could get real ugly.

Ugh.

Lost to the Orioles. Erickson was "OK" in his first Ranger start. Rodrigo Lopez was awesome. That's about it.

Ugly from the start. The only good thing to say about this game was that our pen was pretty decent once we got into the guys who are normally out there.

A really quick, nicely crisp moving game lead to a Rangers sweep in Detroit, and our retaking of first place, with our 60th win of the season. I know a lot of the local press in spring training was saying this was about all the wins we'd get total, as they were saying 100 loss seasons. Ha!

Ryan Drese earned his eighth win of the season, and did it in a way we don't normally do. Nice, quick pitching, and a low scoring game. All told, there were 3 runs, and 13 hits for both teams. Thing is, both teams had a few other opportunities to score, and didn't. The Tigers had the bases loaded twice, and didn't get anything, and we had bases loaded once, I think, and we didn't get anything, either.

Drese, and Ledezma for the Tigers were cruising along through five, when Ledezma came out due to a pitch count limit. Esteban Yan came in, and gave up a solo home run to Soriano to win the game. Our bullpen (Mahay, Almanzar, Cordero) was spectacular, not allowing any runs on the way for CoCo's 33rd save of the season.

A really nice, very National League feel to this game.

I have to say I wasn't thrilled at seeing another in our line of starting pitchers (the 14th this season now) go out there. I was thinking "Oh great - here's another guy who will get pasted and sent back to the minors". I was wrong about that. Mike Bascik went 7 innings, gave up just four hits, and NO runs. He walked no one and struck out four. Was a stellar performance. Sure, it's just the Detroit Tigers, but still. It was an impressive line. I'd say he earned himself another start with that.

Another Ranger that had a good night was David Dellucci. He went 3 for 5 with an RBI, and two runs scored. However, the best night probably was by Laynce Nix. Nix was 3 for 3 with 2 RBI's, a walk, and three runs scored. He also had a couple of diving catches in centerfield, and an assist on a putout at home plate. Was definitely a good night for the boy from Midland.

The Yankees also won, which brought us back to just half a game out of first. The Red Sox also lost, which gave us a 1.5 game lead in the Wild Card race. Things are looking good. I think I might allow myself to believe, even given the shaky state of our rotation.

This game ended up well, but there were a few warning signs in it for me. First, the obvious one. Mike Young. He had to sit out with a problem with his back. As the local media outlets are saying, no one really knows when he'll be back. Hopefully it's today, but if it's not today, that's a bigger flashing red light to me. He's been the person who has almost always been good for a hit or three a game. He's also the only player for which we don't have a realistic option. If we have to put him on the DL, it creates another problem, as none of the other 25 man roster guys are true Shortstops, so we'd probably have to move someone else at the same time. Not good.

The other problem was Kenny Rogers. He seems to pitch well, then give up or let the lead get away, which is what he did last night. We ended up getting the win, but Buck had taken Kenny out before an inning was over, so Kenny couldn't get the win. He's still pitching well, and god knows he still plays his defense (he had three great defensive plays last night), but something is starting to scare me there.

Offensively, Eric Young did really well, going 3 for 5 with an RBI (the GW RBI), and a run scored. He wasn't tested much in the field at SS, but offensively he provided the spark we needed. We had two home runs - one from Teixeira and one from Mench. The one from Tex was a "true" Comerica Park HR, the Mench one would have been an out in their old park configuration. Either way, those coupled with the EY hit were enough to give us the win - our pen was it's usual stellar self in holding up the back end.

Not much time to write about this one, but there wasn't much to write about anyway. We were shut down for the most part by Mark Redman. He allowed just one run on 6 hits over 7 innings. Nick Regilio for us didn't pitch too badly, either, but we usually score more than that for our pitchers. :)

Well, the news of the day was the trading deadline, really. Oh yeah, the Rangers played, but they were really squeezed by the home plate umpire, and we likely lost because of it - or at least in part. We did get a home run out of Brian Jordan, which was a bit of a surprise.

Back to the trading. We got Scott Erickson from the Mets. He was already DFA'ed by the Mets, so it's not like a huge trade - we're only giving up a minor league PTBNL for this, so it's not likely it will be anyone important. I like that for the most part we stood pat. We tried to trade Brad Fullmer, but his injury prevented that move to the Padres. We almost traded away AA 2B Ian Kinsler and another prospect for Larry Walker and a lot of cash. That's the kind of move we didn't need to be making. Fortunately, Walker rejected the trade with his no trade clause.

But the biggest story was the Nomar Garciaparra trade. I have to say I was a bit surprised by that. I figured he'd finish up in Boston and then walk in the off season. It's a bit disappointing on one level, as Nomah is my wife's favorite player, and he won't be coming here anymore as he's with the Cubs now. Of course, we could trade Soriano for pitching, move Mike Young back to second, and put Nomar at short here in Texas - yeah! ;)

This was also the induction ceremony for the second 2004 Rangers Hall of Fame game. While I never saw Fergie Jenkins pitch, or Buddy Bell play with my own eyes, I know them by reputation, and they both seem worthy candidates to be enshrined. There's also Tom Vandergriff, who brought baseball here in the first place - all of us fans owe Mr Vandergriff a debt of thanks.

Well, tonight marked the major league debut of a former Ranger manager's cousin - Sam Narron. I always like watching major league debuts. Partly because I like to see a kid get a shot, partially because of the chance that something very cool could happen (like Brian Sikorski against the Yankees a couple of years ago). Anyway, Sam didn't fare too well tonight, going 2.2 innings and giving up four runs. I hope he'll get another shot, as I can't imagine a major league debut is good for a pitcher's nerves.

He wasn't helped by Eric Byrnes, who is batting something like .625 against us this year - Byrnes had two home runs, both against Narron. Byrnes also had a double in this game I believe, and was hit by a pitch, so he was on base most of the night. However, after Narron departed, that ended. Surprisingly, Joaquin Benoit came on, and pitched 4.1 innings, and gave up NO runs, on two hits. He was everything we always wanted him to be. Out of the bullpen. That seems to be where he does best anymore. Might be time to think about him being our long man for a long time. ;)

We didn't get much going against Rich Harden for the longest time - we didn't get any runs until the 5th inning when we pushed across two. One was on a Blalock single, and the other was a gift on a wild pitch. That was all the scoring on both sides until the bottom of the 8th, when we broke through for a 5 spot to take the lead on two two run singles by Laynce Nix & Mike Young. Tex also had a solo home run in that inning - so we had a nice win on a big inning, not powered by a big home run.

Two other small things. It was damn hot out there. Yeah, I know it's Texas, but still - I never really feel uncomfortable out there, even on some of the hottest nights. Tonight I was so uncomfortable, I contemplated leaving the game early. I don't know if it was where I was sitting (section 212), but I did not enjoy the game from that aspect. I did, however, enjoy the retro uniforms. Hell, even Rangers Captain had a retro uniform on, too, which made me chuckle.

The end result tonight? We're back in first place.

This was an interesting game for me for a few reasons. First, I had just come back from a trip to Philadelphia. I visited the new Phillies park up there, and I was attending my first Ranger game in a bit. I didn't see them on TV for a week, and haven't listened on the radio, so I enjoyed being back at my home ballpark. Second, I was part of the group that was in the Ebbets Field Luxury Box (the second deck one out in left field) with a bunch of folks from Jamey Newberg's site. That was cool.

I did score the game, but even with that, I felt kind of disconnected from the game, as a lot of time was spent talking to folks, and just generally hanging around. Because of that, I won't write about the specifics of the game, but there is one good thing to add.

If there ever is a time to be in a luxury box, it's when you are in a rain delay. :)

We did fall out of first place, and sad as that is - I'll add this. If I told you we'd be in 2nd place only half a game out of first the day before the trading deadline, I bet you would have thought I was insane. Even if we never get back to first, and miss the playoffs, this will be a great season.

Not much good happened in this one. We lost 11-1, and got a total of three hits, two of them by Eric Young. The Angels, on the other hand had 10 runs and 16 hits.

However, the really bad news was that we lost Ric-Rod for awhile. He was hit in the arm by a line drive off the bat of Robb Quinlan. Later on, they said he had a broken elbow, and is on the DL "indefinitely". That's really not good, as he was I'm sure you know was viewed as the permanent third starter. That's just not good.

One interesting thing happened in this game you don't often see. The Angels moved their DH in to play the field, which means they surrendered the DH - the pitcher was officially required to bat, although it didn't happen as Anaheim used a PH in that spot in the ninth.

In case you missed it, this is my last update for about a week, as I'm going home to visit family and check out the new stadium the Phillies have. See you on June 30th as I'll start up updates again when the Rangers come back home.

I didn't start watching this game until 11:45PM last night, so I wasn't in the mood to score it - in fact, I whizzed through watching the whole game in about 40 minutes in high speed on my TiVo. ;)

What I did see this game was a lot of pitching. Escobar struck out about 600 Rangers tonight. Ryan Drese didn't allow a whole lot himself over his 7 innings. A well pitched game all around.

Nice comeback win! Too bad we had to come back in the first place, as Wasdin definitely pitched well enough to win. Wasdin got (technically) a quality start, and left with the lead, but unfortunately, a rare blown save for us - Frank Francisco was lights out his first inning, but gave up a HR ball to let the Sox tie it in the 8th. Almanzar came in, and put out the fire, as Francisco left two on base. Coco came in and was even more lights out, striking out the side to get his 29th save.

Teixeira's HR streak came to an end, but he got a hit in the bottom of the 8th to help us with the victory. Rod Barajas was hot tonight with three doubles, and Gary Matthews Jr had a two run HR as well. Not a spectacular offensive night - we had 6 runs on 10 hits, but we had ours when they mattered most, it seemed.

Nice night to be out at the ballpark.

The score wasn't even as close as 12-6, it seemed.

Benoit was crap. What a shock. We had three home runs (Matthews, Blalock, Teixeira). Tex's was his fifth in a row, tying a club record.

That's about all I have to say about this game.

Well, I was at this game last night, and I have to say through seven innings, it was a real snoozer. We had a single run through those seven - up to that point, Batista was pretty dominating. In the eighth, he appeared to run out of gas. He walked a couple, and then aided by an error by Carlos Delgado, we pushed across two runs, until Mark Teixeira came up, and jacked the first pitch he saw into the Rangers bullpen with the bases loaded for the win.

Yeah, some other things happened this game, but the grand slam was really the only thing that I bet most people will remember from this one. Was a really quick, very thrilling end to what I thought was going to be a real bore of a game.

Ricardo Rodriguez continues his streak - he now has 15.1 consecutive innings of shutout baseball - look out Orel! ;) Seriously, it was nice to see two really great performances in a row from him - could he be the third to the Rogers/Drese front end of the rotation? I hope so. If he is, it would have to really cheese off the Indians, as both Drese and Rodriguez used to be their property. Rrod went 6.1 scoreless innings tonight. They weren't exactly easy, though - only the first was 1-2-3. Several times they had two guys on base, but Rrod managed to get out of all of them. Our bullpen in this game (Shouse, Francisco, Mahay) combined to throw 2.2 innings of hitless relief - something really nice to see.

Offensively, we didn't have much going on at all. We only had six hits. Three of them were from Soriano, two from Mike Young, and one from Mark Teixeira - a three run blast in the fourth that whizzed right by the group of folks I was with in Section 10; that looked cool. We were out-hit 8-6 in this game, but we got the W, which is what counted.

As I mentioned above, there was a group of us at this game tonight. I organized this with several folks from my forums, and there were 19 of us out in Section 10 tonight. Technically, that doesn't count as a group by the rules, but my ticket guy said it wasn't worth losing the sale over a single ticket, so he got me in with 19. It was nice putting some faces to everyone, and while I didn't get to talk to everyone as much as I would have liked, I had a great time. We had two rows of seats (one of 8 seats, and one of 11 - this was one of those angled sections with odd rows, the one in front had just two seats in it), so that made it hard to be able to talk to everyone, which is what I had wanted to do. I might try and do this again before the end of the season, do this in a game in September. To all of you who came, thank you - I really enjoyed myself. Too bad about the mob scene at the Rawlings Grill. The place really is good, but they get overwhelmed when 43,000 people show up. :)

One other thing - someone there asked me about the software I use on my Palm to score games. It's called Scorepad, and you can check it out here. It's not cheap if you want the whole enchilada, but for what I do with it, I felt it was worth it.

The Rangers return to the Ballpark (newly trashed christened with more Ameriquest Field junk) after being on the road for several weeks plus the All-Star break, PLUS an extra day off after the all star break. Seems like we haven't played here since last season, which might be why they had a psuedo-opening Day feel around the park last night. Anyway, someone who seems to really love this place pitched here last night. Ryan Drese. I've done a complete turnaround on him - I said before I never was a fan of his, but he's proven me completely wrong. I wanted him gone from the moment we got him - not now, and I'm not afraid to say I was wrong about it. Drese has an ERA under two at this ballpark, which is a big accomplishment. He continued his ground ball mastery, and went 7 innings, giving up only one earned run, and was generally awesome.

So much so that it really kept the game moving, the entire game only took 2:15 to play, which is a very low figure considering there was a total of 13 runs scored, and 24 hits total. I suppose that came from the fact that there weren't a million pitching changes, and the ones that did happen mostly happened between innings.

We bombed last year's Cy Young award winner Roy Halladay to the tune of 6ER over 4 innings. Not surprising, as it was said on TV that his career ERA in this park was 8.8something. However, Halladay has not been pitching like himself the last few years, but I don't mind taking advantage of that. The charge was led by Lance Nix, who had a career day getting four hits. Soriano also had 4 RBI's, and we had three home runs (Texieira, Soriano, Nix). The home runs led to the attention of one of the Ballpark's newest uh.. "improvements" . The bell.

I'm not going to comment fully on this until I see it myself later today (Saturday) with my own eyes. Didn't look terribly overwhelming on TV. There were several changes to the Ballpark during the break, but I'll get into that more fully on my Saturday game commentary.

And in a bit of sad news, former Ranger friend Rick Helling was released by the Rangers after not doing too well in a comeback experiment in AAA. Rick has said he plans to retire - it's a shame it didn't work out, I would have loved to have seen him back in Arlington again.

-- Joe Siegler

There's plenty on the actual game itself, so you can read the coverage below, a few comments by me about the Ranger related stuff...

We had five All-Star players this year, a new record. Here's a quick rundown of what happened with them.

Francisco Cordero: Didn't play, but then again with the push to avoid tie games, some folks have to be kept out.
Kenny Rogers: Didn't play, but not surprising, as he was pseudo-hurt anyway. Probably would have had to go extra innings to see him.
Hank Blalock: Came in during the top of the 6th, went 0-2. Didn't do much, but nice to have him here.
Mike Young: Came in during the top of the 5th, also went 0-2, but made a fabulous defensive play.
Alfonso Soriano: Oh, went 2 for 3 with 3 RBI's, 1R, and one big three run HR. Named MVP of the game!

Not only did we have the top vote getter in the entire shebang, but he was named MVP of the game. I'm sure part of that stuff has to do with him being a former Yankee, but you know what? He's wearing our uniform now. Soriano was the first Ranger MVP of an All Star game since Julio Franco did it in 1990.

