Recently in 2005 Game Recaps Category

It's always a sad day when the last game of the season arrives. There's no more (meaningful) baseball for another 5 months or so. So it was with both sadness and joy that I headed out to the Ballpark for the final game of the 2005 season. Sadness because it was the last game, we had a sub 500 record, and we would probably lose this one, too (we did).

Joy because I had won a contest a few days ago from the Rangers for a luxury box for the final game of the season. I rounded up some family and some friends, and hit the ballpark. Due to having a box, I wanted to be there when the gates opened, so I could get maximum use out of the time in the box. It was good because I had a 5 month old daughter and my mother in law was with us. Both do much better not being in the heat. So the suite AC was nice. In fact, whenever I'm in a suite (this was only my fourth game in one), I rarely pay much attention to the game. I spent most of my time talking to my guests. I did see however Mike Young's hit and removal from the game, which was a nice touch (screw you Yankees for whining about it). Was nice to see the ovation he got when Chuck Morgan announced that Young had the batting title. Congratulations to Mike Young for that. He became a father and was AL batting champ. Nice year for him, although I'm sure he's saddened by not being in the playoffs.
I will write about the season in general later on, but I wanted to say I had an awesome time at the game.

It's a sad thing when you can say that up until the sixth inning, the most interesting thing that happened at the game was when Rangers Captain visited your section.

Juan Dominguez didn't even get out of the first inning, giving up four runs on 6 hits with 1BB in 0.2IP. Not good. Set a tone for the night. As I said above, not much good happened until the sixth except for Rangers Captain showing up. In the sixth we had a quick strike score, when Soriano hit a three run home run (a no doubter, too). We did score one in the third, but I think I was paying attention to Captain at that time. We did make it interesting in the bottom of the ninth with two triples, but couldn't finish the job off, losing 7-6, guaranteeing a losing season. :(

Well, three games to go. I was at this one, as I tend to panic when there's single digit games left in the season, and I need to go to them. :)

RA Dickey was all over the place with his knuckleball, and didn't have any kind of control in the first inning, and it cost him. He gave up two runs in the first, and it could have been a boatload more. It was an ugly inning. He actually settled down until the fifth when it fell apart again, and he gave up three more runs. Edison Volquez, one of the relievers also tanked, giving up two runs in 0.2IP. Ramirez, Shouse, & Feldman also pitched, and were good. Problem is that John Lackey was a lot better. He only went 5 innings, but gave up no runs on three hits. Kelvim Escobar followed that with two shutout innings of his own. We only got a run against former Ranger Esteban Yan.

We only had 5 hits this game, and two of 'em were from Kevin Mench. Unfortunately, none of them were from Mike Young, so his hitting streak stopped at 25 games. He's almost assured of winning the batting title, unless he has a complete ofer the rest of the season, and Arod gets like 15 hits.

On the really good side, Alfonso Soriano stole second base and then third in the same inning, and became the only 30/30 guy in Ranger franchise history.

We lost. Kenny Rogers got a "quality start" in his final performance as a Ranger (barring some major change of Hart (har-har) somewhere). He went 6, giving up 4R (3ER) on 9H. He ended up losing the game, as Ryan Franklin who we usually destroy pitched well. That leaves Kenny with a record of 14-8. Probably not what Scott Bora$ wanted going into what is likely Kenny's final contract negotiation. At this point, I think the only way Kenny comes back is if Hart moves aside. Not that Hart would move aside for any player, but that's probably what will have to happen. I personally wouldn't mind Kenny coming back. As has been said many times in many places, he knows how to pitch in Arlington, and doesn't seem to mind being here (except in contract years).

Things aren't looking good for finishing with an over 500 record. That means we now have to sweep the Angels at home over the last three games, which will give us a record of 82-80. If we take two, we end up at 500. Offensively, only six hits. Four were by Dellucci & Tex. The others were Mike Young & Shrek. Not much happening offensively for us really. Except we got a home run from David Dellucci in this one. We now need 6 over the last 3 games to break the all time record. Fairly doable, but we have to be consistent about it, don't want to have to go into the last game needing five.

No time for an big update, but we're back to .500 again. We're falling behind in the race to get the home run title. We had better tee off at home in the last three games if we still want that. Mike Young's hitting streak is at 24 games now. I'm tired of the Phil Nevin watch.

Great article in the DMN about Mike Young being a new dad. As a new dad myself, I can relate.

No time for an big update, but it was nice to see some good pitching in this game. Was also really nice to see Mike Young take care of business and break his own hit record for the Rangers in his first two at bats. He's a virtual lock for the batting crown.

I started watching this game, but tuned out because I am not a fan of watching Rangers games with other broadcasters. I don't really have anything against Morgan & Miller, but they have to make it seem like the person watching the game has never seen the game. I don't need a basic education on the Rangers when I'm watching their games, I know what I'm watching already. Not only that, they do the interview the managers in the dugout stuff, which I could do without.

We took the rubber game of the Oakland series 6-2, behind a great performance by Juan Dominguez, who went 7.1IP, giving up just 2ER on 8 hits, and 0 BB. Benoit & Cordero finished up, giving up nothing, was a good pitching performance from the guys in the Texas uniforms. On the other side, Kirk Saarloos got knocked around a bit, giving up 5ER on 8H in 3.2IP. Not a great performance there at all.

Offensively, we were led by Mike Young (2-3), Jason Botts (3-4), and Rod Barajas (2-4, 3R HR). Back to two games under .500 with 6 games to go. We should do OK in Seattle, the final three games at home will be the tough ones.

Mike Young watch: 2-3, now batting .333 (.14 points ahead of Guerrero), 215 hits - needs two hits to break own franchise record for hits
Phil Nevin watch: Back to the bench after going 0-4 yesterday, got another $58k
HR watch: 1 (Barajas), Team total: 258. Needed to set record: 7. Games left: 6

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Another game I missed due to a screw-up on my part - I saw the score when it was over before I watched the game on the TiVo, so I didn't bother to go back and watch.

RA Dickey did well enough, going 5.2IP, giving up 2ER, while walking 5, hitting one guy.. OK, it wasn't stellar, but he pitched well enough for a win I thought. However, our bullpen which has been respectable if not great lately reverted to their earlier season form. Even Mark Teixeira talked about it, saying "all this year we've been finding ways to lose". He's right about that, our pen let this one away. We had gotten to Zito as well, forcing him to give up 5ER on 7H over his 6 innings. Not a shellacking, but definitely un Zito like. It was wasted.

Tex also went 2 for 4 with a double and a home run. Mike young went 3 for 5. That's 5 hits, we had a total of nine, so it wasn't a terribly balanced attack.