We did have five players in the game, but it seemed dominated by Soriano. I was quite surprised when he was named the MVP, as I didn't think there really was a standout player on either side - the standout performance was a negative one, that being Roger Clemens. As usual, my wife and I loved watching the player intros, which I think is the best part for a lot of people. Was it me, or did it seem really rushed? They seemed to spend less time on each player than they did before. Curt Schilling will get fined again, for writing on his cap - that's a no no that he seems to repeatedly ignore.

Last night, someone on my forums asked me what I thought the score would be. I generally don't like to predict All Star games, since there's too many variables, and too many players. Pushed though, I said "AL 7-4". I ALMOST got it right - it was AL 7-4 for quite awhile until Ortiz of the Red Sox screwed it up for me with a 2 run HR to make it 9-4.

Let's hope the second half goes as well as the first half does for us, and that Tom Hicks really does replace John Hart with Grady Fuson right away as was implicated on Tuesday in the Ft Worth Star Telegram. :)

No time to write about this game.

The less said about this one the better. I have only one remark. We got six runs. We got ZERO earned runs. That's how I explain being shut out and still scoring six.

Well, there's not a not to say here. We got shut out by the Red Sox led by a surprising performance from Bronson Arroyo, and some rather surprising defense by the Sox. We hit into three lineout double plays. We rarely see that, then there are three in one game! That pretty much set the mood of the game.

An extra special thanks goes out to Octavio Dotel, the A's closer, who blew a lead in the 9th in their game, and let us keep a 2 game lead in the West!

As this game went along, I was getting ready to make David Dellucci my star of the game. He went 3 for 4 with two home runs, a walk, 5 RBI's and three runs scored. It was definitely a career day as Victor Rojas called it. But then it came down to Ricardo Rodriguez. RRod pitched a complete game shutout on just three hits. Thing is, as the game went along, I didn't really notice how he was pitching until the 7th or 8th inning or so.

This game was dominated by us almost instantly with a leadoff home run by Michael Young (third leadoff this year, 12th overall). We had several home runs, including a disputed one by Kevin Mench. They were Mike Young, Kevin Mench, & David Dellucci twice. Nice power, nice pitching. And we'll stay in first place.

All that remains now is Boston. And we're missing Schilling & Pedro, so that's a good sign. :)

Ryan Drese had his worst outing of the year. Won't help my fantasy teams that have him, but he did get a no decision. He was gone after 4 innings, giving up 5 runs (4ER) on six hits and four walks. Ron Mahay and Frankie Francisco were good in relief - Mahay looking extremely strong. Cordero was a bit shaky in the 9th, but got the save anyway. That's it for the pitching. Mahay was the highlight for me. Nothing spectacular to write about pitching wise.

This was a pretty balanced attack offensively. We scored in six of the nine frames (1,2,3,6,7,8), putting up just one in five of those. The big one was the 7th where we had two two run homers from Mark Texieira, who is just annihilating the ball lately, and Garry Matthews Jr, who might be making a case to stay here for good.

However, the best moment for me was the girl who "sang" the national anthem. Having a relative with a disability makes me a little more sensitive to these kinds of issues, and what she did wasn't terribly unique, as Stephen Hawking amongst others has been doing it for awhile - but it was the WAY she did it that was cool. Sara Pyzka (picture below) was in a wheelchair, and has cerebal palsy - she can't speak. Technically her voice box machine (I don't know the real name for it) did the singing, but she controlled it by movements of her head, and it sounded like it had more of a personality than some of the voice boxes I've heard in the past (Stephen Hawking for example). Not to mention during it, you could see that she was extremely happy, and was smiling as much as her body would let her. I really enjoyed that national anthem; it was quite moving for me.

Well, Nick Bierbrodt walked 7 Indians in his 3.1 innings. Through the first three innings, he managed to escape all his walks pretty well, giving up just one run through three. However, in the fourth, he loaded the bases and was pulled. John Wasdin came in and gave up a hit after getting squeezed on a called third strike call. Had we gotten the call, we would have gotten out of that inning with nothing scoring, and would have been in great shape, as Wasdin gave up just one run in his 3.1 innings, so between Wasdin/Bierbrodt, they pitched 6.2 innings, and would have given up just two runs. Oh well.

The Indians got an emotional lift by getting Bob Wickman back - their closer, who was involved in a big trade between the Indians & the Brewers back in 2000 - he preceded John Rocker as the closer in Cleveland. :) Anyway, the game was a mostly well pitched one, save for Bierbrodt's walks.

Fortunately, the A's also lost, so we remained tied with them for first place in the division. This was the halfway point of the season. We've played 81 games. There's 81 to go. I strongly doubt anyone (probably including the Rangers themselves) expected us to be tied for first place, and have a pitcher with the most wins in the majors at this point. This season has turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. Right now, I'm almost leaning towards not making any moves at the trading deadline. This was supposed to be a rebuilding year, I say let them rebuild, and if we manage to get to the promised land with the guys we had, it'll make it that much sweeter.

A few more roster moves for this one. We put Perry on the DL, and brought up Manny Alexander. That allowed Mike Young to DH for the night, and Alexander played short - a first in both cases for the season. We might have to make another move, as Rod Barajas was hit on the hand with a pitch, and while the reports are encouraging that he'll keep playing, Gerald Laird isn't quite ready to come back yet, so we'd have to have our third string catcher acting as our front line one if Barajas has to go on the DL, too. Like we need more players there. Sigh.

No time to write - too busy coming back to work from the weekend. :)

I will avoid the cliche here about scoring this many runs on July 4th and the word fireworks, thank you very much.

A couple of games ago I started my commentary with Bombs away! I should have saved that for this game. We had 6 home runs this game (Soriano, Blalock, Mench x2, & Teixeira x2) as we did that one. However, two of them were history making. We had two grand slams in this game. One was by Teixeira in the 9th inning, and the other was by Hank Blalock. The Rangers have never had a two grand slam game ever before. Hank's slam was also a pinch hit grand slam as well, so it was a lot sweeter.

On the other side of the coin, when this game started, with a pitching matchup of Joaquin Benoit & Andy Pettite, I figure we'd lose 18-3, not win by that. Benoit went 6 innings, giving up two runs on 5 hits (1BB, 5K). A kind of outing that you'd normally like from your pitcher, but Benoit continues to tease. His next start will probably be 2.2IP with 7ER.

We took back the Silver boot with this absolute destruction of a game against the Astros. Now we just need to put it back together again.

My wife and I ended up going out to Frisco on Sunday night, we had tickets to the Roughriders game. There was this very cool thing during the 7th inning stretch where they had everyone blow up these balloons, and at the end of God Bless America, everyone let them fly into the air - it was a very funny, and rather cool sight - I wished I had my camera with me, would have made for a great picture. One other fun thing was between the top and bottom of the firsts, the Frisco mascot drove around the warning track on a vehicle throwing tshirts into the stands. When his vehicle passed the Riders bullpen in left, the players out there dumped a gatorade tub full of water on the Mascot, and because the Mascot's outfit is essentially a giant towel/sponge, he was instantly waterlogged - the players in the pen were laughing their asses off. :)

Had fun out there, and we got a great pitching performance by Kameron Loe, and Laynce Nix had an RBI hit in a rehab assignment - that he had to come out of early after diving for a ball. :(

Oh yeah - we had five all stars named to the All Star game this evening. Soriano was voted in. We had Francisco Cordero & Kenny Rogers named from our pitching staff, and the players/Torre brought along Hank Blalock & Mike Young. We've never had five before. We had 4 in 1999 (Raffy, Pudge, Zimmerman, Wetteland, 1998 (Juan, Pudge, Wetteland, Sele), and 1989 (Ryan, Russell, Franco, Sierra). I really would have hoped that Blalock could have started the thing, but at least he's there. I'm happy. For the record the guys I voted for almost regularly in this year's all star balloting were:

AL:
C - Pudge (voted in)
1B - Mark Teixeira
2B - Alfonso Soriano (voted in)
3B - Hank Blalock (reserve choice)
SS - Mike Young (reserve choice)
OF - Manny Ramirez (voted in)
OF - Carlos Beltran (player vote, but can't play due to league switch to NL)
OF - Vladimir Gurerrero (voted in)

NL:
C - Mike Liberthal
1B - Jim Thome (reserve choice)
2B - Jeff Kent (voted in - I was voting for Marcus Giles, but he got hurt)
3B - Mike Lowell (reserve choice)
SS - Adam Everett
OF - Barry Bonds (voted in)
OF - Ken Griffey Jr (voted in)
OF - Scott Podsednik

Being that I grew up in Philly, and lived there for over 20 years, that's why I have a few "homer" votes for Phillies in my NL ballots. There's also no way in hell I'd ever vote for J.D. Drew or Scott Rolen. Not a chance. Why? Let's just say it's a "Philly thing".

And for the 32nd man voting, I'm voting for:

AL: Paul Konerko
NL: Bobby Abreu

Damnit. Lost two games in a row against the Astros in essentially the same way. Well, OK, maybe not, but that's what it felt like to me. We had gone up 6-1 on the strength of a 6 run 5th inning (two three run home runs by us). However, Morgan Ensberg stormed back with a grand slam that topped a 7 run 5th for the Astros, gave them the lead, and they never looked back, really. Damn.

Crap. Now we have to win tomorrow's finale by three runs to take the series and the Silver Boot.

I hate games like this. These are emotional rollercoasters. You get the high of coming back to tie the game, and the BIG low of giving it right back and losing the game. I'm writing this on Monday, so most of the details aren't fresh in my mind, but this was supposed to be rematch of the pitcher's duel from Arlington last weekend between Roy Oswalt and Ryan Drese. It wasn't. Oswalt gave up 9 hits and 5 runs. Drese gave up 8 hits and five runs. Neither was really crisp at all. Drese at least got a ND in the game.

Oh well, the Lone Star series is now tied after we won 2 the last weekend.

Well, this was a day game, which means I only superficially got to pay attention. I did score the game, but about 40% of my scorecard was me looking at what had happened on the MLB Gameday scorecard stuff. And I didn't miss much. Wasdin was not good today, we fell behind a lot early, and that was about it. Made a little noise when Kevin Mench hit a three run home run, but we were behind the 8 ball in this one almost immediately, and never really had a chance to win, I felt.

The loss makes the 2-2 split in Seattle seem like an 0-4 to me.

No commentary from me, because something happened last night that almost never happens. I got tired in the middle of the game and went to bed! I hate these 9PM starts.

No time to write commentary today.

Brett Carre: The fun in Seattle ends with a 4-3 loss on Tuesday. This was a game that was on the table, but we couldn't pull it out. One of the few times this year that we couldn't pull out one like this.

Benoit pitched decent tonight, but we gave up just too many tonight as we could only produce 3 runs tonight. Some people said tonight his future with the Rangers was on the line. I think he preformed well enough to stop talks about that until his next start!

On the offensive side we had chances but didn't take advantage of them. This is a game I think we should have won, but Seattle got the big hit tonight by Aurilia, the two run homer with two outs in the 6th.

Kenny is on the mound tomorrow. Does that mean we can already put a check in the "W" column?

There's no scorecard stuff from me. My brother called, and I didn't get to start watching the game until 11:30PM. I did actually start scoring it, but after three innings I was falling asleep, so I gave up and watched the rest of the game in about 10 minutes in high speed scan on my TiVo. ;)

BOMBS AWAY!

The Rangers hit five home runs in this game, including two in the first inning, and two overall by Hank Blalock. The offense was the star of this game by far. We also had home runs by Soriano, Mench, & Texieira. The HR accounted for 7 of the 8 runs we got.

It's good we had offense, as Bierbrodt had nothing. Well, that's not entirely true, he got the first two batters of the game out, but not much after that. He gave up 3 in his 1.2 innings. Ricardo Rodriguez went 3.2, and gave up a run, not too bad. Mahay, Francisco, Almanzar, & Cordero went a combined 3.2 innings and gave up just one more run. Cordero got his 23rd save.

It was almost all good. A nice start to the road trip.

Ryan Drese pitched a complete game. He gave up one run, on a double play ball, so there was no RBI involved. He walked two, struck out four, and threw 114 pitches. He was sensational. He lost.

Roy Oswalt was absolutely untouchable. He gave up 4 hits over his 8 innings, and a play in the first inning pretty much summed it up. That was Beltran's robbing of Mike Young's home run ball over the center field wall in the first inning. After some theatrics on the catch, Beltran held in his hand the closest thing we had to a run all day. We had a triple by EY, a double by Rod Bajaras, but squat otherwise. Oswalt was absolutely dominating. Was amazing we got what we did, tell you the truth.

Sad part is that Ryan Drese lost the game, when he pitched well enough to win it on any other day. Don't feel too bad about this loss, as we certainly got enough pitching, something we've lacked the last few years. We went 5-1 on the homestand, including 8 of the last 9 to take first place in the division, and as I write this on Sunday afternoon the A's haven't played yet, so we will head out on the road in sole possession of first. Whether it's 1 game or 2, is up to the A's tonight.

We won't see another home game until Friday July 16th - 19 days from now.

Rain. Lots of it. It rained for the first three innings or so, and then it rained from the 7th onwards. There was no rain in the middle, but it was pretty ugly. I ended up sitting in the last row of the upper deck behind home plate, I wasn't in the mood to sit in the rain, even though I had an umbrella with me.

This was a good back and forth game. There was no real dominant pitching here, in fact, there was some awful pitching today (Frank Francisco). The rest was just OK. We had a 2-0 lead, then 2-1, then 2-2, and we went up, they went up, it went on that way until the bottom of the sixth when we were up 7-3. I was feeling pretty good about the game, but that's when Francisco came in and laid a big stinking one on the field. The game was tied 7-7 at that point. I was glad we weren't behind, but not thrilled at having given up the lead.

The Hammer, who lead the offense with a 4 for 5 day, scoring three times, and having 2 RBI's hit a game winning solo home run into the Rangers bullpen off brief former Ranger Dan Miceli to win it. Cordero got his 22nd save. Speaking of former Rangers and home runs, our old friend Mike Lamb had a solo home run in the game. I'm glad he's doing well in Houston, I just hope the Beltran trade doesn't end up jacking with Mike's time, given all the position shifts they've had.

Anyway we're now 8 in a row, and are 13 games over 500. Right now only the Yankees have a better record than us in the AL, and only one team in the NL has a better record - the Cardinals. Who would have thought it? Hell, Tampa Bay is now one game over 500 and in third place in their division. Bizarre things are afoot in 2004.

WOW! I mean WOW - what more can you say about Kenny Rogers? Yeah, there were a few runs in this game, and Carlos Beltran made his debut as an Astro tonight.

This night belonged to Kenny Rogers. Get the feeling that if this was an NL park game, he would have gone 3 for 4 with a HR, too.

I started scoring this game when the game started. My regular work hours are 9AM to 6PM. My wife was working late, so I had planned to meet her during her dinner break, which was 6 to 7. OK, we went extra innings. I figured that was not a big deal, as it was 4PM. Thought I'd have plenty of time. As it inched closer to quitting time, I started to get worried. So, I left work at 6PM, and they were just starting the 16th inning. As I drove up to where I was meeting my wife, the 15th inning just ended - I really thought we were going to win this several times, but our best shot was the bottom of the 16th - bases loaded with one out. We failed. So I met my wife for dinner, and figured I'd just retro score the game when we were done. At 6:55 when I drove her back to work, the game was still going on! I dropped her off at work, and as soon as she got out of the truck, Soriano hit his GW home run in the 18th inning. I did have to retro score the 16th through 18th innings, but it was still cool to hear the end of the game.

Three years ago (almost), my wife and I were at the last 18 inning game, one the Rangers won 8-7 over Boston on Aug 25, 2001. That was one wild game, but given it started at 7, it was done just short of 2AM. I loved it. I'm sure I would have loved this game had I gone to it, but I also probably would be dead tired given the fact that it lasted 6 hours in the sun during the day. But hell, I love extra inning games, and REALLY extra inning games are great! Given there's so much to talk about on this one, I'll just list several bullet points I noticed - in no particular order.

• Hank Blalock had 9 at bats - tying a Ranger record
• The Rangers had 23 hits, which tied a team record.
• We tied the team record for most innings played in a game - 18.
• This was the longest game both in innings and time in the majors this season (so far).
• Brian Shouse got his first major league win (in 112 appearances)
• We blew it bigtime in the 15th inning. BIG TIME.
• We now have 6 wins in a row - a season high
• We're now 11 games over .500 - a season high
• Edgar Martinez walked 5 times in this game, twice intentionally.
• Seattle used all their relief pitchers - had to use Jamie Moyer (tomorrow's starter) to finish the game.
• The batteries in my Palm ran down almost to zero because I had the backlight on and the game took too long. ;)
• The length of this game was longer than the first two games in the series combined.
• Rod Barajas now has three more HR this season then he had in his entire career before this year.

It is nice to have this kind of roll going into the Astros series, especially since the Astros acquired Carlos Beltran - that happened right as I was finishing up this story. ;)

I did not score the game this evening - I spent most of the game hanging out behind section 5 with Hank's Homies. ;) (click for pictures) Got there a little bit before the game started - and then I hung out there till the end of the fifth. It was fun hanging with the Homies. I mostly took pictures of them, as they didn't have any, but the guys were cool. I got eye blacked up, and we had a blast. I had to leave as I was meeting someone else at the park, so I went and met him, and then went to my actual seat, which was in Sec 327. By that time I was really tired, and didn't stand for the 7th inning stretch, as I had "stretched" all the game already. ;)

The game itself was great - although watching it from a different part of the park meant my perception of it was different, and I was having a hard time following the ball most of the time. The top of the lineup duo of Hank Blalock & Mike Young seem to be at it again, pushing across a run in the first. It actually stayed that way for awhile, with Bierbrodt and Franklin pitching well, making outs when they had to. Seattle tied the game in the top of the fifth, and took the lead in the sixth, but we stormed back with a 5 spot in the bottom of the sixth to put it away.

This game for me was less about the actual game than standing out in left shouting "Go Hank" and clapping my hands more than I can remember in quite awhile. :)

We've now won 5 in a row. We're 10 games over 500 for the first time this season, and damn, it feels good to be thinking (even remotely) that the playoffs might be an option.

Brett Carre: Last night I actually went to this game. Me and my buddy thought it would be cool to head up there to catch the FIRST place Rangers.

If you are a Ranger fan it was a great game. We got off to a 1-0 as the dynamic duro did their deal. A Yougn double followed by a Blalock single. It stayed a pitchers dual between Ryan Franklin and Nick "Beer Braut" We trailed 2-1 going into the bottom of the 6th, but a 5 run inning turbed the tide as we took a 6-2 lead. It was nice to see us get 5 runs in one inning without a home run. It seems the last week or two all of our runs were coming via a home run.

Ahhh, first place. When the Rangers are in first it seems like the air is fresher, the food tastes better, and life is just a billion times better. Since we are in first I have come up with a phrase for this team to take on for the rest the year: "Get er Done!" Thats all I got.

My wife and I got to the game much later than I normally do. I'm normally in my seat at 6PM for a 7PM game, I didn't leave Garland until 6PM for this one. Got there just in time to see the first pitch ceremony, which was thrown out by a surprise - Geddy Lee and Alex Liefson of Rush. That was a cool surprise - they're in town for a concert on Wed night.

As the game got started, I sat there thinking what a lot of folks are right now. It's June 22nd, and the Rangers are in first place!! That was a nice feeling, and it must have translated to the field, as we got out early. We loaded up the bases in the bottom of the first, and Teixeira singled in a couple, and we never looked back. Ryan Drese pitched as well as I'd seen him this season. He did give up a longball to John Olerud, but bases empty - and there's no shame in giving one up to Olerud.

Rod Barajas continued his power stroke, jacking his 10th of the season, more than tripling has career season high, and we're not halfway through yet. That's the third game in a row for Barajas with a HR. The team record is 5, set twice last season by Carl Everett & Arod. However, the big stamp of this game came in the 6th, when we put up a 6 spot, highlighted by a 3 run triple by Mike Young.

There was some great defense in this game, and some not so good (two errors by Soriano). Overall, was a nice game, the weather was nice, in the mid 70's at the ballpark. For June 22nd, there was nothing wrong with this night at the game at all, especially the time it took to play. Started at 7:09, and ended at 9:27. Nice quick game. Hell, even the garlic fries were great!!

Kenny Rogers did his usual surrender of a run or two in the first inning, but was brilliant after that. In fact, the whole game was a pitcher's duel, not terribly a lot going on for either side In fact, the game score remained 2-1 in favor of Texas until the bottom of the ninth when Cordero blew his second save of the season. Annoying, but I didn't feel like we were going to lose - just had a good feeling by this point. I did feel bad for Kenny, he should be 11-2 now, and the two no decisions he had this week were both on blown saves by Cordero - his only two.

In the top of the 11th, Hank Blalock jacked a two run home run to win the game (in fact, our other two runs came on a two run HR by Barajas). That's how it ended. A 4-2 win over the Marlins.

So we swept the defending World Champions on their turf. After losing all three to the Reds, I have to say this is very encouraging. We could have rather easily been 6-0 on this road trip, we played well against the Reds, just not well enough. Against the Marlins, we found the ways to win, and we come back home just one half a game out of first. At this point last year, we were 21.5 games out. What a turnaround.

The other thing for me personally is that since I'm from Philadelphia, having Florida lose all three games here puts the Phillies in first place, and drops the Marlins to second - \o/ :)

First off, the pitch counts on my own score stuff aren't right. The reason is that the rain delay that happened in the middle of the game forced my recording to not have the entire game. I always bump baseball games by an extra hour, but that wasn't enough - I got cut off I think after one out in the top of the 8th. I had to retro score the end of the game.

Too busy on Monday to really write a lot, but it was nice to see Cordero get another save. This was the game I full well expected to lose, I didn't think we'd beat Dontrelle Willis, but we did. We also jacked a few home runs off of him (Mench, Barajas). Was a bit of a sloppy game, with 5 errors. Our two came on the same play - one of those plays you see in pee-wee baseball, with the ball being thrown all over the place, allowing everyone to score. Ugh.

Nice to come out on top, though.

The pitching carousel is swinging again - this time stopping on John Wasdin, with Erasmo Ramirez getting off and sitting on the AAA bench. And it looked like Carlos Almanzar might have to do the same thing, as he did his "stick my hand up after a ball hit up the middle" move again, and had to come out of the game. This is probably one of the biggest uses of the DL I can remember in years. It might not be numbers wise, but it sure feels like it.

Given the way the last few games have gone, as we got to the 6th inning with a lead of only 2-0, you expected them to blow it. But we didn't. Wasdin was quite good, and probably will get another start because of this performance. Almanzar, Francisco, & Mahay combined to throw two shutout innings in relief to seal the game.

Offensively, it was nice to see Fullmer in there doing well, as is bat has been hot lately. Defensively, we turned four double plays (including one to end the game) - something that's always nice to see. Soriano had a great leaping snare of a line drive late in the game, too.

This was a well played game, and it reminded me a lot of the way we were playing in April.

Disappointing. That's about all I can say about this one. Good thing Anaheim and Oakland lost too, otherwise it'd be more disappointing. I suppose the annoying this is that we got beat by a pitcher who makes a $2.5 million salary - of which the Rangers are paying $2.2mil of. :(

I don't hold out a lot of hope that we'll turn it around against the Marlins, either. One amusing thing, I had the game on MLB.com's Gameday while I was listening, and briefly saw this. Got a laugh out of it.

Sigh.

Good:
Nick Bierbrodt did better than I think anyone expected.
Couple of solo home runs
The rest of the AL West lost, too.
The bobblehead joke with Tom Grieve on TV

Bad:
No one on base for the couple of home runs.
Bullpen didn't do it's job
When one of my "good" things is a bobblehead joke.
We've lost three in a row again

Several things came to an end today.. Kenny Rogers' streak of winning after a loss (although it wasn't his fault). Our perfect record in extra inning games this year, Francisco Cordero's streak of no blown saves, Hank Blalock's streak of starting the games at third, Brad Fullmer's not having played the field.. there were more, but I've forgotten them as I sit here to write this. Our pitching staff is all over the place at he moment, but tonight's game didn't seem that poorly pitched to me.

Kenny went 6 innings, and gave up 2 runs on 6 hits with 5 k's. We used six other pitchers for a combined 4.1 innings pitched, and those guys gave up 3 runs on 8 hits - not terribly good. In fact, we would have lost the game sooner, if we didn't have to magnificent plays to toss out Reds players at the plate. Barajas had a busy night back there behind the dish - and it looked good.

Alfonso Soriano had a huge 3 run jack, followed up by a solo shot from Herb Perry. But that was all our scoring - and it all came in the fourth. Looking at the starting pitcher and the bullpen situation for the Reds, I expected us to score 17 runs, but they shut us down pretty good overall, except for the fourth.

And the way we lost in the end was really frustrating. Doug Brocail was the last pitcher on the mound for us, but I didn't think that loss was Brocail's fault. He did what he was supposed to do. Get a ground ball. I think Showalter overmanaged that - the ball was hit to where Soriano was going, but EY as an extra infielder ran right in front of Soriano and booted it. I really don't think tonight's loss was Brocail's fault.

Having said that - I don't know why we're even messing with him. He's a reclamation project, and we don't need reclamation projects at this point in the team's history. Brocail will probably be the next pitcher to go when it's time to bring someone else up after today's move of Bierbrodt and Juan Dominguez.

No time to write today (busy Monday), but I was surprised at how much press the jackass who stole the ball from the little kid got. Tom Grieve really layed into him on the broadcast, but then I later saw John Kruk and the guys from Baseball Tonight talking about it, and it made all other kinds of national coverage, too. This link has a good summary of the events, plus a link to video of the ball fiasco and some commentary from players on it.

Reggie Sanders of the Cardinals did step up and get the kid some equipment. Here's a picture of that.

No time to write today (busy Monday), but it was nice to see a grand slam. Those are always cool (when it's your team).

I didn't score the game - first time all season I voluntarily didn't score a game.

The less said about this game, the better.

I love doubleheaders. Anyone who knows me, knows I love doubleheaders. I know why they're not scheduled anymore (teams want extra gate $). But I always attend them when they happen. I don't like the 4PM start, because I have to leave uber early from work, which can create problems for me. But anyway, I was there for the start of the doubleheader. And it was great! Game 2:

If you were a Jason Kendall fan, you loved the doubleheader, as Kendall went 7 for 8 in both games, scored a few runs, basically had an offensively great day. Too bad it was all wasted, though.

Kenny Rogers got off to a bad start in this one, giving up a two run home run in the first inning. He wasn't super crisp, as he gave up 4 runs on 9 hits in his 7IP. But he pitched well enough - and made three really great defensive plays in the field - showing why he owns a Gold Glove for that position. Kenny is now 9-2 with an ERA of 3.76. It's starting to look like he'll get picked for the All-Star game, which is nice. Makes me wonder if they wouldn't consider starting Kenny in Houston. Kenny Rogers vs. Roger Clemens to start the All-Star game. Now that would be interesting.

Offensively, we had a few big groupings of runs, with two four spots and two single run innings. The first one came on a throwing error by Ruben Mateo in the third, which was followed by an absolute bomb to right field by Teixeira - a three run blast. Tex's HR cleared the seats in right field right down the line - and went into the concourse - a most impressive blast. As cool as that was, it didn't compare to the blast by Brad Fullmer in the bottom of the fifth that scored Young, Blalock, & Soriano - a grand slam. It was the first slam in a Rangers game this year - by either team.

After the slam, we were up 9-3. Both teams added on one more run later, but it was inconsequential. It seemed the game was over after the grand slam.

I love doubleheaders. Anyone who knows me, knows I love doubleheaders. I know why they're not scheduled anymore (teams want extra gate $). But I always attend them when they happen. I don't like the 4PM start, because I have to leave uber early from work, which can create problems for me. But anyway, I was there for the start of the doubleheader. And it was great! Game 1:

This was one strange game. But before I get to that, let's get the not strange out of the way. Joaquin Benoit. He pitched like himself. He went 4.1 innings, tossing 91 or so pitchers - not good. He actually only gave up two runs while he was on the mound (3 total), but his lack of control causes his pitch counts to go way up too fast. I still think this is his last year - if he doesn't find it by the end of the season, we'll probably leave him unprotected, or just let him go completely.

Benoit wasn't surprising. What was surprising was the Rangers line score. Overall, we had 9 runs on a total of only 5 hits. We actually were mostly shut down by Oliver Perez, who struck out 12 Rangers in his six innings, allowing only 3 hits. He walked four though, and did hit two batters, and I believe all of them scored. Of our five hits, three of them were home runs. The first was by Mike Young, which scored Eric Young, who had walked. The second was by Gary Matthews which scored Mark Teixeira & Herbert Perry, both of which were hit by pitches. The third was a solo shot by Herb Perry. So that's 6 of our 9 runs by the longball, and 3 of our 5 hits. We picked up a few more runs in the seventh thanks to a throwing error by Pittsburgh 3B Chris Stynes - oddly enough who was just brought in that inning for his defense.

Cordero notched his 19th save of the season, while Frank Francisco got his first major league win in the game. A nice "bombs away" come from behind win. :)

One of the best moments of this game for me came during the game. It wasn't on the field - it was outside the ballpark as I was walking up. I don't know if anyone else saw this, but it was across the street from the first base entrance. Last July 9th, Randall Simon of the Pittsburgh Pirates took a swing at a guy in a sausage as part of the popular sausage race in Milwaukee (here & here). Well, outside of the ballpark, there was a group of about 6 folks "picketing" the Pirates. One was dressed in a hot dog suit, and the others had placards that said "Hot Dogs are People Too" and "Down with Randall Simon". It was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen. My wife and I laughed out loud when we drove by them in my truck, and then talked to 'em as I walked by saying "I know exactly what you're joking about, that was damn funny".