Mike Young watch: 3 for 5, average up to .332, hitting streak of 21 games
Phil Nevin watch: Off the bench, but went 0 for 4 for that 58 grand he earned in this game.
HR watch: 1 (Teixeira), Team total: 257. Needed to set record: 8. Games left: 7

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Kenny Rogers won in Oakland. What a shocker. He has a record of about 600-2 in Oakland's stadium. Formally, he went 6.1IP, giving up 1ER on 5H and 5BB. A high amount of walks, but it didn't affect his bottom line. And the run they did get was a solo home run in the first by Kotsay. Beyond that, the A's were pretty much kept under control.

Offensively, we had some hits (nine), but it felt like one of those games where we couldn't get it all going. The only person with more than one hit was Blalock (two). Everyone else who got one got that, one. One of them was Mike Young who advanced his hitting streak to 20 games with a home run. If Young runs the table for the rest of the season, he'll tie Gabe Kapler's club record of 28 a couple of years ago, which will be frustrating since he'll be on a roll, and the only thing that stops him will be the end of the schedule. Since we open at home next year, it will make for an interesting celebration of a new franchise record, what with it being the home opener - that's always an electric crowd anyway.

Since I covered Mike Young above, the Phil Nevin watch was another 58 grand spent on a right handed bench warmer.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Well, we got swept by the Angels. Before this series, we got back to 500, now we're three below again. I knew that with 12 games left and 6 against the Angels that it'd be hard to stay at 500. Right now there's 9 games left, so we'll have to go win 6 out of the 9 to end the year at 500. Not a great proposition, imo.

This was another game I missed most of due to night time daddy duties. From looking at hte box scores, Chris Young had an OK start, going 5 innings, giving up 3 runs on 3 hits and three walks. As many walks as hits generally isn't a good thing, and it probably cost him in the ER department. Volquez on the other hand came in and got bombed, giving up 4 hits and 3ER in 0.2IP. That was pretty much the deciding factor.

We had no home runs, so we had better start getting things in gear if we want the major league home run record, I think we need as many HRs as there are games left at this point. Given the way the season has gone, it would be nice to end up with that. Mike Young seems to have locked up the batting championship, barring a meltdown.

Mike Young watch: 2 for 3 with an RBI on a sac fly. Batting 330.
Phil Nevin watch: Still on bench. Collected another $58,596 warming the bench.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

There's not a whole lot to say about this game. The outcome is what I think most people expected. Bartolo Colon beat Juan Dominguez. But it took a 20 game winner and potential Cy Young candidate to beat Juan Dominguez. That's a good thing. Their pitching lines were:

Dominguez: 7IP, 6H, 2R (1ER), 2K, 2BB, 98NP
Colon: 7IP, 4H, 1R (0ER), 4K, 0BB, 85NP

If you like pitching, this was a game to watch. In fact, the run we got was a gift. Colon & the Angels surived three errors by third baseman Macier Izturis. We had a total of five hits in the entire game, most definitely scattered. We couldn't get anything going against Colon, which is no big surprise, we never seem to be able to do that.

Mike Young watch: 1 for 4 with 1 run scored. Hitting streak at 17 games.
Phil Nevin watch: $58,596 paid to Nevin to warm that bench. (That's taking his 2005 salary of $9,492,689, and dividing by 162).

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I didn't get to see any of this game. If you read my commentary for Saturday night's game, my wife and I were holed up at a motel a couple of miles from our house due to our AC being broken. We got a call in the middle of the morning Sunday on my cel phone from the AC repair guy who wasn't scheduled to come out until Monday morning. He says he can make it out. So I flew over to the house, and got the AC repaired. After we were all done with that, I went back to the motel, at this point we were about 30 minutes away from checkout time, and getting billed for the second day. We had a majorly huge scramble to get all of the stuff for us, the baby, and our two cats out of the motel and into the truck to get back home. We were fortunate that we got done in time. When we got home and finished unpacking, football was on, and I started watching the two games I had TiVoed on the Sunday Ticket package. As I pay a lot for that package, I feel compelled to watch them.

We're all back home and safe, and cool. Which is good given the current heat wave we're having here (to those reading outside the DFW area, it's about 10-15 degrees above normal for this time of year, we should be at 82-85, and it's around 95-97 now). I'm grateful for the guy who nice nice, friendly work for me on a Sunday morning no less. I didn't get taken too, which was always good. :)

Anyway, about halfway through I realized the Rangers game was on as well, but at this point the game was already over. We got a sweep which let me use my sweep graphic which I haven't done in awhile. The win also got us back to .500 which is a big goal. Now I wanted two games above .500 which seems reachable now. There's twelve games left in the season. 3 vs the A's, 3 vs the Mariners, and 6 vs the Angels. To finish 2 over .500 we'll have to go 7-5 over that span. Doable, but with 6 against the Angels, one never knows.

Mike Young watch: 1 for 4 with 2 runs scored. Hitting streak at 16 games.
Phil Nevin watch: Still on the bench, still whining about it.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

This game was one of my season ticket games. Unfortunately, I could not attend due to an emergency at home. It was cool in the morning, so I decided to save some electricity for a few hours and air out the house by turning off the AC. I did that. But once it got warm again, I turned the AC back on again, and it never came on! Well, the unit outside never came on, I should say. Due to that, it kept getting hotter and hotter in the house. My wife got done working at 4, and when she got home, I wanted to move her and the baby over to a motel about a mile and a half from our house. So we started doing that around the time the game was getting started. I came back home to bring a few loads of things we'd need for the baby, and then decided I was going to move myself and the cats over there, too, as the house was about 90 degrees inside.

Due all of this, I only got to hear the briefest of bits when I was going back and forth from home to the motel, although I did get to hear the winning run score. As much as the site and going to games is, taking care of my family is definitely the priority in life there. If I had been there, I'm sure I would have a lot to write about given the way the game finished, but my mind was elsewhere this night.

Mike Young watch: 2 for 5, with 1 RBI, and 1 game winning run scored. Hitting streak at 15.
Phil Nevin watch: Still on the bench, still whining about it.
Jason Botts watch: 3 for 4 with an RBI in the Nevin DH spot.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

This game was billed as a Ranger kid getting a look-see with a major league debut against the Mariners' Godlike phenom. The way it was in the press, we were going to get a perfect game thrown against us, and give up 13 runs or so. Hernandez went 3IP, and gave up 5ER on 8H, and 3BB. Not a good outing. Josh Rupe went 5IP, and gave up 2ER on 6H, and 1BB to get his first major league win in his first major league start. That was good. He also was the 30th different pitcher we've used this year, tying last year's record. We are still a few behind the number of starters we used last year, and I don't think we'll get to that one, though.