Anyway, the game was extraordinarily windy - on an order I'd not seen before. The wire story said the wind was 24mph, but it felt more than that. I thought we'd have a ton of home runs because of that, but only two went out. RA Dickey was almost Chan Ho Park like in his pitching. He was lights out for most of his outing, but had those small bits that were really bad that allowed the other team to score. Dickey gave up three in the second on a bunch of stuff that didn't seem like a big deal, but there were too many things like that, and they all added up to a 3 spot. We countered it with a 3 spot of our own in the bottom of the third, capped by a Teixeira HR off the advertising on the upper home run porch. We went ahead in the bottom of the 5th on a 2 run single by Gary Matthews. The see saw continued on Craig Wilsons 2 run HR for Pittsburgh which tied it at 5. At that point our bullpen took over and did a wonderful job again (4.1 IP, 1H, 0R, 2BB). Really nice to see that especially given the parade of people to the DL this season - with all that instability, a nice consistent job by the bullpen is great.

The score stayed tied 5-5 until the bottom of the 10th when Hank Blalock blooped in a hit to center scoring Laynce Nix to win the game. It was funny, as the last time my wife and I saw the Pirates, it was in Houston, and that game was extra innings too. I said before the game started that it would be amusing if there was a walk off win in extra innings. ;)

One other thing about the game. My wife is from Pittsburgh, so we were all decked out in Pittsburgh stuff. She was there with her Terrible Towel. Wrong sport, but hey, it's a Pittsburgh thing. :) And speaking of my wife we had a very nice night together, both at the game, and at home. I love my wife, and I was glad we had this night together to share a bit in her hometown sports behavior. ;)

Brett Carre: We won our 5th in 7 games with a 6-5 extra innings win over the Pirates last night.

We got behind 3-0, but we again found a way to come back to take a 5-3 lead. Wilson tied the game with a long homer to take it 5-5. That was the score until Hank Blalock hit a bloop game winning RBI single in the bottom of the 10th.

We are now only 2 back of the 1st place Angels. Can't everybody smell first place??

Ryan Drese was brilliant. He went 8 innings, gave up two runs on 7 hits, and one walk.

Mike Mussina was godlike, going 8 innings, giving up just one run on 4 hits and ten strikeouts.

We made it a little interesting in the bottom of the ninth against Mariano Rivera, but the two lines above are a summary of the entire game, which took only 2:12 to play

When I saw the pitching matchups for the New York series, I figured this would be the game we'd lose automatically. Rookie making his Yankee Stadium debut against one of the most powerful lineups in baseball. Dominguez hasn't exactly set the world on fire since he's been up. Boy was I wrong. Not only was this the only game we ended up winning in the series, but it was an absolutely dominating performance by Juan Dominguez. He went 8 innings, giving up just one run on 5 hits. He also struck out five, and just had the Yankees baffled. It was absolutely amazing to watch.

On the other side, Brad Fullmer busted out of his malaise with a 3 for 4 day. He also scored four times, he had a HR, 2 RBI's, and a walk. Thing is, after all that, his batting average is only .219. As exciting as this game was for him, he needs a LOT of these to bring himself back to respectability. I hope he does, I really like him, but so far this season, he's been a bust.

Brett Carre: A nice ass kicking of the evil empire today with a 8-1 win. Every win @ Ny is sweet, but we dominated today.

Juan Dominguez was brilliant. He gave up 1 run over 8 innings going up against the best line-up in baseball. Hopefully that was not a fluke. We could really use him this year.

Brad Fuller led a Ranger offensive charge with 3 hits and 4 runs scored. Tex added a mammoth homer in the upper deck and we sprinkled a few runs here and there for the 8-1 win.

Bombs away is about the only thing I can think of to describe this game. There was a total of 8 home runs for both teams (6 NY, 2 TEX). I actually thought we were going to cruise when we went up 4-0 in the third inning. But that didn't last long.

Kenny Rogers continued his misery in Yankee Stadium - he's got some ugly numbers there - real ugly. Today's line was consistant with that (4IP, 8H, 6ER, 4BB, 5HR). Definitely his worst outing of the year. Kept him from getting to 9 wins.

Overall, a pretty pitching poor game on both sides. It was really nice to see Soriano get a nice round of applause when he stepped to the plate. That wasn't a surprise. What was a MAJOR surprise was the standing ovation he got in Yankee stadium.

Brett Carre: This game sucked if you are a Rangers fan. We jumped off to a 4-0 lead on a 3-run shot by Alfonso, then Tex jacked a solo bomb to give us a 4-0 lead. Then the Yankees went into home run mode. They hit 5 off of Ranger starter Kenny Rogers. They took a 4-6, we battled back to tie it at 6-6, but Gary Sheffield broke the tie with a solo shot off of Jay Powell.

All in all a fun game to watch, just wish we were on the other end.

While we won the game, it was a shame that we wasted the best pitching performance by RA Dickey in a month. He went 6.2 innings giving up no earned runs (although one did score). He had 7 k's and two walks. But our pen gave up two runs to tie the game late. Shouse, who I thought pitched fairly well, got tagged for 2ER, and Almanzar, who retired no one got the win, as well as a blown save. But the biggest pitching story is probably Francisco Cordero, who now holds the record for consecutive saves by a Ranger pitcher w/o a blown save with 18. He previously held the record for most consecutive saves to start the season, now he holds the record for most saves in a row by a Ranger - no matter when they came. That's really nice to see.

Offensively, Mike Young had another multihit game, Blalock also had two hits as did Mark Teixeira. However, the other multi hit guy was the story of the game - Gary Matthews Jr. He went 2 for 2, 3 RBI's, he scored a run, and walked once. But the big one was a game winning home run in the top of the 9th. We also had a solo shot by Hank Blalock in the 9th for an insurance run.

Felt like a fast moving game, but when I looked at the end, it was 2:49. It felt like one of those games that would be like 2:20 or so. But we swept the short series in Cleveland, and now have three in a row headed to Yankee Stadium starting on Friday. Hope it all goes well there, but New York is now playing like they should, so I'd be surprised if we took the series there - big time.

\o/ What a nice comeback win. But before we get to that..

To be honest, I expected to lose this game. Going against Sabathia, whom we've never beaten, and our general malaise the last 10 games or so, I expected to get blown out.

The game started off a bit shaky. In the first, Drese gave up a couple of singles, and a run on a groundout, but didn't look all that great. Then after a very bizarre 10 MINUTE rain delay, the game got back underway. Not much happened until the top of the fourth. We had tied the game at that point on a Rod Barajas HR, but in the fourth, three singles with a double mixed in scored three runs to put us up 4-1. It was 5-1 after the next inning, but then the Indians started back. They matched our one in the fifth inning, and then Drese kind of fell off the wagon a bit in the sixth, giving up three runs to tie the game at five.

Drese's line wasn't terribly great, giving up 5ER in 6.1 innings. But his pitching wasn't the story of the game. It was our bullpen. In the 5.2 innings the pen pitched, our six relievers (Mahay, Powell, Shouse, Francisco, Ramirez, Cordero) gave up ONE HIT and no runs with 4BB & 3K. That's one HELL of a line. Especially when you put it against the Cleveland bullpen who has been dead last in just about every bullpen pitching category there is. Cleveland's pen was equally impressive, going 6 innings and 3 hits, but they made one mistake we didn't. They gave up a home run ball.

To the new star of the moment, Rod Barajas. This is another game he's won for us, and his signing is starting to look more and more like a brilliant move, and not just to bring in one of "Showalter's boys". Barajas had two home runs this game, including the game winner. He had a hand in the bases loaded bottom of the 11th play that saved the game - an attempted squeeze bunt with the bases loaded that Blalock/Barajas thwarted.

A nice game, even if I missed part of the 11th due to a power failure at my house from a huge thunderstorm over Garland. Great great win - and tomorrow's game starts at 11AM - what's with that?

Kenny Rogers is turning out to be a signing that seems well worth it. Through the first two months of the season, he's now 8-2 with a 3.10 ERA. He's walked 22 and struck out 41 in a total of 72.2 innings. The eight wins is something no other major league pitcher has done up to this point so far. He's been a rock for us so far this season, and if you project his numbers out over a whole season (assuming he keeps going at the rate he is now), he'll have a 24-6 record. Not bad for a 40 year old guy that most every Ranger fan online was screaming that we resigned in the first place.

He did get his 8th win yesterday, although he didn't really deserve it, walking 7 and giving up 6 hits in 5.1 innings. But he did pitch his way out of several jams, and that was nice to see. I'm sure it was nice to show the other pitchers on our staff, too.

Offensively, we're still in a slump - not hitting like we were in April. Brad Fullmer did have an impressive HR in the game, but we're going to need a lot more out of him if we're gonna click for the entire season.

Oh, and just WHAT is the attraction with William Hung? I just don't get it.

Damn.

This one was more annoying than the two shutouts, actually - as we had MANY MANY chances to win it, and we didn't take any of 'em.

Dickey still looks mediocre again - he's definitely fallen off his April horse. But it's way too early and panic and want him out of the rotation. This is what growing young talent is about. Look at the shellacking the Twins pitchers took for several YEARS before they finally got good. Needs a lot more time.

Rod Barajas was the offensive star of the game with a three run home run late to bring us to 5-4.

Just couldn't get the job done at all, when it was there to be done.

Wow. I mean I don't know what to say. It's not the 9 runs we gave up - I can look past that (ugly as a 9 spot is), but zero? Two nights in a row? Two nights in a row with a runner thrown out at the plate, too. I mean, yikes. This is just amazing.

Brett Carre: What the hell is going on?? Well, this is not good. I'm glad we are leaving Chicago. The good news is that the Angels got swept by Toronto, the bad news is we are heading their this weekend!

Well, what more can you say about this one? Esteban Loaiza shut us down - almost totally. We lost the game 4-0, and only had three hits the whole night. This was the first time we were shut out during the regular season in 2004.

Loaiza's line reads 8IP, 2H, 0R, 2BB, 9K. Not bad for a journeyman. He was on his shit last night, and I don't really know why he didn't come back out for the ninth.

Chicago reliever Takatsu (Mr. Zero) gave up a leadoff hit to Mike Young in the 9th, but that was it. We had nothing the whole game.

Speaking of nothing, Benoit again showed his maddening inconsistency. He gave up 4 runs on 6 hits in his 4 innings, and showed why we keep teetering on and off his bandwagon. On the other hand, Ron Mahay & Jay Powell pitched great - giving up donut in their 4 innings combined. Only a single hit given up by them and 4 punchouts.

Thursday is the rubber game - we'll see how that goes.

The Big Hurt was in at DH for the White Sox last night. However, it was the Rangers that were suffering the big hurt. We put two more guys on the DL before the game (Mench, Jordan), bringing the total occupants on that list to 9 (with 3 out for the year). We called up capable reinforcements in the names of Chad Allen & Gary Matthews Jr. I don't see either of them being a long term solution, but they probably will do for now. Wish Mench didn't get hurt, as he's been doing well this season.

Anyway, our best pitcher was on the mound again - Kenny Rogers. He got his 7th win already, and gave up just two runs over his 6 innings pitched. One of them was a solo jack to the Big Hurt, and there's no shame in that. Struck out 6, walked one. Had a good night. He also lowered his ERA to 3.34. If Kenny keeps going at this pace, he'll have a 20 win season. That's something he's never done before - his most wins in a season were 17, in his final season with the Rangers the first time (1995). In fact, Kenny already has more wins in 2004, then he had in the 2001 & 1997 seasons (not counting his seasons as a reliever in that).

The bullpen wasn't lights out, but was good enough (3IP, 5H, 2ER) to get Cordero his league leading 15th save of the season. Cordero is 15/15, and needs three more saves to set a new all time Ranger record for consecutive saves. He already holds the record for most saves without a blown save to start the season - the overall record is 17 held by John Wetteland. While Cordero is tied with Mariano Rivera for the league lead with 15 saves, Rivera has a blown save - Cordero doesn't. ;) In fact, the only other person with a decent amount of saves and no blown ones is Keith Foulke of the Red Sox, who is 9/9.

Offensively, We had 12 hits spread out over 8 players (only Matthews had an ofer). Soriano, Teixeira, Perry, & Allen all had two. Texiera & Herb Perry both had home runs, and Chad Allen and EY had doubles. Tex led the charge with 3 RBI's, and overall we had a pretty balanced attack last night. A win is a win, but it's nicer when everyone gets into the act as opposed to one or two guys bopping in all the runs.

We're back in sole possession of second place after the A's lost last night.

Brett Carre: A nice way to start a road trip as we beat the Sox 7-4 on Tuesday. Kenny pitched, well, like Kenny. It's not flashy but it gets the job done. After this long trip we will see if the Rangers are really "for real." Lets hope they can go .500 or better.

I will say this - Frank Francisco - HOLY CRAP! That was breathtaking to watch!

For the record, I did nothing during Arod's first at bat. Midly booed him afterwards - didn't seem worth it for me. I did go apeshit when he struck out to Francisco, though. ;)

Park actually looked good last night. He's definitely better than the last two years, but rather annoyingly continues to give up the mistake ball or two which kills him. If he can knock out the one or two big mistake pitches, he'd probably been 4-2 with a 3.2 ERA or something like that. He does lead our team in strikeouts, and with all the injuries we've had this year to our pitching staff, the possibility of dumping him, or bumping him to the bullpen has probably gone away. :(

Speaking of the bullpen, Carlos Almanzar looks like the best pickup we made this offseason again. He went two scoreless innings - in fact I think he went two perfect innings. What were the Reds thinking?

Blalock continues to slump, although his last five hits have all been home runs. In fact, the entire team is in a bit of a rut lately. Not good with the Yankees rising coming in this weekend. :(

Having said that, last night's loss was disappointing. We and RA Dickey were cruising through five innings up by a score of 5-0. Then we let it slip away with a couple of big home runs by Matt Stairs & Carlos Beltran. Mike Sweeney also added a solo shot, but the twin three run jacks did us in. We did get a solo home run by Herb Perry late, and actually had a shot at the end of the game, but it didn't work out. Brian Jordan finally got an RBI as a Ranger, although his average is a totally anemic .100 or so.

RA Dickey struggled - he did put up some goose eggs in the first several frames, but none of them were particularly easy ones to get. I still get that gut feeling that he'll pull it together. Perhaps he needs to wear the sleeveless uniform instead of the Kenny Rogers special he picked last night. ;)

Our game was a big contrast to the game of the night. Randy Johnson's perfect game in Atlanta. As great as a perfect game is, and there's no way one could get better (although striking out 27 guys might do it), one has to enjoy that it was against the Atlanta Braves. ;)

Brett Carre: Not a great way to start a home stand. We lost to the Royals 7-6 on Tuesday.

We had a 5-0 lead heading into the 5th but couldn't hold it. RA Dickey is coming back down to reality as he gave up two 3-run shots before leaving in the middle of the 6th.

We really need to win these next two games. Chan Ho needs to make a statement tonight. Will he???

Anyway, Ryan Drese was great, too. He went 6.2 innings, gave up 3 runs (one was an inherited runner that Mahay allowed to score). I thought he looked great if not awesome yesterday. I might be willing to change my tune on him totally if we get a few more outings out of him like that.

We return home Tuesday night to face the KC Royals who did to us the last couple of years what the Tigers are doing to us this year.

We avoid the first three game losing streak of the season with a 6-1 win over Detroit. Powered by three home runs by Soriano, Blalock, & Mike Young, we won easily. We had only 9 hits, with Young, Perry, & Laird getting two, and the other three were from Blalock, Soriano, & Teixeira. We didn't have a lot of bunched hits, but what we had was fairly efficient.

Nate Robertson looked good for Detroit, striking out 10 Rangers in 5.2 innings. Kenny Rogers only had two strikeouts, but he didn't walk anyone, either. Carlos Almanzar looked great in relief, as did Jay Powell, which is good, as Jeff Nelson is out till August now. :(

Brett Carre: The mini-skid is over after a 6-1 win over the Tigers on Saturday. We had the long ball theme today with home runs by Young, Blalock, and Soriano.

Kenny Rogers pitched well today and Almanzar pitched great in relief. Hank Blalock also had some great plays at 3rd base today. I know A-rod is going to be the starter at 3rd in the All-Star game, but if Hank doesn't make the team then that is just bull.

Another thing that is getting me pissed, everyone who is not a Ranger fan is saying that we are slowing down and we will be in last place soon. If we win tomorrow we will be 4-2 on this 6 game road trip. I can't remember a time that a team that went 4-2 on a road trip was slowing down.

Wow. Esteban Yan never pitched like that when he wore the Ranger uniform.

Wow. There was some serious wind blowing out to left, and helped at least one, probably two (but not Pudge's that was a true blast) of the home run balls out to left. Speaking of that, we probably would have had two ourselves in a ballpark that wasn't so cavernous.

Wow. What a play by Hank Blalock to almost throw out Pudge. While the umps reversed the call and got it right, Blalock made one HELL of a play. Would have been a season highlight reel one, that's for sure. EY had a great running leaping catch in center field, too.

Not wow. Benoit continues to be mediocre most of the time. Too bad Colby Lewis is out for the season now, it means Benoit will be in the rotation longer.

The final indignity of this is that the game ended with a top of the ninth where the Rangers went down on three pitches.

On the other side, Tino Martinez & Aubrey Huff had home runs. Huff almost had a second in the bottom of the ninth in a VERY scary save for Cordero. Of the 18 half innings, runs were scored in 8 of them, but all of those 8 were crooked numbers except one. With so many home runs, there obviously wasn't a ton of quality pitching. :) Chan Ho Park got the win, but he didn't really deserve it, as he couldn't keep a lead early. He got better as the game went along, but he's still far too unpredictable to rely on, I think.

Brett Carre: Another wild game on Wednesday. We had a 9-5 lead going into the bottom of the 9th. Jeff Nelson gets the first two out then walks two and get pulled. Coco comes in and gives up a rbi single bringing up the tying man in Huff. Huff just missed a homer by inches, but 2 runs scored to make it a 9-8 game. Coco struck out Lugo, who was the winning run to end the game. Release Jeff Nelson. It seems like every time he comes in he gives up a run or two.

Detroit hurler Nate Robertson looked great. I was expecting us to stomp on Detroit, and it didn't happen. I knew they were improved, but they have a much improved team - far better than I think anyone here in Dallas realized. Plus Pudge is hitting as well as he ever has. He got a nice ovation every time up to bat on Sunday's game.

We hit the road now, going to Tampa Bay and Detroit. We're not back home again until the 18th. This isn't a bad road trip, but the really heavy duty road trip from June 28th through July 11th, and then the All-Star game will probably kill us. If we are still in contention after THAT grueling road trip (the last home game is June 27th. The next one after that isn't until July 16th) then I might start to believe in playoffs. That schedule is death. Whoever allowed that to happen should be shot.

Brett Carre: Damn. That is the one word that comes to mind. Just like in the 1st game of this series, we had a lead in the late innings but couldn't hold it. A 5-3 loss puts us now at 19-12. That is great, but Anaheim won again today. We are now 2.5 games back. I know it is only May 9 and being down 2.5 games is nothing, but will these guys ever lose? Good news is they play the Yanks and Orioles all next week so we should be able to jump back ahead if we play good on the road. We head to Tampa and Detroit for 3 each. I hope we can manage to win at least 4 out of 6 on this trip. Anything less would be very disappointing. That is just what I think.

After the top of the fifth inning, when we had given up 8 runs, I did what I normally do when I'm disgusted watching a game. I gave up. But for me, that doesn't mean not paying attention anymore. I just stopped watching TV, and switched to listening to the radio, and went in the computer room to do some other things at the same time. However, after a few runs scored, I came back (I think after Perry's HR). There was a lot written about this game, and a lot better than I could (especially as it's 1:15AM and I'm tired).

My wife and I were at Ameriquest Field The Ballpark in Arlington a couple of years ago for that really wild 17-16 comeback win. I thought I had seen my best game as a Ranger fan then. I'd say this one topped it. I'm not gonna try and make it sound good with some cliched writing. Just read the stories and the game logs and all that below. I'll just leave my commentary with a few stats:

31 Runs
32 Hits
14 Pitchers (7 in the 5th inning)
21 Walks (15 by Tigers)
3 Home Runs
100 Pitches in the 5th Inning
1 Hour 8 minutes for 8th Inning
1 Pitching Coach ejected

No pitching. That's essentially what this one boiled down to. :) We tried to come back late, but couldn't pull it off.

Brett Carre: Things get back on track after a nice 6-1 win over the Rays last night. This game was typical Rangers ball for this year. Solid pitching, timely hitting, and a shot or two of Hank's Homies.

Ryan Drese continues to impress me. He got the win going 6.1 innings, no runs, 2 walks, and 4 k's. His ERA is on 2.25. This from a guy who couldn't get Rangers Captain out last year. As usual, the pen had a solid night. I have just one compliant and I think Joe already touched on this, why in the hell is Doug Brocail on the team? I don't understand. Let's watch for this now, if we stay in the race in July and August will Hicks and Hart start dealing prospects for a 3 month rental. Let's just keep an eye on that.

The bats awoke tonight with Mike Young being the star. Young went 4-4 with a homer, a triple and two singles. Can you say All-star?

Another series win, that brings us to 18-10, but the stupid rally monkeys won again, so we are still tied for first. Want some garlic fries??

We lost to the Devil Rays tonight by a score of 5-4. It was all longball, as the Rays had five solo shots. Three of them were off Chan Ho Park, including one in the first inning. One was off the eraser, and one was off Jeff Nelson, the game's loser. Only one I remember being tattooed - the rest (at least two, maybe three) were wind assisted, I thought. I don't think we were horrible, even considering the usual inconsistency of Chan Ho Park.

Offensively, no one really stood out, although Mark Teixeira jacked one onto Greene's Hill. Nothing seemed to click offensively. I saw the club in there that won the games, but they seemed flat tonight. Lots of popups, and lots of strikeouts (nine of them).

Thing is, I'm sure this club will be right back up on the horse again Wednesday night. And 17-10 is nothing to sneeze at, either. :)

Brett Carre: Ouch. This is a game that reminded me of last year.

Can't write a lot today, but TB had 5 solo homers, wow. Chan Ho did his normal thing, not great but not bad at all. Bullpen let us down last night.

The Halos won last night, so we are both 17-10. Did everyone see Kevin's Krew?? LOL

[ From Joe: I wanted to see the Mench Mambo! ]

Kenny Rogers pitched a four hit shutout, going all nine, and looking pretty good doing it. He fielded his position well, making several great plays. He acted well, like an Ace of a staff. It was quite nice to see, especially after RA's performance last night. If you put Dickey & Rogers together, their combined ERA is just slightly over 0.5. with 17.2 innings pitched. Absolutely stunning.

Offensively, we sent 11 men to the plate in the first inning, hitting three home runs, for a total of 8 runs. We picked up another later on a sac fly, but the game was really over in the first inning. The three home runs were hit by Mike Young, Alfonso Soriano, & David Dellucci. Dellucci has hit 5 in the last few days, which ties him for the club lead, surprisingly enough. It was just a total bludgeoning in the first inning, and I loved it. :)

My wife was elsewhere in the house when this was happening, so when she passed by after we'd scored the 8, but were still in the first, I paused the TiVo and said "look at this score" - she looked visually stunned at that. "EIGHT? IN THE FIRST INNING?" I thought yup - we've got this game won already. I shouldn't think that way, because it tends to come back and bite you in the ass, but dammit - I knew we had this one won in the first 30 minutes.

Brett Carre: Sorry everyone. Been busy. The good times keep rolling. 19-7!! The hitting was great and Kenny was outstanding. Hell yea!!!

Anyway, this game was absolutely awesome in just about every way. It was a crisp, fast moving, game. It bogged down a bit in the last inning and a half, but it was fast, with a time of 2:31. As it started, I wasn't sure what kind of pitching we'd get thrown against us. Tim Wakefield, with his knuckleball is either totally unhittable, or you get 8 runs off him in 2.2 innings. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground with him. Add to that the fact that he never really seems to pitch terribly well here, and I expected that we were going to win this game going in. However, we got unhittable Wakefield tonight. One other thing that was very cool was a ball hit by Boston's 3B Bill Mueller, robbing Kevin Mench. The ball hit him, then popped up in the air, and he caught it.

Fortunately, RA Dickey was more than up to the task of matching him - and bettering him. RA's line shows 8.2 innings, with one earned run. Actually he should have had a complete game shutout. He was a strike away from it, but appeared to have run out of gas at the end, with an over 130 pitch pitch count. Showalter came out after Dickey put two men on, as it became a save situation, according to some of the sillier rules on that thing (if the tying run is on the on deck circle, it becomes a save, even though the score is actually 4-0). But Dickey got a standing O after he left in the 8th, I assume because most figured he wouldn't be back out, as at the time, we were up 2-0. He got a second when Showalter took him out - deservedly so. In fact, I saw a few folks with Red Sox caps on applauding him - that was nice to see. Also nice to see were two fabulous catches by Brian Jordan in right - one an all out dive to his left, and the other a long running catch in front of the middle of the bullpen area in right center. Two really nice defensive plays by Jordan. He's not hitting at the moment, but he is playing D.

Cordero came on, and did get the save, but was a bit wild doing it. He walked two guys, although I felt that he got squeezed by home plate umpire Larry Poncino, and he should have gotten out of it with no walks. But he walked two, the second accounting for the only run the Red Sox got, a gift run. But Coco did get his third save in the span of about 28.5 hours. Not a bad weekend's work at all. He now has the most saves in the AL. Actually he did last night too, but I don't think anyone had two saves today to pass him. I'm not sure if he has the lead in the majors, too. Speaking of leads in the majors, the Rangers right now have the best record in all of the majors with a 16-9 record. That's stunning. Simply stunning.

One other thing that was really stunning during the game was the crowd chanting SWEEP. I generally go to about 20-25 games a season at the Ballpark. I've been doing that since 1997, my first year with season tickets. I have to say I've NEVER heard that happen before. Ever. Steve Busby, who is paid to attend games for the Rangers, said he'd never heard it. Neither had Showalter, although I've been going to Ranger games for more years than he had. Normally when you hear crowds chanting things, you hear a buildup of the sound. It would start on the other side of the stadium (unless it started near you), and work it's way over. For me, sitting in Sec 329 Row 14, it seemed like it was at full crescendo RIGHT away. It was absolutely amazing, and was something that seemed to stun Showalter & Steve Busby. And myself. I wish I could find a sound file of that. I'd love to have that clip that they played on Ranger Replay a few times with Nadel & Rojas talking about it. The best part of all of this? The absolute best part? We did this on national television. We swept the previously best record in the AL team Red Sox with an almost shutout on national TV. And the SWEEP thing made it out nationally, too. It was almost like a big ol' middle finger to the rest of baseball who gave us no chance at all this year.

UPDATE: I have an mp3 file of the Nadel/Cotroneo coverage during the broadcast of this. Turns out it was Hank's Homies who started it, and it took over the stadium. VERY cool.

Driving home from the Rangers game, my wife and I were listening to the Rangers Replay show like we always do. Steve Busby made a comment after a caller who said "I'm now on the bandwagon". Lynn said to me "You never got off the bandwagon". Yup. As I said above, I was running the site when we were in the playoffs in the late 90's. I'm still here - I've been doing this site through all the crappy years of the early 2000's. About time we start winning again - I thought I'd have to stop doing the site for them to win some more. ;) I told my wife that if we're still holding up this pace with not a lot of slippage by the end of June, I might start to allow myself the luxury of thinking of the playoffs. We're not there yet, and as much as I'd love that to happen, I think it's a bit too soon to start thinking that.

But damn - it's nice to see the Texas Rangers playing this way, and this well.

In the bottom of the first, Blalock answered back, taking Pedro deep over the scoreboard in left to tie it. However, in the third inning, the wheels fell off Pedro's little red wagon. He gave up a total of four runs that inning (and another in the fourth), In fact, I'll just put the events of the third here, - it's quite amazing when you realize it was against Pedro Martinez.

Bottom of 3rd
- Rangers third.
- Mench singled to left.
- Barajas singled to center, Mench to second.
- M.Young singled to center, Mench scored, Barajas to second.
- Blalock flied out to right fielder Kapler.
- Soriano doubled to left, Barajas scored, M.Young scored.
- Fullmer grounded out, shortstop Crespo to first baseman Ortiz, Soriano to third.
- Jordan infield single to third, Soriano scored.
- Dellucci walked, Jordan to second.
- Jordan stole third.
- Perry flied out to right fielder Kapler.

That was damn nice. There were a lot of Red Sox fans there, and one of them came up to me seeing me score the game on my Palm Pilot, and we talked about that. This was right as Pedro started giving up the four runs in the third, and he said that he didn't expect Pedro to last five innings, as Pedro can't pitch in the cold. And it was pretty nippy last night. I hadn't even considered that.

So we're up 6-2 after six innings, and all was going well. We tacked on two more in the bottom of the 8th, and it turns out we needed those, as the Sox came back with three in the top of the ninth after Almanzar got hit in the hand with a batted ball, and while he stayed in the game, he didn't do anything for the next two batters after that. He came in, and Powell pitched, allowed a hit and some runs to score, and the Cordero came on and gave up a run of his own (actually it was Almanzar's - Cordero & Powell's lines show 0 ER), but closed the game out to sweep the doubleheader.

We swept the Red Sox & Pedro - going into that game, the Red Sox had the best record in the majors. Not anymore. Our little Rangers did that. ;) We also now have a full one game lead in the AL West. It's been ages since I've talked about that, except for like the first two or 3 games of a season. It's nice to see.

Brett Carre: Well, I couldn't watch this game because for some odd reason the people at my cable company didn't put it on. However, I did hear parts on the radio and from what I heard it was a very entertaining game. We were down 2-1 when we broke through for 3 in the 7th off of the so called invincible Boston bullpen. Cordero came on in the 9th for his 8th save.

Wish I could have have seen it, but a nice win for the 1st place Texas Rangers.

Game 2 didn't come on here either. By, now I was extremely pissed, but it was nice to listen to the radio guys for a change. We roughed up Pedro. He have up 6 runs in only 4 innings pitched. Everyone got into the act offensively. Hank went deep in the 1st to tie that game at 1 at we never looked back.

The 9th was a but of the problem. We had a 8-2 lead going into the 9th. Almanzar started the 9th and gave up a couple of hits and a run. He was pulled for Jay Powell who walked a batter and then struck out a man. Powell then faced Johnny Damon who doubled to score two runs to make it a 8-5 game. Buck pulled Powell and gave the ball to Coco. Coco got the final two outs for his 2nd save of the day and 9th of the year.