We added another home run (Barajas) to continue our assault on the team home run records this season. Offensively, we had a total of 9 hits, which was less than the Mariners had, but ours worked better, as we got the win.

Mike Young watch: 2 for 4, with a run scored.
Phil Nevin watch: Still on bench. Still whining about it.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

The Rangers won their second game in a row, which very recently is something unusual. Our streaks lately have been mostly in the backwards direction.

Kameron Loe started this game, and with the exception of one really unusual statistic, had a great line. 5.1IP, 2R (1ER). He did allow 6 hits, walked four, and committed three errors of his own, yet still left with the lead, and got the win. The errors is the unusual bit. It definitely was a tightrope walk, but the damage was minimal. Shouse, Benoit, & Wilson kept it scoreless until the ninth. Coco came in, and was 2005 Coco, not the really shutdown one from last year. He gave up another run. Stats say his season ERA is 3.75, but wow it feels like it's 6 or 7, he seems to give up a run most every time. Obviously that's not true, but that's what it feels like, anyway. The Mariners left 13 men on base for the game.

Offensively, we had no home runs, but had a couple of doubles (Mench, Blalock). This was another game where we didn't have a lot of offense. We had a total of five hits in the game. The aforementioned two doubles, plus three hits. One of the hits was by Michael Young who extended his hitting streak to 13 games. It also was his 200th hit of the season, which was a nice milestone to get at home. He continues to lead the batting race, but if you read this article on ESPN by Jayson Stark, the actual batting champion should be Placido Polanco of the Tigers. Read it. Folks who hate Bud Selig and the way Interleague play has "eroded" statistics will get a kick out of that.

Anyway, we got a win, and are back to three under .500. Josh Rupe makes his major league debut on Friday night. Odd that after going so long this season with the initial 5 man rotation we broke camp with that since June, we seem to be in a hurry to make up ground on the record 17 starters we used in 2004. I think (without looking it up), that Rupe will be #13 this year.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Usually on day games during the week, I don't get a good listen because I'm busy doing something at work. Well, on this one, I forgot the game was even on until it was two hours into the game. I turned it on, but only got to listen for about 5 minutes, and had to bail - too busy at work yesterday. I had the game on my TiVo at home, so when I got back home from my bowling league I turned it on and watched from the bottom of the 9th onwards. Kind of nice watching the end of a game knowing you're gonna win. :)

But we can thank David Dellucci here, for his pinch hit, two out, bottom of the ninth, two run, game tying home run. That's pretty much what this game was about for me, not having seen the vast majority of it.

Again, attendance was listed as 18,077 - it looked like half that from what I saw on TV.

We're back to four games under .500. There's 16 games left in the season, and to reach my goal of two games over .500, we'll have to go 12-4 over the remainder of the season, which is unlikely, as six of the 16 are against the Angels. Even ending at .500 will require 10-6. Ugh.

2004's Home Opener starting pitcher R.A. Dickey finally made his first appearance of the 2005 season, in game 145. Only this time he showed up with a different pitch, a knuckleball. Something the Rangers haven't really (seriously) had since Charlie Hough last was in a Ranger uniform in 1990. My wife and daughter were with me in this game. We had some comp tickets in Sec 229 Row 2. We almost got a foul ball, the closest one came was that it hit the red railing right in front of us, and the bounced back downstairs. The section two to our right got about half a dozen fouls over the night.

Aside from the first inning, Dickey was pretty good. His total line was 7IP, 5H, 3ER. Two of those runs and three of the hits were all in the first inning (along with a walk). So yeah, I'd say Dickey did pretty good. I'll write off the first inning to jitters, as it was the first time he'd pitched in the majors with a knuckleball. The problem this game had was that the Orioles kid was better. John Maine went 6.1IP, giving up just two hits - both solo home runs (Mench, Blalock). In fact, outside of those home runs, we had only two other hits total the whole night (double - Soriano, single - M Young). We were pretty inept at the plate.

Still, I had a great time at the game with my family. Took some pictures of that, they're online here if you want to see 'em.

The attendance was listed at 21,167. It looked like a lot less than that to me.

Another game I didn't watch much of. It was Monday Night Football. I was doing the same thing that I'm sure Kevin Mench would have been doing had the Rangers been off, watching the Eagles on Monday Night Football.

It was surprising to read in the local press that Rafael Palmeiro was "sent home" to rehab an injury, and then when his team gets here, he doesn't hang out with them. Seems odd - I'd be stunned if Raffy plays another game with Baltimore. Sosa wasn't there too, probably for mostly the same reason, they're doing better without them. Sosa & Raffy was one of the primary reasons I wanted to see the Orioles in town this year. As it stands, it's a couple of fading teams playing a mostly worthless game in mid September.

This game was mostly lost on a big two run error by Kevin Mench in right field. Edison Volquez went 4 innings, and gave up just 1 earned run (3 total, due to that error). But the real reason I suppose was Baltimore starter Daniel Cabrera, who only allowed 2 earned runs, and the 4 relievers who followed him gave up none. Mike Young kept his hitting streak going with another hit.

No home runs, though.

Didn't watch much of this game, as it was Week 1 in the NFL, and I was watching the Steelers / Titans game on NFL Sunday Ticket. Yeah, I'm a bigger baseball fan than a football fan, but there's something about first weekend that makes the games "unskippable" to me. Given there was early, late, and night games, I didn't TiVo the Rangers game, as I wouldn't have time to watch all of it.

Was nice to get a win, though - although we should have won the other two in this series, too. Kenny Rogers got the win, his first in awhile, going 6 innings, giving up 7 hits and 3 ER. John Wasdin tossed three scoreless innings behind Rogers for the save.

Mike Young went 2 for 4 with a double and an RBI. He continues to lead the AL (not sure about the NL too) in batting average, he's about 6 or 7 points above Arod and Johnny Damon with a couple of weeks to go. The other player we have in the lead or close to it is Tex who is close to the HR lead, and is leading in RBI's. Tex only had one hit tonight, but it was a three run home run. Mark DeRosa also had a home run again, showing some surprising consistency. I know bench player is always a role that's hard to fill, and there's lots of candidates - I wonder if he'll return next year. He's been really solid whenever he's been used.