We are getting a lot of national attention now. Let's keep it up!!

Anyway, Game 1. Going into tonight, I figured with Pedro pitching game 2, that we had better get this guy. And through 6 innings, I have to say it felt like Pedro was pitching. Through six, we managed one run, and only a couple of hits. We had next to nothing against this guy. Ryan Drese through 6 only gave up 2 runs. However, he walked 5 (struck out 6, though), and was generally wild. It's a testament to his improvement this year (plus our defense) that he gave up 5 walks, and 7 hits in 6 innings, and only two runs. He also stuck out Manny Ramirez three times, which was nice.

In the seventh, EY was hit (barely) by a pitch for a second time, which he wasn't thrilled with, but it seemed the catalyst for the inning. Dellucci (who is batting very well lately) singled, as did Laird. This was followed by a sac fly and a double, putting three runs on the board. All of those against a Boston bullpen that hadn't given up a run in something like 30+ innings.

We needed all of those, as Cordero had a shaky save in the ninth, but we did win the game. The sun even came out 3/4 of the way through the game, which was nice at the ballpark, as it started in a light rain/mist. By the time they started working on the field for the second game, there were blue skies.

Turns out the blue skies were an omen. ;)

Brett Carre: Well, I couldn't watch this game because for some odd reason the people at my cable company didn't put it on. However, I did hear parts on the radio and from what I heard it was a very entertaining game. We were down 2-1 when we broke through for 3 in the 7th off of the so called invincible Boston bullpen. Cordero came on in the 9th for his 8th save.

Wish I could have have seen it, but a nice win for the 1st place Texas Rangers.

Game 2 didn't come on here either. By, now I was extremely pissed, but it was nice to listen to the radio guys for a change. We roughed up Pedro. He have up 6 runs in only 4 innings pitched. Everyone got into the act offensively. Hank went deep in the 1st to tie that game at 1 at we never looked back.

The 9th was a but of the problem. We had a 8-2 lead going into the 9th. Almanzar started the 9th and gave up a couple of hits and a run. He was pulled for Jay Powell who walked a batter and then struck out a man. Powell then faced Johnny Damon who doubled to score two runs to make it a 8-5 game. Buck pulled Powell and gave the ball to Coco. Coco got the final two outs for his 2nd save of the day and 9th of the year.

We are getting a lot of national attention now. Let's keep it up!!

Well, there were some seriously badass storms in the area tonight, and after a three and a half hour delay at the start of the game it was finally called somewhere around 10:30PM. The game will be made up tomorrow as part of a Twi-Night Doubleheader.

And that's awesome for me, as I have a ticket for Saturday's game anyway, so I'll get two. And I just *LOVE* doubleheaders. I mean, big time I love doubleheaders. I'll be out there, and lovin' it!

Hell, if it were up to me, they'd still SCHEDULE doubleheaders (that hasn't been done in 20+ years or so). Hell, let's go back 100 years, and have a tripleheader.

I just hope one (or both) of the doubleheader games go extra innings!

However, after the flip flop in the middle innings, we came out of it down 7-6. The really ugly part was Jay Powell walking in a run. It wasn't so bad, as he came in with the bases loaded (or two on or something like that), so it wasn't totally his fault. So we're down 7-6, and then KC brings out Justin Huisman to pitch, and he was brilliant. I was convinced the game was lost.

However, we had some ninth inning heroics. Mike Young homered over the now deeper center field wall in KC to tie the game. Blalock then tripled to right center, and after Soriano K'ed, Brad Fullmer broke out of his slump with a two run home run to cap the comeback. Cordero closed it out for his seventh save in April, and we go back home to face the Red Sox still in first place. :)

Gotta love that.

Brett Carre: Unbelievable! That is all I can say about this one. Down 7-6 going to the 9th and we put up 3 to take a 9-7 lead. Mike Young led off the 9th with the game tying homer and then Fullmer blasted a two run shot to give us the lead for good. Coco came in to close it out for his 7th save of the year.

This game was crazy. A typical AL game with all kinds of runs, walks, and wild pitches. We were down 1-0 after Beltran hit a majestic shot into the fountains off Chan Ho. We came back with 3 in the 2nd capped off by a Rod Barajas two run homer. It went back and forth from that point on until the 9th.

Chan Ho looked very average at best. It's funny, it seems he has pitched better at night then in the day. His two best starts were at night, in Oakland and in Seattle. Both are pitchers parks so I don't know how much that weighs into it. 4 1/3 innings for Chan Ho, 6 runs, 4 earned, 2 walks, 4 K's. Nice job by the pen today. The pen is beginning to become a real strength. Especially the middle relief.

We are now at 13-9 and still in a first place tie with the halos. Now the Red Sox come to town for a 3 game set. Doesn't this sound funny? The Rangers and Red Sox will battle this weekend in a series featuring a couple of the top teams in the AL. Bring on the Sox!!

Kenny Rogers pitched a really great game. Except to Ken Harvey. Especially in the fifth inning. In something I can't remember the last time I saw, he hit a ball that was ruled a home run initially. Harvey circled the bases, and then the umpires got together and disallowed the home run. After arguing by both managers, Kenny Rogers served up a fat pitch, and Ken Harvey jacked that one into a bullpen - obviously fair. That event overshadowed pretty much everything else in the game, unfortunately.

We probably could have overcome it had we been able to get anyone in. We had 13 hits and one walk, for a total of 14 baserunners, but only three of them crossed home plate. Kevin Mench continued a torrid pace, going 3 for 4 today. Let's hope he keeps this up.

It also irked me that KC threw Jimmy Gobble against us. Not that I have anything against him - he seems nice enough, but he's the pitcher we would have gotten from KC last year if Juan Gonzalez had let us trade him there. Dammit. And of course, Juan was "sick" this series.

Also, Doug Brocail pitched today for us. Doug's been out of baseball for a couple of years with injury. His return is a nice story and all, but why are we wasting time with 37 year old reclamation projects now? Especially after the team has said they are building for the future with kids? I don't understand this move.

Brett Carre:The win streak ends at 4 as we lost 5-3 in KC. This game was extremely frustrating to watch. We left a total of 9 men on base and had a rough time hitting with men in scoring position. Herb Perry got things off to a good start with a RBI triple for a 1-0 lead, but that was the only lead we had tonight.

In a crazy sequence of events, Ken Harvey hit balls over the fence on back to back pitches. Harvey hit a ball over the fence that was ruled fair, but soon after was called foul after the umpires got together and called it foul. It did not matter as Harvey belted the very next pitch over the left field wall for a 3 run jack and that gave the Royals the lead for good at 4-1.

Kenny Rodgers pitched just ok. Not great but not terrible. That one pitch to Harvey was the one that proved to be the killer. KC's Jimmy Gobble gave up a bunch of hits, but he battled and held us to only 2 runs. We got the tying man up to the plate in the 9th, but Herb Perry couldn't come through.

Our record stands at 12-9. The best news tonight is that every team in the AL West lost. So, we are still in a 1st place tie with the Angles. Hope we can bounce back and put one in the Win column tomorrow.

We were cruising along nicely, in a rather fast paced game, too. RA Dickey had given up just one run through 6 innings. His pitch count was low, and thanks to three runs we got through the first 7, we were up 3-1, and generally I felt good, even though we left about 4 guys on base the previous two innings. It could have been more for us offensively. We definitely got burnt by the new deeper walls in KC, with three balls either being outs, or doubles off the wall/warning track, which would have been out at the old configuration.

However, in the bottom of the seventh, the wheels came off a bit, but not totally off. Dickey walked two, and gave way to Powell. Powell gave up a single that loaded the bases, and he walked in KC's second run. However, after that, we got a force out at the plate, and a strikeout to end that threat. Nothing more happened until the bottom of the ninth when Cordero proceeded to give up a hit and two walks to load the bases with no one out in the bottom of the ninth. We got another force out at the plate, and then a spectacular game ending DP by Soriano to Gonzalez, and I was off the couch with a fist pump. Great way to end the game; in fact Soriano had a hand in all three outs in the bottom of the ninth. That was definitely a Wetteland style save (as the late umpire Durwood Merrill used to say, Wetteland was a heart attack waiting to happen, the saves he got). But we got the win, and that's the most important thing. We're now 12-8 and still in first place.

Brian Jordan was an 0-fer coming off the DL, but that's OK - I don't expect guys coming off the DL to go 3 for 5 their first night back. Adrian Gonzalez is still here, although I'd expect he will go back to AAA once Texiera comes off the DL later this week.

And we finally won in KC, something we hadn't done since 2001, snapping a nine game losing streak there. Bring on the Yankees! Nah, just kidding about that part, but it does feel good to be playing this way.

Welcome Brett Carre. Brett will be doing commentaries for the game along with me. When I first started the site, Jim Meeks would do commentaries with me. That lasted for awhile, and then Jim fell off the face of the earth (whatever happened to him, anyway?). This weekend Brett came to me and asked if I wanted someone to do commentaries. I wasn't actively looking, but sure, I'll do that. So here's Brett..

Brett: First off, I would like to thank Joe for letting me write my comments along with his. Well, this game was one that we would not have pulled out in the past couple of years. This team is a totally different attitude then those teams.

Offensively, we left a lot of men on base. We managed to get 2 in the 3rd and in in the 7th. Hank had a great night with 3 hits and just missed another one on a great catch by Beltran.

R.A. pitched a hell of a game and is really starting to establish himself as a solid major league starter. R.A. went 6+ innings only giving up 2 runs. What a job by the pen getting out of jams tonight. Jay Powell came in and got a huge out when he got Sweeny to ground out. What can you say about Coco. He gets himself into a bases loaded 0 outs jam, then gets a force out at home, then gets Mendy Lopez to ground into a DP on a great play by Soriano.

All I can say is WOW!! and what a great W. Life is good!!

Although I thought Mench should have tried for the double. ;)

Oh, and here's a link to the last time the Rangers went back to back to back in HR's. I was doing this website when that happened.

1) Ranger pitching was spectacular. Joaquin Benoit pitched 6 innings, giving up ZERO runs on five hits, including one walk and 5 strikeouts. He had one or two places where he was in a jam, but got out of it very nicely. Jay Powell looked great, and while he technically got the win, it was deserved by Benoit. Jeff Nelson came in and pitched the ninth, and got his first ever save against the Mariners.

2) Freddy Garcia. This did not look like the hard throwing pitcher the Mariners usually trot out there wearing #34. This looked like the guy who normally wears #50 for the Mariners, Jamie Moyer. Garcia was soft tossing, throwing changeups, curves, and didn't really look like a power pitcher. It pretty much baffled the Rangers until the 8th.

3) Hank Blalock. I've always liked this guy, but this year he feels a lot like a team leader, which is good. He gave us the winning run in the 8th with a home run (where has that happened before, Mr. Gagne). Man, that HR felt sweet. Big time sweet.

As much as I loved the win, I felt bad for Freddy Garcia. He pitched awesome as well, and while his line shows three runs earned, two of them came on a double given up by Julio Mateo to Kevin Mench.

It was a glorious game to watch. Going in I felt all kinds of bad things. Benoit pitching. Threat of rain. But we got no rain, we got a great pitcher, and a shutout at the Ballpark! Oh, the Rangers have two shutouts this season. We're the only AL team to do that. ;)

Offensively, David Dellucci hit a third home run in as many at bats, going back to yesterday's game. Young, Blalock, & Soriano continued to tear it up at home, going 8 out of 15 with two doubles between the three of them, scoring 5 runs. The rest of the lineup chipped in with 7 more hits, including homers by Dellucci as was already said, plus Kevin Mench, who is starting to look more alive iwth the bat the last few games, which is good (and needed).

Thing is, as close and as wild as the game was, it didn't feel to me like we were going to lose. It always felt like we were way out in front, even though we only lost by two. Still, it's nice to be above .500, as well as having a better record than the Yankees. Hell, the TIGERS have a better record than the Yankees right now. :)

Offensively we had a couple of home runs, but not much else. David Dellucci led the charge in that department with the first two run home run for a Ranger this season, and the first two home run game of Dellucci's career (#28 & 29 of his career). The other home run we had was Laynce Nix back in the second, scoring EY as well - Dellucci's were both solo shots. Dellucci also made a great diving catch in the field - it was definitely his day today, that's for sure. Nix added on a third RBI in the 8th as well.

Hank Blalock made his first error of the season. I was listening on the radio, so I couldn't see it, but given the way he's played overall, one once in awhile isn't too bad - but it directly led to a run.

The game ends with the Rangers losing by a score of 7-5 - they clawed back a bit at the end, but Park's 6 runs were too much to overcome, as we got to Colon a little, but not much against the pen - what a surprise. We're now 8-8 going into the series with Seattle, ending the streak of all AL West to start the season. Never like a loss, but overall, I like where we are.

As I didn't start watching the game till the score was 3-1, I pretty much missed all the good stuff. However, I did get to see the back end of RA Dickey's pitching performance. Hopefully we can go forwards without seeing comments about him in the newspapers about the Rangers panicking. I mean, what's the point of "committing to youth", if you're not going to let them take some lumps? That's how the Twins got good, they let their pitchers get beat up for awhile until they learned. Anyway, RA was great, as was Jeff Nelson & Francisco Cordero behind him. All told, we gave up 6 hits, one run (all Dickey), as well as 9 strikeouts (7 by Dickey), and two walks (one by Dickey, one by Nelson). Was a great pitching performance, and it drove us to an over 500 record after 15 games (not something silly like 1-0 or 2-1).

Offensively we got a two run triple from Mike Young (who continues to show that I was right in drafting him in early rounds in my fantasy drafts this year). His night last night (2/4 with walk) gives him a batting average of 394. Not sure what his OBP is at the moment, but if you're batting 394, it's got to be in the neighborhood of 450 somewhere. That's absolutely amazing. Soriano doesn't seem to have the power numbers so far (only 1 HR and 8 RBI), but he is hitting (.328), plus he's way ahead of Arod (.203/2HR/4RBI), so that's gotta be fun. Also last night we got an RBI from Hank Blalock who seems to be hitting lefties just fine so far, and one from Adrian Gonzalez, his first as a major leaguer. Wish I would have seen the entire game, but from what I saw, it looked great!

A winning percentage of .533 on April 22nd is by no means the same as the same on August 29th, but you really have to feel good so far about this year's team. Provided it doesn't all end up on the DL. In doing today's update, I see that Herbert Perry might go on the DL. Assuming he does, that means that at the moment we'll have these players on the DL. Brian Shouse, Jeff Zimmerman, Brian Jordan, Mickey Callaway, Mark Teixeira, Colby Lewis, and then Herb Perry if he goes. There's also Rusty Greer, but he's not impacting this season (other than his $7 mil salary he's getting for being hurt). Anyway, I know it won't stay that way (Jordan probably will return this weekend, sending Nivar back to the minors), but it's still a disturbingly high number of players on the DL all at once - 4 of them pitchers (two of our 5 man roster, too). The hitting has been great overall (suck on that Arod), and the pitching has generally been quite good (I believe we're in the upper half of team ERA so far in the league). One has to like the season so far. Four straight years of last place makes me wait for the letdown - but it'd be nice if it didn't come. Now if Tom Hicks would do something cool like make Chuck Morgan or Tom Grieve or hell - bring Tom Schieffer back to be the new president of the team - someone who cares about baseball, and isn't interested in the "President's Job" (or at least someone who doesn't lie about answering all their emails on the stadium Jumbotron), I might be really happy. ;)

Colby Lewis wasn't exactly terrible, either. But he got burnt by walks. He's had a walk problem in all his games so far this year, but has managed to get around them so far. In fact, he had gotten out of his first "walk jam", but not the second. He walked two, and there was a bases clearing double which gave the Mariners their first three runs (the fourth was off reliever Ron Mahay). Other than the walks, I thought Lewis was good, if not great.

Rubber game is tomorrow afternoon with Ryan Drese pitching. That still scares me.

Offensively we kept up our pace, getting 5 runs in the first two innings, and a total of 11 hits over the nine innings total. We had two home runs, a couple of really impressive ones by Blalock & Nix. Blalock's reminded me of the kind that Raffy would get all the time in Safeco. Mike Young went 0-5, but just about everyone else had a good night. Seattle's pitching settled down after the first couple of innings, so the five in the first two frames were all we got.

We would have had three home runs, if it weren't for the fact that Seattle has a spectacular right fielder. Ichiro robbed Herbert Perry of an opposite field HR with a most spectacular save. It wasn't an out, as he brought the ball back, but it did save a HR. Ichiro later made a great diving catch in the same inning to keep Perry from scoring on someone else's hit. He showed last night that his defensive reputation is well deserved.

We're back over 500 at 6-5 against the Mariners who are now 2-8. I'd wager these records are what most people thought the teams would have for records. But in a different order. I'll take it.

All our batters had hits, and there were hits in every inning. A few of the highlights were Soriano going 3 for 4 with 2 rbi's and 2 runs scored. Mike Young had another home run and also went 3 for 5. There was offense all over the place again today, as we had 16 hits. Speaking of offense, we scored a total of 53 runs over the 7 games on the homestand. Our batting average at TBIA (going into today's game) was .362, which was tops in the league (it went up after today). Our overall batting average was .325 (going into today's game), and that went up, too. That leads the AL. We're doing good. I'll take 5-5 after the first 10.

We go on the road now to play 1-7 Seattle. Let's hope we can pick up a few there.

Jermaine Dye definitely seems to be back - he had two home runs last night, and that already gives him more than he had all of last season. I had to make a quick run of my fantasy baseball leagues and pick him up. He seems too hot to let sit on the unclaimed pile in my leagues. :)

I don't remember much about the game, as I fell asleep on the couch - I didn't get home till late, and I didn't start watching the game till like 10:45PM or something like that. Some of my scorecard data might not be totally accurate because of that. :)

It was nice to see Alfonso Soriano get his first home run as a Ranger though. Took awhile. Hopefully more will start to flow. In my PC computer game (MVP Baseball 2004), Soriano batted .340, had 53 home runs, and about 145 RBI's, and was MVP of the league. ;)

Second. I had a hell of a lot of fun at this game, it almost didn't matter what happened on the field - which is rare for me. It started in the fifth inning. A group of kids were next to me and it was the inning where the Rangers announce that if they score in that inning everyone gets a taco. So these kids next to me started whooping and hollering about "I want my Taco!", and every time someone came up, it became I want my Taco! Hank Blalock was the last guy to bat that inning, so he became "Mr. Taco". When he ran out on the field to play defense, the guys were going "Hey Blalock, I want my Taco!". It then quickly evolved into every musical queue had the word Taco shouted at maximum volume after it - and then we started picking on other players. When Oakland's Marco Scutaro came up, I screamed "It rhymes with Taco" after he was announced, which got a laugh from those guys. So basically from that point on all of us were going "Gimme a T.." you get the point. We even got a group of kids from the next section over doing a competing thing where they were yelling "Burrito". ;) So if you were at Tuesday night's game and heard a bunch of maniacs up in Section 330 screaming TACO all the time, I was part of that. If any of you guys who were doing it happen to read this (I'd be shocked, but still), I had a lot of fun last night guys.

As for the game, Callaway stunk up the joint, and had to be pulled. We gave up a few more, but in a surprising move were able to score against Barry Zito. We had 11 hits and 6 runs off of Zito, and we managed to claw our way back to a 10-9 score in the ninth inning. We even got the leadoff guy on in the bottom of the ninth and couldn't do anything about it. We lost, but it was a very entertaining game to watch (if a bit slow at 3:30). The Taco stuff aside, I really enjoyed myself at this one. I'll definitely take 4-4 against this division, considering I expected to be like 1-7 or 2-6 at this point.

And I sat through a 50 degree game in the rain to watch it too. My wife's a trooper, she was there with me through the rain, although this time I remembered to listen to her and we brought a couple of umbrellas. We needed them. In the fourth it started spitting. It was really slow, but a couple of innings later, it started picking up. It was cold. It was raining. It wasn't a great way to watch a baseball game, but I stayed through the entire game. My wife was with me, so I give her some major points for sticking with me, when I know she wanted to go home. She's great!

As for the game, we got from Chan Ho Park what I expected from Chan Ho Park. An inning of bad (actually there were two), and the rest was great. That seems to be the way Chan Ho goes, and it was about what I expected. Bartolo Colon gave up not a whole lot, and Chan Ho did, so we lost. Still, Chan Ho Park felt like he was a lot better than last year, and it was great.

There was a great handout yesterday, a Ballpark in Arlington replica. I like that a lot, but the main reason I was there was for the baseball game. Even with a loss. Even in the rain.

This game mirrored opening day in a lot of ways (although not the weather). We got out to a lead early, then blew it. We were up 4-0 after the first inning, and Kenny Rogers was perfect through three. But in the fourth, he had a meltdown. We gave up 6 runs in the fourth inning to go down 6-4. However, just like opening day, we came back immediately in the bottom of the fourth to retake the lead 7-6. We then extended it by another five over the next few innings. A nice way to bounce back from an ugly six spot on the other team's ledger.

Kenny Rogers was pretty good, save for the fourth inning. 6 earned runs in 6 innings didn't help his ERA (it's now 6.23), but he and we got the win, which is what really counts. We used four pitchers out of the pen (Powell, Mahay, Nelson, E Ramirez). Of the three innings they pitched total, they gave up just one hit, although it was dicey for a bit when Powell first came in. You can't really erase the fourth inning, so it kind of makes the pitching performance just "OK", otherwise it would have been just like the first four games that preceeded it. Let's hope Chan Ho Park wasn't watching during the fourth.

Offensively, we had another 18 hits, and this time everyone got in on the act. Three guys had three hits (Blalock, Fullmer, Dellucci). However, Blalock probably had the best day. In addition to his three hits (double, HR, single) he also had two walks, and had an OBP of 1.000 for five at bats. He also scored four times. Mike Young and Mark Teixeira also had home runs to lead the power. Of the nine guys we put out there yesterday, the lowest batting average for the season of any of them is .286 (highest is Nix with .500). Our offense and pitching looks pretty good so far. In fact, up until the fourth inning we were temporarily leading the AL in both pitching and hitting. And later on in the game, in stolen bases, too. :)

Let's hope all this goodness keeps up. I'm realistic - at some point we'll break down, but I'd love to see it keep going as long as it can.

I did get a bit of sunburn, though. Some sunburn is always an acceptable thing when it comes to opening day. Always. My wife is now shaking her head while reading this. OK, I'll talk about something my wife did like. There was an awful lot of tailgating going on at the Ballpark. Now I know tailgating is not a new thing at the Ballpark. I've seen it before. But I don't think I've ever actually seen THIS MUCH of it. There were tons of it in the parking lot I was in. I mean LOTS. WAY WAY more than I'd ever seen. Makes me wish I was in Milwaukee where that happens every game. ;)

The bad. Mike Young had two errors on two consecutive plays. It seemed quite out of character, and I wondered if it was just jitters. I would expect so, he's a much better player than that. Thing is, that's about all the bad there was in this game. It really was that great!

Defensively, Laynce Nix in center sparkled, making not one, but two fabulous running, leaping up against the wall catches. It was the kind of "Hello" defense that really gets a crowd (and hopefully team decision makers) pointing in the right direction towards Laynce. Alfonso Soriano didn't commit a fourth error in the first four games. Amazing!

Pitching wise, I thought RA Dickey was great. He gave up three runs, but it was in the inning that Young had the two errors, so even though Dickey gave up a home run (a TBIA wind helped HR, though), he had zero earned runs on his book. That's sweet to see. Another amazing thing is that over the 9 innings pitched yesterday (7 by Dickey, 1 each by Almanzar & Callaway), we gave up NO walks. None. That needs to hold up in a big way. This start makes four out of four for great starting pitching performances this season. I'm no fool, it won't last, but it's really REALLY damn nice to see that out of "Your Texas Rangers". It's almost shocking. Of the four games started this season, our starting staff has now given up 7 earned runs over 27 innings pitched. That's an ERA of 2.59 I believe. It's also an average of 6+ innings pitched per game. Absolutely amazing for the Texas Rangers.

Offensively, we had numbers all over the place. 12 runs, 18 hits. Everyone had at least one hit except for Brad Fullmer, who pulled an ofer. Fullmer did have a walk though. It could have been a lot worse too, as we had quite a few left on base. The box score below says 18, but I don't think that's right; we did have a lot though. The best day had to the The Hammer, who went 3 for 5, driving in 4, including a three run homer to cap the 5 spot we had in the third inning. Laynce Nix had a home run as well, which cleared the far seats in Section 51 of the ballpark. Mench also had a home run in the 8th inning over the left field scoreboard. Plenty of power, plenty of hits, and just a ton of great feeling. We beat up on nemesis Ramon Ortiz (9H, 7ER, 2.2 IP) as well as former Ranger Aaron Sele (8H, 5ER, 3.1IP).

There was no Arod. It was different, that's for sure, but yesterday's game certainly went a long way to wiping Arod from a lot of fans minds. It was a great game which showed a hell of a lot of promise and excitement for the future. And after four straight last place finishes, a bright future is the only thing that would be acceptable here, I think. Although the guy whose picture I saw in the DMN had a good stance on it. He was wearing his Ranger Arod jersey, with duct tape making a big black X on the back over his name/number. I wish I would have seen that guy in person.

One cool thing that wasn't totally game related. I met up with a few friends I knew from last season, and my wife ran into a co-worker. That was nice to have some folks recognize me. :) As for my seats, I started off in Section 327 Row 6. That's not my season ticket location this year, but that's where I was to start the game. However, after the fourth inning, my boss and the owner of my company called me on my cel to tell me to come down to my company's lawyers seats, so after the fourth, we headed downstairs, and sat in Sec 32 Row 5. That's the second row right behind the camera well and the Ranger dugout. Had some really wonderful seats for the back end of the game. :)

After thinking about it overnight, all I can think of to say about the game is damn - we had some great pitching, and against Barry Zito. Wow. So far the pitching has been great in the first three games - something I did NOT expect to happen at all. A nice opening series, even though we lost 2 of 3.

Unfortunately, Mark Mulder was the opposing pitcher. Mulder gave up even less. Mulder gave up 5 hits over his seven innings, and just one run.

We never got much going offensively, and the one run we did score was a small ball run - scoring on an a fielder's choice that never left the infield. I'll take this pitching performance from Chan Ho Park any day. It was quite amazing to watch.

It was Kenny Rogers vs Tim Hudson. I wasn't expecting greatness out of the game, but when we had a bunch of runners on early, I said we had better take advantage of it, as you don't get a ton of opportunities against Tim Hudson. We actually had quite a few baserunners, and while we scored four times this game, we left far too many men on. It's only the first game, so I won't freak out about it, but I don't like to start the season on a bad trend like that. Kenny Rogers pitched pretty decently. It wasn't the greatest I've seen him pitch, but he wasn't bad, going 7 innings, giving up three runs, qualifying for a quality start. He didn't seem terribly crisp, but he was effective when he had to be. A nice outing by him. His Oakland streak continues. :)

Offensively, we never seemed to be able to follow through on the opportunities presented to us. We left quite a few people on base. I'm not sure how many at the moment, but I think it was around 10 or 12 or so. The new guys were good. Fullmer was as advertised. Hard player, can whack the ball, will have his jersey open. :) Can't wait to see him face Ben Weber of the Angels. Alfonso Soriano did what he normally does, except strike out. He didn't do that. He went 1 for 3 with a walk and a hit batter, so he had a decent OBP. I did feel that Soriano got ripped on the error he was charged with. It should have been a it. Mark Teix

I also can't let this go without saying it's good that we locked up Mike Young through 2008. That's a great move on our part - I just wish it hadn't taken so long. I also think that after next year we need to do the same with Nix, provided he shows improvement. Along these lines, I did say something my wife laughed at when Soriano came up the first time. I said "You'd better do good so we can trade your ass in July." :)

We lost. Despite all that, I enjoyed watching the game. I just wish it wasn't so late when the games started.

It's too bad, as I'm sick this weekend with a fever, and was looking forward to the game on TV this afternoon. Oh well. The real deal starts Monday night. I miss first game of the season in our home park. I hope that comes back next year.

Chan Ho Park was just "OK". One not so great inning and a few decent ones combining for an "eh" outing. Possibly bad news about Park, though having to come out of the game. All the stories say he's fine, but with his history the last two years? Can't say it's not worrying at the least.

I'm up in the air about the reports in the paper today about Milton Bradley being a Ranger. On one hand, he's a tremendous baseball player. He's got skills like you'd die to get. However, he's one colossal ass. I'm really torn as to whether we want him or not. Plus I wonder how he'll get along with Buck Showalter, who is himself a hardass (but I like that in a manager).

Anyway, the game itself. I watched our team play pretty well. I thought Colby Lewis pitched better than his line indicated. He went 5 innings, giving up 8 hits, and three earned runs. Thing is, several of the hits he gave up were the cheap blooper kind. If those hadn't happened, he would ahve had a great line. He made me feel good. Out of the pen, Ryan Drese had one good inning, then had not much else, giving up four earned runs in 3 innings, although really in two, as his first inning he only needed something like 7 pitches. Carlos Almanzar looked smoking out of the pen in the 9th, I say he's in the pen to start the season, too.

Offensively, two of our three runs came from the longball. Mike Young had a solo home run, as did Hank Blalock. We were close on a few, and probably would have had more if Soriano wasn't thrown out at third stealing. Overall, was a really nice feeling to watch the Rangers on TV. As I write this, it's less than a week until the official start of the season, and 11 days till I'm back at the Ballpark for a game. :)

Offensively, we never really got a lot going. Our best performance was Herb Perry going 2 for 3. We only had four other hits the rest of the day, scattered amongst for other players. One of them was a home run by Jason Bourgeois.

Basically, not a very good game. :)

Joaquin Benoit continues to make a case for himself out of the bullpen. He did well there again, and I'm convinced he'll start there.

Offensively, it was the game of the longball. Of the seven runs scored total, 5 of them were the result of a home run. Three of ours were solo home runs, including the game winner by Laynce Nix. Nice to see the home runs come a bit more regularly.

Not a whole lot more to write about anyway, even if I did see a box score. We didn't have any offense the mattered (meaning runs), and our pitching was damn good, giving up just one run over 8 innings. I'll take that any day. We just need more runs. We could have borrowed two from the earlier game today, still won that, and won this game, too. ;)

We have now lost the spring series against the Brewers 4-0. We got swept by them this spring.