This was one of the windier nights I've been to at the ballpark in quite a long time. And thanks to Mr Hicks' quest for more money, the A's won the game tonight. I speak of course of the jet stream created by the Gold Club behind home plate. It most DEFINITELY gave Dan Johnson a grand slam in the second inning. He hit a ball to right that was admittedly well hit, but was NOT a home run off the bat. Watching Mench glide backwards and keep going was an "uh-oh" moment. In fact, I said that as soon as he hit the ball, and I was right. Wind assisted grand slam. Where have you gone, Tom Schieffer?

Anyway, other than that grand slam ball that shouldn't have been, I thought Kameron Loe was good. If you take away that hit, his record would have been 6.2IP with 7H and 1ER, but that's not how it played out. He gave up 8 hits and 5 earned runs. I felt he got ripped off by the conditions. His apparent appendage reliever CJ Wilson came on and finished the game, with 2.1IP and no hits, no runs. But we couldn't get it done against their pen. Witasik, Rincon, & Street didn't give up any runs. Oakland starter Joe Blanton did give up 4 though.

Our home run barrage continues unabated. We had three (Young - 1st, Dellucci - 3rd, Teixeira - 6th). I forget what the number is at the moment, but we've set a new team record for "home" home runs. At the rate we're going, we will pass the all time major league record. Fat lot of good that does. But remember, chicks dig the longball, and they'll come to the park and spend money in the Gold Club, right?

My wife said the other day I seem more sarcastic than usual lately. I don't see it, do you? ;)

When the schedule was announced for this weekend's series, I was jazzed, as originally Barry Zito was to pitch on Saturday night against Kameron Loe, which was a game I had a ticket for, and wanted to see. However, Zito got switched to tonight's game. While Zito's numbers don't show dominance (4ER over 7IP), he looked good. His obscenely good curveball was in show tonight (8 strikeouts). Our only home run against Zito was by a guy whose play has changed my opinion on him, Mark DeRosa. In all, we only managed 5 hits off of Zito, but they were well placed, scoring 4 off of Mr. Teddy bear.

Juan Dominguez was not good. He only went 3.1IP, and gave up 7 hits, 8 runs (5ER), allowing three home runs. Erasmo Ramirez gave up the other run in his 2.2IP. Shouse & Karsay also pitched, not allowing anything.

We tried to make a charge late, scoring four runs in the bottom of the ninth, capped by a three run bomb by Mark Teixeira, but it wasn't enough, and our race towards 500 continues in the wrong direction. Three games under now.

This game happened on the 7th, I'm writing this in the 15th, I don't remember much about this game, that's a danger when you let updates slide too long. :)

I watched the first five innings of this game. Things were good. Michael Young got a home run (barely) in the first inning, and then David Dellucci smacked a towering grand slam in the second. Life was feeling good. Kenny Rogers, however, wasn't crisp, and let the Twins creep back into the game. He gave up two runs in the second, and two more in both the fourth and fifth. That tied the game at 6-6 in the fifth inning. It was at this point I got called away for Daddy duties.

When I came back to the game, I saw we were down 7-6, and then I got bummed, and decided to help out my wife with baby stuff, and washed bottles. During my washing of the bottles, I peeked at the game, and it was at the top of the 9th now, and we were up 10-7. That was a surprise, so I backed up on the TiVo and watched the ninth. All I could think of when Tex mashed the home run off the second level facade of the Metrodome was, "Well, the grand slam wasn't totally wasted". It's always annoying when you hit a grand slam and lose.

But David Dellucci was the star here. He went two for 5 with 5 RBI's - four of which came on the grand slam. Adrian Gonzalez chipped in with two doubles. The best moment was probably when Michael Young singled in the top of the ninth against Joe Nathan (whom we seem to have a lot of success against) to tie the game. It was a two out (and I think two strike as well) hit, something Young is adept at executing.

John Wasdin was great out of the pen, going 2.1 innings, giving up no runs and no hits. Coco did the same in the 9th for his 31st save, only he got two strikeouts as well.

One game away from being back at .500 - feels like forever since we've been there.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Wow. Kameron Loe talked himself into the rotation a few starts ago, and boy has he delivered. Today he got his third win in a row in the rotation. He went 8 innings, giving up no runs on 5 hits, and one walk (plus 1 strikeout). He looked good. I watched him in Frisco when he was there, and told my wife at the time "This guy is going to be good, pay attention". Granted, it's still early, but he definitely has delivered on that promise I made to my wife two seasons ago. He looked great. If he can keep it going like this, he should be part of our rotation for 2006. His first three starts at least have earned him a spot for the rest of this season at least. CJ Wilson also followed up his streak of good performances by pitching a scoreless ninth to back up Loe. CJ certainly has rebounded after some horrendous starts earlier in the year.

Carlos Silva was let down by his defense. He gave up 6 runs, but only one of them was earned, so he pitched pretty well, too. Francisco Liriano, the uber pitching prospect made his major league debut in the 9th, and was greeted very rudely by Gary Matthews Jr who absolutely destroyed the fifth pitch into the last row of seats in left field. Homerdome, indeed. :) Other than that he looked good, but hard to get a feel based on one inning.

Nice to see a win, and we're close again to my revised goal for the season. At the start of the season, it was at least get the Wild Card. At the all Star break it was finish at least two games over .500, or at worst 500. I think those are reachable goals, if we keep playing the way we've been doing this past week.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

The less said about this one, the better.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

No commentary on this one, other than to say no home runs for Rod Barajas this game. Juan Dominguez looked good, going 7.1IP, giving up just two hits and one run. He had four walks, which isn't good, but when the end result doesn't show that, it's OK - so long as it doesn't become a habit for him to walk 4 each time.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Rod Barajas was hot this game. He had two more home runs (that's 5 in the last 3 games), and 3 RBI's this game. Coco Cordero was not, blowing another save.

Chris Young looked good, even if his outing was short (5.1IP, 8H, 3R (1ER). Brocail & Cordero blew this game, forcing it into extra innings. We won on Barajas' second home run of the game in the 10th. John Wasdin nailed it down for the save. Shame about the blown save, as it would have given Scott Feldman his first major league win.

Again, nice to see a win, but it really feels like too little too late.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Another game where the bulk of our runs (4 out of 5) came in a clump. We put up a four spot on the board in the fourth inning. It was capped off by Rod Barajas' three run home run following an RBI double by Hank Blalock. Rod also followed up with another home run in the 7th, so Rod himself accounted for four of the five runs we had.

Kenny Rogers got his first win since the suspension, and he had to dance to get it, as he gave up 11 hits and one walk in his 7 innings pitched. He did only allow 4 runs (3ER). Karsay, Shouse, & Coco combined to throw two innings of shutout ball to seal the win. Coco got his 30th save, and Kenny his 12th win.

It's nice to see a win, even though it's just the Royals.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

This was actually a pretty well pitched game through the first 5 and a half innings. The Sox were up 2-1 at that point, and both El Duque & Kameron Loe were pitching well.

Loe had gone 6 innings, giving up two runs on four hits with 3K, and 1BB. A pretty good outing. El Duque was just a little bit better until the bottom fell out in the 6th inning for him. His line when he exited the game was 5IP, 6 hits, 6 earned runs, 1 walk, 6K. He also allowed three home runs. Two of them came in the 6th (Young, Soriano). The other was a leadoff HR to David Dellucci in the first inning. We did tack on three more runs in the bottom of the 8th, but the game was essentially over.

Scott Feldman made his major league debut in this game, pitching the ninth. He was perfect. Struck out two, got a flyball out. Nice start there.

It seems we are back on a bit of a roll in terms of winning. Too bad it's too late.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

We had nothing this game. In fact, we didn't score any runs since the fifth inning of the first game of the DH. So our bats went pretty quiet for the last 12 half innings they batted. Jermaine Dye did Mark Teixeira's thing in this game, having two home runs and 6 RBI's.

Brandon McCarthy looked pretty good. He went 7.2IP and gave up no runs on just two hits. He was spectacular. I think the only thing that kept him from a complete game was his pitch count, which was 117 when he was pulled. It was nice to see Ranger fans applauding him - I know there were Sox fans there, but there was more applause than that. Hell, I applauded him, although I know he couldn't see me. :)

Edison Volquez, a guy who seems to make Jamey Newberg go all gooey made his major league debut last night. I was at the park for the recent major league debuts and wins of Justin Duchscherer & Brian Sikorski. But my luck didn't extend to Volquez. He looked like a rookie making his debut. He seemed to be trying to overthrow a lot of his pitches. There were flashes of brilliance, and as rookie debuts go, I would have to say it went pretty well. Not great, but not awful, either. Volquez went 4.2IP, allowed 6 hits, 5ER, walked two, and struck out three. I would hope he'd get another look before we sent him back. There were moments where you could see the electric stuff, and why the team is high on him. But he is after all a kid making his major league debut. Have to factor that in there as well.

From the "Oh, shut up" department comes another whine from the White Sox. This time it was the usual suspect, Ozzie Guillen who complained about Jermaine Dye being hit. I know you need to stick up for your players and all that, but I don't think anyone thought that we were throwing at the White Sox batters (in particular Dye). There was nothing to be gained by it, and the guy throwing the pitch (Erasmo Ramirez) wasn't even touched up by Dye - it made no sense. So Ozzie Guillen can join Mark Buehrle in taking a sip from a big cup of "Shut the hell up". Obviously the lights weren't working.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

This game can be summed up with just a few short words. Crappy starting pitching. Mark Teixeira.

Neither starter could hold a lead - both teams scored in the first 5 half innings, and through the end of the fifth, only the bottom of the third and the top of the fourth went scoreless. Jon Garland went 4.1IP, and gave up 7 hits, 8 runs (5 earned), and 3 walks. Not a stellar performance. Coudln't have been the lights, as it was all daytime. Joaquin Benoit didn't fare much better. He was pulled after three innings, and during his time, he gave up 5ER on 9 hits in 3IP. Not good on either side.

However, pulling Benoit was a good move, as he was replaced by CJ Wilson, who seems to have figured it out the last few apperances, as he's been outstanding. He was really great in this game, too. He went 5 innings, giving up just two hits and one run. He looked sharp, threw strikes - was everything you want in a pitcher. He even got his first major league win in the game, which was nice.

Mark Teixeira was the star of this one. He went 3 for his first 3 at bats. Two home runs, a double, and six RBI's. Definitely lead our team in this one.

Funny thing is that after the fifth, we couldn't score anymore. That continued into game, two as well!

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

The kid vs. the Cy Young winner. That's how I started the report on Sunday's game. It's close to being the same for Monday's game, too. Juan Dominguez vs. Mark Buehrle was not something you expected a positive outing from, but that is definitely what we got. Here's another comparison of pitching lines:

Dominguez: 8IP, 7H, 2ER, 2BB, 3K
Buehrle: 7IP, 9H, 4ER, 1BB, 4K (3 unearned runs, too)

These lines just feel "backwards". But we've gotten good young starting pitching recently, and that's good. I think the goal now should be to end the season at .500.

We got to Mark Buehrle early, scoring two in the first, another in the second, and then three more in the fourth. We capped the scoring with an additional run in the fifth. Buehrle didn't seem sharp at all, and then came out in the press afterwards claiming the Rangers "cheat" at home. That seems like whining about losing to me. I'm not claiming any team is beyond cheating, but to claim the other team cheated right after you lost just strikes me as sour grapes. The White Sox didn't help themselves either by comitting four errors in the field, and allowing three unearned runs. That's probably where the difference in this game was.

Tex continues to be hot, going 3 for 4 with 2 RBI's in this game. One of the RBI's was his 100th, which makes him the fifth Ranger to have consecutive 100 RBI seasons. We had a couple more home runs this game, one was from Kevin Mench, and the other was one from Mark DeRosa which was most definitely wind assisted. DeRosa has done a nice job this past week. I'm not sure if he fits in for 2006, but for the remainder of this season anyway, he seems to be doing his job well.

Edison Volquez pitches today for the first time ever as a Ranger. I bet Jamey Newberg is more excited than he probably is letting on. :)

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

The kid vs. the Cy Young winner. Who is supposed to come out on top in these? Yup, the Cy Young guy. Chris Young vs. Johan Santana was a match up that worried me. I figured as soon as we gave up a run or two, that'd be it. Santana would shut us down and that would be the end of the game. Yeah, I know if you're reading this, you know how the game turns out, but look at these numbers: Which of these pitching lines is which?

Pitcher A: 7IP, 3H, 6K, 2BB, 0ER
Pitcher B: 7IP, 3H, 6K, 3BB, 1ER

They're awfully close, the major difference is the earned run figure. The second one was Johan Santana and the first was Chris Young. In his last 3 or 4 starts, Chris Young seems to have rediscovered himself. Which is good, as he's about to break the Rangers rookie record for wins, he needs just one more. The only run the Twins scored was against Erasmo Ramirez who was called up in favor of Justin Thompson yesterday. But Chris Young out dueling Johan Santana was something I think most Rangers fans were not expecting to happen, so it's particularly nice to see.