It was nice to hear Eric Nadel on the radio instead of the guys from mlb.com. :)

Ricardo Rodriguez had a great start, going 5 innings, giving up just one run on six hits. A pretty good outing. However, the next two pitchers really stunk up the joint. Frankie Francisco gave up 4 earned runs in 1/3 of an inning. But not as bad as Shouse. He gave up 2 earned runs having gotten no one out. :eek: The remainder of our pitching 3 2/3 innings spread over Williams, Almanzar, & Clontz had no runs allowed. But the stink there in the middle almost doomed us.

We did win the game, led by Soriano, who homered twice. Laynce Nix also had a good day, going 3 for 5 with 2 RBI's and 2 runs scored. EY also went 2 for 2, scoring twice. Rod Barajas was 2 for 5. Several others had good days. With 10 runs in and 12 hits, there's a few to go around. Nice offensive output, but we can't cover giving up 7 runs all the time.

Our offense was kind of scattered. We had three runs driven in by different people. Normally, spreading the wealth is a good thing, but when it's just three, it doesn't seem like a whole lot. Ramon Nivar, Chad Allen, & Manny Alexander had two hits each, the rest were all singles. None of those three I named are going to be on the roster April 5th, so the guys who did play that "mattered" for the opening day 25 didn't do much. Oh well.

Overall a loss is a loss, but it wasn't as bad as some of the 16-3 fiascos I've seen the club give up the last few years.

Offensively something happened that hadn't happened yet this spring. Home runs. We had four of them, which is the most we've had in a game so far. The HR probably won't be as prevalent as it used to be in our offense this year. Chicks aren't the only ones who dig long balls. Other highlights were Soriano's hitting streak getting to 13 games. Mike Young has a .382 on base percentage for the spring batting leadoff.

It was a see-saw game until we finally took the lead for good in the eighth with a solo shot by Jason Conti. Was kind of surprised that Cordero didn't come in for the save.

When it started, I thought we were going to get destroyed by another former Ranger pitcher. Jeff Fassero was starting this game for Colorado. In fact, there were several former Rangers in this game for Colorado. Fassero, Royce Clayton, & Todd Greene. The Rocks even have Benji Gil in their camp this year. :) Anyway, when we went behind, I wasn't thrilled - but the one run we gave up was the only one (although it was close a little later in the game).

It was a nice smooth game - no major outbursts by either side (like 7 runs in an inning or something like that). A friend of mine once said, I don't mind 15-1 games, but I prefer them to get the 15 2 runs here, three there, one that inning - not 13 in a bunch in one inning. I can see his feeling somewhat (while a 13 spot can be fun). It makes the game more even keel. That's what happened here. We scored our 6 in the middle three innings. We should have had more, as we lost a couple of home run balls to the wind.

Was a nice pitched game, although Jay Powell gave up 3 walks in less than two innings - never good.

Rusch gave up the only run of the day, as I said before. The other pitchers we used (Powell, Cordero, Shouse, Mahay), all gave up no runs, with no walks, and on a total of only two hits (both by Powell). Was an extremely well pitched game.

Offensively, Michael Young is the star of the game. He went 3 for 4 with 2 RBI's, and 2 runs scored. He also stole a base, too. In fact, we had four stolen bases yesterday (Young, E Young, Soriano, and Laird (!)). That's uncharacteristic of the Rangers. Although with most of our big boppers gone from the team now, that might be something we see more often. Speaking of Laird, he too had another great day, going 2 for 3, scoring twice. He keeps that up, and the current talk of trading Einar Diaz somewhere will probably be more than just talk.

One nice side point is that we did this all against Greg Maddux. All 6 runs came against a Hall of Fame pitcher. Gotta love that.

You always expect to give up a ton of runs in spring training. It's distressing when your opening day starter does that. Rogers gave up 7 runs (6 earned) on 10 hits over 3.1 innings. Not good. John Wasdin (is he still here?) gave up three more over his one inning of work. Three other pitchers pitched (none of which I expect to stick) - Williams, Almanzar, & Mabeus giving up one run amongst all three of 'em.

Offensively, we picked up a few runs, including some more home runs (which seem to be a missing thing so far this spring). Fullmer went 3 for 4 and Blalock went 2 for 4. However, the start of the day was Rod Barajas, who I might expect to make the club as a backup with Laird going to AAA for the season (unless of course Diaz is traded). Barajas went 3 for 4 with a HR, a triple, 4 RBI's, and 2 runs scored. Great day for him.

I think after this weekend, I'll be ready for the real thing. My season tickets arrived Monday, and I have my games planned out. I'm going to get to the "Oh come on, let's start it" feeling. We do however have two games on TV the final week of spring training, and 4 games on the radio next week, so things will pick up a bit.

The kind of game you never saw much of from Texas, let alone in spring, when offense is even higher than anywhere else. A rather well pitched game on both sides. Problem was that Seattle pitched just a little bit better. Pitching totally dominated this game, and there's not a whole lot else to add for this one. We've had a lot of good pitching the last few games, I hope it's not a spring training fluke.

With 20 hits, there's bound to be several folks with a few of 'em. Blalock went 4 for 4, Adrian Gonzalez went 3 for 6, Gerald Laird was 2 for 4, as was Mike Young. There's offense all over the place in this game, which was nice to see. The only problem was that the pitchers they did it against aren't likely to be there come April, so that tempers the output a bit.

Pitching wise, RA Dickey continues to show to me that he deserves a starting rotation spot, going 4 innings, giving up just 1 run (on a solo home run), and walking just one. Mickey Calloway pitched very well against his former club. He went 4 innings, giving up squat. No runs, no hits, and getting two K's. Erasmo Ramirez had a not particuarly great 9th inning, but between the three pitchers, we gave up 2 runs on 7 hits over 9 innings. A good day's work.

Glendon Rusch became the second Rangers pitcher to go four innings this spring, giving up just one run. Actually, our pitching was pretty good overall. The 5 guys we sent out there gave up just two runs over eight innings on 8 hits.

Soriano continued to have a great spring offensively, going 2 for 4, and driving in the only Ranger run. There were only three other hits scattered around the Ranger lineup for the rest of the game.

The Oakland pitching shut us down. I probably could have said just that, and it would have been enough. :)

Brian Jordan got to join the party in an A game, going 2 for 3 with an RBI. Hank Blalock was 2 for 4 with 2 RBI's. Laynce Nix was also 2 for 4. Pitching wise, the Rangers site and the Dallas Morning News all say the Rangers were happy with Chan Ho yesterday. I don't know if that was solely because he pitched "OK" after being hurt the day before, or if it was something I couldn't see in a box score. Either way, Park went four innings, giving up 3 runs. Although the stories said a couple of his innings were brilliant. We'll see.

Kenny Rogers was formally given the job of opening day pitcher in Oakland - I wonder who will pitch the home opener - might be Kenny again. Kenny went 3 innings, giving up just one run, and from what I can tell pitched pretty decently.

Brett Tomko, someone the Rangers were after, but I didn't want, gave up 8 hits over three innings. How he escaped with just one run is a bit beyond me, but I still feel relieved he signed elsewhere.

Sorry, no time for commentary on the game - too busy on Thursday.

Walks killed us this game. We gave up 6 of them, and I believe 4 of them scored. Can't win games giving away runs like that. Ryan Drese (who I'd prefer go away) and Brian Shouse stunk up the joint. Actually Drese wasn't TOO bad, but he did give up a couple. Shouse gave up 3 in .2 of an inning - not good. Colby Lewis gave up no earned runs in his two innings, and none were given up by Erasmo Ramirez & T Williams either.

I'm also noticing that we haven't had many longballs this spring. I know our offense is supposed to be different this year, but there's been only one or two, which is kind of surprising, given that we've played 7 games, and at least one B game that I'm aware of. Offensively today we only had four hits, we were pretty well shut down, with no player getting more than one hit.

Looking at the box score it doesn't too too bad, but it sounded sloppy on the webcast I listened to. Can't wait for the real thing.

I got to listen to this over the Internet today as the Padres were broadcasting this.

Soriano did not strike out - an accomplishment. He did go 2 for 3 along with a walk, and a couple of RBI's - he had a great game.

Overall we had a decent pitching performance. Callaway & Dickey each went three innings. Cordero, Nelson, & Almanzar also all pitched, and we gave up a total of 6 hits and just two runs over the 9 innings of pitching - something that I hope we see a lot more of this season.

In looking at the line score, this game didn't seem to be too bad, as we were winning at the time we had a major meltdown in the bottom of the 8th inning. We gave up a "crooked number" in the box score (7 runs), and that pretty much doomed us. To our credit, we tried to come back, picking up 2 in the top of the ninth, but it just wasn't enough. Most of that meltdown was by Jeff Zimmerman, who was credited with 7 earned runs with no outs recorded. Saw a quote by him that said his ERA looked like a fish. I didn't get that at first until I realized the infinity symbol is a sideways 8, and it does look like a fish, sorta. :) Three of the other runs were given up by Glendon Rusch, someone I don't expect to be here past Spring, so I don't much care about that. Zim, well this was his first game in two years or so, and while a 7 spot is really ugly, I'm not to worried about that either. The rest of our pitching was pretty good (5 pitchers combined for 9 hits over 5.1 innings, and 2 runs). A few too many hits, but not a lot of runs.

Mike Young, Kevin Mench, & Gerald Laird led the way offensively. Hell, even Ramon Nivar took a walk! We got a couple of home runs today, one by Mark Teixeira, and another by Kevin Mench (off of short lived former Ranger Dave Burba).

OK, after winning the first two, we lost the next three. (unless you count an unofficial B game, in which case, we're 2-4).

Still waiting a bit longer before I attempt to score any games - scoring spring training games this early in spring training is a nightmare. Although someone I met at the Ballpark last year gave me an idea. Score the game, but score it as if there were no substitutions in the game at all. I might just do that next weekend on paper, as my "Spring Training" for scoring. ;)

"Rangers Baseball is not on the air!" I hate spring training games that aren't on the radio. It sucks.

This game was pretty much David Dellucci. He went 3 for 4, driving in all three Ranger runs of the game. We had only two other hits at all in the game (Diaz, Patrick Boyd). We were mostly shut down by Milwaukee's pitching. Ours wasn't too bad, despite the score. Specifcally, I'm talking about Ricardo Rodriguez, who went three innings, giving up no runs and just one hit. In fact, all but one of the runs were given up by pitchers who won't be on the opening day roster anyway. John Wasdin gave up two, Frankie Francisco gave up two in 2/3 of an inning, and Nick Regilio got torched, giving up 3 runs and getting no outs. But R Rodriguez looked good, Juan Dominguez had a good line, and Brian Shouse gave up one run in one inning. Overall, by the pitchers that I expect to see in April, we didn't do too bad at all.

Not much else to add to this one, I think that paragraph covered it.

"Rangers Baseball is on the air!"

Those are the words I wait to hear from the moment the last game is over during the season till now. The year 2004 has finally gotten started with baseball coming out of the speaker in my radio. Today was a great day outside. Nice weather, was doing some yardwork, and was washing my truck while the Rangers game was on. It was glorious! Eric & Vince er, Victor Rojas were on my radio, and that alone would have made the day great, even if the weather was terrible, which it wasn't.

Anyway, a quick word about Victor. The fact that he's visited my site has no bearing on my statement. He seemed OK to me. Certainly competent, but it's damn near impossible to get a handle on the new guy after a single game. I will say this though - there was more than once where it sounded like Vince. I didn't think from listening to the first game that his voice was a 180 degree turn from what we had before. Also, I kept listening for Mike Cramer's "passion for the game". That's got absolutely zero to do with Victor, but that's all I could think of when I listened to the first game.. "Cramer said the new guy has to have a passion for the game".

About the game. Well, Chan Ho Park came out and pitched like Texas Chan Ho in the first inning, throwing a lot of pitches, giving up a run, and being somewhat ineffective. Then in innings two and three, he pitched lie L.A. Chan Ho. That was rather encouraging to see. Mike Bascik and Eric Sabel both got bombed, but Ryan Snare & Carlos Almanzar sounded good. Ron Mahay also pitched, and gave up a run.

"Leadfoot" Soriano gave up another error this game, his second in as many days. Is it too late to call the Mets back? :) However, the offensive start was Ramon Nivar, who went 3 for 4, scoring twice, and driving in one. He had the best numbers day offensively. Jason Tyner also went 2-3. We're getting a bunch of offense so far, what with 26 runs in the first three games (as many as Oakland had in ONE game today). I know it's spring, and I know things are in flux, and don't count, bla, bla, bla. Was nice to see us score some runs. Was not nice to see us give up more runs.

There goes the perfect record in the spring. ;)

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Two in a row! Here we come playoffs! ;)

Will have more to say once I see a box score. Tony Pena can't be happy about four errors by the Royals. I wonder if any of them were Garth Brooks. ;)

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Several months after Juan Gonzalez didn't help the Rangers by going to Kansas City, he finally does help the Rangers. Not quite as much, and it was only to the tune of three runs on a dropped ball error in the first inning, but hey - thanks Juan!

The box score showed something I didn't like - two innings no runs by Ryan Drese. I'd really rather he go. Powell stunk up the joint (what a shock), as did Doug Brocail, which is odd, as Brocail got the win in the game. The Eraser had a good frame, as did Edwin Moreno (who I don't know anything about). The box score looks like one of those that you look at it and go "Blech", but when you actually look at the numbers, it's not too bad.

Hank Blalock, Chad Allen, & Manny Alexander seemed to have the best offensive days, although with 10 hits and 10 runs, there's some more to be spread around. One home run, by Alexander, who is likely not to be with the club come April.

One stolen base, by Jason Tyner. Actually when Tyner was with Tampa, I rather liked him. He's not going to be the biggest of big name players, but there was just "something" I liked about him. Can't put it into words, really one of those gut things. If things develop where he's on the major league roster, I can't say I'll be disappointed. He's not a #1, but a pretty worthy backup. Probably better than Doug Glanville was for us last year, I'd wager.

Still, nice to see a win. Those are always good, no matter when during the season they come.

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Spring Training Baseball is back! Again, it's the kind of game where you have to sit on the MLB.com scoreboard and just hit refresh, because it's not on the radio, nor is it on an Internet broadcast, either. Still, it's nice to have games going again. It'll be better once I can hear them or see 'em. :)

Watching it on the scoreboard, I saw us give up a run in the top of the first right away, and that wasn't fun, then we went down 2-0, but took the lead in the bottom of the fifth with a 3 spot. We then followed it in the sixth with a four spot, and finishing up with 2 in the bottom of the eighth for a 9-5 win.

Soriano started off well, going 1-3 with a stolen base, and two double plays in the field. He did have a called third strike on him at one point, but from what I can read had a solid Ranger debut. Herbert Perry was scratched, which isn't a good sign, as reports going into the games say that he's still not ready to play third base, after all this time. Fresh off his new contract, Hank Blalock hit a solo home run in the fifth, and Mike Young had no problems in his first game at shortstop.

Oh, and singer Garth Brooks stuck out against us. :) I'm sure we'll see his strikeout on the local news tonight. :)

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