We won the game on a walk off hit by Blalock, after Jesse Crain got himself in too much trouble. The Twins were playing double play depth instead of in, which probably cost them the game based on the ball hit. Nice win, nice series, even the loss felt good, despite it being 7-2. With the exception of the 11th inning on Saturday, I felt we dominated the Twins.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

There's two things to talk about regarding this game. First, let's talk about the game itself. Was a match up of veterans. Kenny Rogers vs. Brad Radke. Brad Radke went 6 innings, giving up 5 hits and just one run. Kenny Rogers went 6 innings, give up 6 hits and NO runs. We were up 1 to nothing going into the seventh, when John Wasdin gave up a run to tie the game. But we picked up a run in the bottom of the 8th to go up 2-1. Then Cordero comes on and blows the save by giving up a run in the ninth, tying it at 2. I generally dislike extra innings from the aspect of we tend to lose them. I like them because we get more baseball, though. :)

We should have won the game in the bottom of the 9th though. Gary Matthews led off the bottom of the 9th with a double. Sandy Alomar then tried bunting, and failed. Twice. He popped up a bunt foul, and then tried a second time and bunt popped up to the Twins' first baseman. Ugh. Dellucci and Young couldn't get the job done either, that was pretty much it. We didn't do much of anything in the 10th and 11th either. But the Twins did. They pounded Brian Shouse & Steve Karsay for 5 runs in the top of the 11th capped off by Jacque Jones' home run. We lost 7-2 on a game we SHOULD have won. :( To make matters worse, we had a stupid out in the bottom of the 11th as Phil Nevin did get on, but was doubled off first to end the game after a Sandy Alomar hit ball ALMOST went out in left, but Nevin had run all the way around to third by that point, and was doubled off first. What a way to end it.

The other thing to talk about was the heat. I was at this game, and this is the kind of weather that demands that we move our Summer games back to 7:30 at night. Why exactly are we playing all these day games in the summer? I remember a quote in the press a year ago by Buck Showalter about us supposedly trying to take care of our natural environment in that regard, but come on - this is nuts. I walked through the concourse, and it was surprisingly cool (it usually isn't). But the seating bowl. Wow. That was damn hot. It was hovering around 100 all day and mostly brilliant sunshine. Way too damn hot. They announced the attendance as 25 thousand something. Yeah right. There was at most 10,000, and unless they were all the way in the few rows down the bottom, they were all up in the shade. I know I was. My regular season ticket was 328-5-1. No way, I was up in 328 Row 22 (three from top). The folks who sit across the aisle from me in my regular season tickets were there too. Got a good idea from the lady that sits there. She had a cooler full of ice, and towels. Throw some ice cubes in the towel, and use it to cool yourself during the game. That worked surprisingly well. I figured it would be a "OK, that's nice, but I'm still hot", but the ice and the shade kept me pretty cool. But I shouldn't have to do that, we shouldn't be playing in heat this bad.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Wow. This one was all about the pitching, which is something that is nice to see for next year, but would have liked to have seen more of it when it counted when we were still in the race. Kameron Loe got a start. According to the press, he'd been asking for a start opportunity. He'd been operating out of the pen his entire time in the majors. Generally when you ask for things, you had better deliver. Boy did he deliver. He went only five innings, but that was fine, given he hadn't been stretched out. The five he went was great. Only five hits, no walks, and five strikeouts; but NO RUNS given up. And then CJ Wilson came on, which wasn't a good sign given how much he'd been lit up this year. But he matched Loe, going 4 innings, gave up no walks, only ONE hit, and no runs. Wow. What a performance by both. Probably felt better for Wilson more so than Loe.

Offensively, we had three home runs, Mark DeRosa went 3 for 4, bla, bla, bla. This game was about pitching, and wow did we get some. The only downside is that it was against the Twins, who probably could be out hit by Rangers Captain at the moment, but a 6 hit shutout is something I'll take any day.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

This was another of those games I had to listen to at work, which means that I didn't get a good listen. Nice to see some good pitching from Benoit, though. Too bad it was wasted.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Due to parental duties, I only got to watch till the sixth inning (and due to work duties I can't write a bunch either). But what I saw was pretty great. Juan Dominguez looked sharp. He went six innings, giving up just one run on two hits. His walks were high though (five), but he k'ed 3. Overall a pretty good performance.

Ryan Franklin did not have a great performance (5IP, 10H, 6ER), but then we always seem to do well against him. Nice home run by Kevin Mench.

The video of Jim Knox dancing with a large dog was very disturbing.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I had tickets to this game, but I couldn't go - still haven't fully recovered from being sick, and I don't think a 100 plus degree day would be good for me, or for my 4 month old daughter, either. Stayed home and watched.

Chris Young continued his late season pickup and threw another good game, if a short one. He only went five innings, but gave up just a solo home run to Ichiro (no shame there) on the second pitch of the game. After that he settled down and allowed just three more hits over the rest of his time, and struck out six. Ichiro also did him in in the fifth too with an at bat that was about 15 or 16 pitches. Probably cost Chris coming back out for the sixth inning, as he topped out at 100 pitches thrown. Still, if you take away the 15 from Ichiro, that makes 85 which is still about 10 too many for the fifth inning. Our bullpen gave up 3 more runs, but we had enough tonight to hang on.

Mench homered in the fourth, Phil Nevin doubled in two guys in the 6th, and Tex had a solo home run in the 7th. The two home run balls were definitely wind assisted, as they both landed in the first row right over the fence. Neither looked like a home run ball off the bat.

I was kind of surprised that Jim Knox didn't turn up in right field to give a ball to the guy in the green shirt. If you watched the telecast, you know what I mean. They did however, talk to the loudmouth they showed around Section 226, though.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Nope, wasn't any better than the rest of the games on the road trip. We got swept for the third time this series, going 1-12 on the entire trip. In fact, for the entire month of August, we're 4-15. Way to go, guys. Not much else needs to be said, really.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

August 20, 2005 was my 40th birthday. And I spent it sick. Wasn't a fun day, spent most of it horizontal or at the porcelain altar. The Rangers didn't fare much better, getting shut down AGAIN for the 11th time in the 12 games of the road trip.

Scott Kazmir, who is a guy I'd love to have (as I'm sure the Mets would too ), shut down the Rangers going six innings, giving up just one run, four hits, and striking out ten. He looked pretty damn awesome. The two runs we got were in the traditional Rangers way, solo home runs (Matthews in 6th, Soriano in 9th). Outside of that, we had just four hits the rest of the game, pretty much were dominated. The game didn't feel as close as the 4-2 score indicates.

On our pitching side, Benoit seems to indicate he isn't cut out for starting. He went 5 innings, giving up 4 runs on six hits with 2 walks. Not godawful, but not great, either. Brocail, Shouse, & Loe kept the Rays off the board for the rest of the game, but it didn't do much good.

Sunday's game is the last one of the road trip. Probably won't be any better.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

You know, when we lose 2-1 games, I tend to think along the lines of "Well, we were beaten by a better performance". That is definitely true, but in this case, this 2-1 loss felt like 10-1 loss, given all the other losses surrounding it in the schedule.

Juan Dominguez threw a shutout through 5 innings, but gave up a couple of hits and a sac fly in the 6th, which gave the Rays their two runs. It was enough because we got one in the first, and that was it. Seth McClung was brilliant, scattering just 3 hits over his 7 innings of work. It's hard to beat that no matter who the team is.

Steve Karsay looked pretty good again in this game, going 2.2 IP and giving up donut, while striking out two. Given the state of our bullpen, he's probably a candidate for the pen next year, too.

A loss is a loss, and we've got too many of them to recover from now.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Ah well. That didn't last long. CJ Wilson ran out there and got murdered again. I know you need to run guys out there and let 'em take their lumps to grow homegrown pitchers. But boy is it ugly doing that, and it generally makes the natives restless, especially when you live in a sports town so hell bent on "Now now now".

Hank Blalock had another error today and went 1 for 3. He's been bumped down in the lineup, as he doesn't seem to be producing of late. All of our starters in this game got at least one hit, except for Adrian Gonzalez, who was called back up before this game (he played first, Tex DH'ed). We were led by David Dellucci (2-4, 2R) and Sandy Alomar (2-4). We had four doubles (DeRosa, Dellucci, Young, Alomar). But not enough for the win, because our pitching stunk up the joint again. Although if you took CJ Wilson out of the equation and put a zero in where he was, then we would have won.

Was really nice to see Justin Thompson back in the majors. A really nice story. I hope he sticks around and is effective for more than just the last 6 weeks of the season, as I would like to see all the work he took to get back here and all the loyalty shown on both his side and the Rangers side pay off for more than just six weeks of relief pitching.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Last week when I got mad and said I wasn't going to do any more updates until the Rangers won, I figured it would be two or three more games. Maybe four. NOT EIGHT! It appeared I flew my "I give up" banner at the right time, because right after that, the bottom fell out, and our season was over. There's been griping about management by our top players, both privately and publicly, apparently. That's not good. Michael Young made the quote "I want to play for a winner". Uh-oh. It's getting really ugly, folks.

However, last night the ship was righted, if at least for just one night. Chris Young pitched the way he is supposed to - 8 innings of 2 hit shutout ball. Cordero came in, and got a no doubt save. We got just enough offense for the win. It was a very crisply played game. Looked good. Outcome was good. Too bad we didn't have more of these.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I know I said a few days ago that I had given up on the season, and I haven't changed my mind on that.

But we've now lost 5 in a row to the Red Sox - Yankees, and I'm so miffed about it, I'm not updating again until they win.

That was so pathetic I don't want to even do updates for them.

Well, that was frustrating. After starting off the top of the first inning 3-0, it went downhill pretty quickly. Ricardo Rodriguez was out of the game in the first inning, which is never a good sign. Ricardo's ERA for just this game was 54.00 - ACK! I thought we had seen some stinking piles of pitching garbage before, but this one took the cake. In fact, due to the debacle that was last night's pitching, I'm ready to throw in the towel. As those who regularly read my site know, I've not been one to give up the season. Now I am. Given how horrendous our pitching situation has degenerated into, I see no hope, and even if we do make it in somehow, we'll get destroyed in the playoffs, so yeah - I've given up on post season for 2005. I could be surprised, and I'd be overjoyed if I was totally wrong, but I don't see any hope anymore for this year.

Offensively, we had hits all over the place. 16 of them, and every starter had at least one. Blalock had the most with three. Blalock also lead with 2 RBI. Also, in an interesting non Rangers kind of stat, we had no home runs - the first time that's happened in a game in awhile, and only like the third time all season, if I remember right.

On a fun note, it's always great to hear the clang of a ball hitting up against the Green Monster in Fenway. Is it me, or has that gotten louder lately? I wonder if someone has stuck a microphone out there to amplify the sound of when that happens. It's kind of like when a ball hits a foul pole, the sound we get on TV seems so much louder than you would think it should be.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Chris Young showed the form that was having folks talk about rookie of the year today. He's slid a bunch the last month or so, but today it was early season Chris Young again. He went 7 innings, giving up no runs on five hits. A masterful performance that was marred by the appearance of Kevin Gryboski in the 8th who gave up all three runs the Orioles scored. Doug Brocail finished things up with a scoreless ninth.

Once again, Sidney Ponson continues to show why the Rangers would have been absolutely insane to trade for him. He leaves the second game in a row against the Rangers with an injury, and to hear Tom Grieve talk about him, he's a fat slob who doesn't care about himself and his team by not being in baseball shape. He just strikes me as an major career threatening injury waiting to happen. In fact, it wasn't just Ponson, the Orioles sent out four pitchers today, and they all gave up runs. Ponson gave up 3 in 2.1IP, Williams gave up 1 in his 1.2IP, Bydak gave up 3 in his 2IP, and finally Jorge Julio gave up 2 in his 2IP. Not a good day for the Orioles in regards to pitching.

It was a good day for Ranger bats. We had 14 hits, and pushed across nine runs. The charge was lead by Tex, Gary Matthews, & Kevin Mench who all had home runs. Tex and Matthews also accounted for 2/3 of the runs themselves driving in 3 apiece. Mike Young continues to make one think that he might take a run at the batting championship as well as the hits lead, as he's batting .331 and went 3/4 last night, raising his total hits for the season to 151 with 52 more games to play. I say 200 is pretty much a lock unless he gets hurt.

We move on to Boston, which could be bad for us, as we tend to never do good in Fenway.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

This was the game that The Rangers retired Johnny Oates' number at. I'm going to avoid talking about that for now, as I'm planning on writing something larger about Oates in it's own article.

We got out early in this one. We put up a six spot in the second inning, and never looked back. Orioles starter Daniel Cabrera had some major control issues that led him to give up four walks in the second inning. The inning was capped off by a David Dellucci grand slam to left field to cap the scoring that inning. We also put up a four spot in the fourth behind two home runs and a fielding error (Roberts). So we're up 10-1 after four.

John Wasdin turned in a pretty good pitching performance this day. He went six innings, giving up 6 hits and two runs with 2 walks and 3 strikeouts. Overall a pretty decent pitching performance. Following him for 3 innings was Kameron Loe, giving up no runs, and earning a save - something I don't understand, the score was 10-1 when Loe came in, so I don't get that at all.

Still, nice to see a good pitching on a day where Ranger manager Johnny Oates was paid tribute to. Nice to have a good game to go with a good ceremony.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Mark Teixeira had a home run, his 29th of the season. So did Hank Blalock. So did Alfonso Soriano. So did Mark DeRosa for cryin out loud! All five of our runs came on the longball. Was a power night, although with a power night sometimes comes not much else. Which is the case, because outside of the home runs, we had just three other hits in the entire game. Most of this off of Bruce Chen, a journeyman who seems to have found some consistency with Baltimore, not unlike John Wasdin with us.

But that's not really the story of the game. Why did we lose this one? Oh yeah, C.J. Wilson really stunk up the joint. I mean, we've had some bad pitching this year, but wow, that was a steaming pile of... well, you know. His line was 2.2 innings pitched, 9 hits, 8 earned runs, two walks, no strikeouts. That's just positively atrocious. James Baldwin also gave up two runs, but over 4 plus innings, which isn't too awful. However, the surprise of the night was Steve Karsay, who went two innings, giving up nothing in his Ranger debut. That's something we need to see more of out of the pen.

We also put Mark Holtz & John Wetteland into the Rangers HOF this night. As per usual, local TV coverage totally botched it and didn't show us the ceremony. We saw pieces of it, but they cut away in the middle of people talking. Once again, local TV management needs to be shot, as I don't need to hear how Ford is the Best in Texas, and I don't need to hear how Dodge things I should be grabbing life by the horns. I should be watching the pre-game ceremony, you twits!

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I'm busy trying to wrap up a project today at work for the weekend, so I likely won't have time to update for the last two games in the Devil Rays series.

Was nice to see us find the can of whoopass and unleash it last night against the Rays. Too bad we couldn't actually do that regularly, we might have a shot at making a run at it, but this team is just too inconsistant for that.

Good to see Phil Nevin get in the groove last night going 3 for 4, scoring four times. He had a homer, a double, and a single. Good night for him. Hopefully the first couple of games were just jitters.

Baltimore comes in this weekend, minus Rafael "Giambi" Palmeiro. I'm also really annoyed that the Oates ceremony isn't on TV before the game (if you get the Newberg Report, I was the the reader he was talking about who told him it won't be on TV). Thanks Fox. By picking this game for national, we lose not only our own coverage guys, but we don't get the pre-game ceremony. That's doubly annoying as I can't go - even though I have a ticket, so I was hoping to see it.

I didn't have any time to write an update on this today, but even if I did, there wasn't much good to talk about. Blech.

Uh, hello? Do we have any pitching? I didn't think we'd fall apart this badly with Kenny out on suspension. Wow.

Chris Young seems to have hit a wall, and that's bad since there's two months left in the season. He went and gave up 7 earned runs on 8 hits (with one BB and 1 HR) in his 3.1 Innings pitched. He also had 82 pitches over this time frame. That's the mark of a really struggling pitcher. James Baldwin wasn't much better, giving up 2 ER on his 2.2IP. Brocail, Gryboski, & Loe weren't bad, but the first two did a bunch of damage.

Offensively, we tried to stay in the game. Was one of those "no pitching, score a bunch of runs back and forth" games. We pulled to within 9-8 after 6 innings, but that was it for scoring save for a lone run the Rays got in the top of the 9th. Carl Crawford was the start of this game - man can this guy fly. Was nuts watching him get triples to the left field corner.

Also, I see where there was a fireworks problem at the ballpark - a minor fire issue on the roof, and the Kids park in center field was evacuated. I wonder if that's what those two sets of fireworks that went off in center field was about during the game last night. When they showed the smoke, it seemed like a different kind of smoke than we normally see for fireworks (meaning the smoke is normally up in the air, not right off the roof like that shot was on TV).

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Saturday afternoons are my time to be with my daughter, as my wife works on Saturdays, so I don't always get time to pay attention to afternoon games on Saturday now. :) I did unfortunately get to see the collision that Gary Matthews had at first base. It looked pretty ugly. I really hope he's not down for any amount of time. Sunday's fine, but much past that and we'll have a problem. If that happens, we might have to bring up Botts to actually play something. :) Seriously, I hope Gary's OK, and he can continue, as he's had an incredible road trip (going 2-3 today before having to come out).

This was a pretty well pitched game. Jack Benoit went for us, and the Jays sent up Dustin McGowan, who was making his major league debut. The kid did pretty well, going 5 innings, giving up just one run on 2 hits. Not bad at all for a kid who had never pitched above AA. Jack Benoit did pretty much the same, going 5.2 IP, giving up 2 runs (1 earned). Gryboski, Shouse, Loe, & Cordero kept the Jays off the board, after they went up 2-0 in the first inning.

In fact, scoring was pretty sporadic. Jays scored twice in the bottom of the first, then we got one in the second, and two in the sixth. But I'm not going to complain. We've won 4 in a row now, and pulled back to 6.5 games of first place, and 4 games in the wild card, so we're kind of in it there.

I say "Pbbbbbbbt" to all of you who were proclaiming the season dead and gone a week ago. Sure, it could still be, but I refuse to believe it's over until it's over.

Finally, Phil Nevin didn't play this game, but he was in uniform in the dugout. Since he'll be here for a year and a half, let's hope he contributes more from his roster slot than the man we sent away for him did.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Since this game started at 6PM, I was driving home listening to the start of the game. When Eric Nadel said that Chan Ho Park was a last second scratch, I figured he was going back on the DL or something. It would be par for his tenure in Arlington. Then when I got home, and listened to the start of the TV coverage, they mentioned "possible transaction", and boy did my ears perk up. Never did I expect that the move we'd make at the trading deadline would be to move Park. I figured maybe Soriano, maybe Hidalgo. But not Park. I was so overwhelmed by that possible move, I wasn't paying much attention to the actual game, just thoughts of no more Park in my head. In fact, after it was announced that it was to the Padres for Phil Nevin, I really didn't concentrate very much on the game at all, I was more interested in finding out details on the Park trade.

However, we did get pretty decent pitching for Wasdin, who had to make a last second start. He went 4.2IP giving up just one run. Brocal, Gryboski, & Cordero went 4.1 IP between them giving up no runs on just 2 hits (both Gryboski).

Offensively, Gary Matthews continued is torrid pace by leading off the game with a home run. He didn't get anything else this evening, but his leadoff HR kind of set the tone. Mark DeRosa also had a decent night, singling in Mench, and scoring later on a Mike Young single. No one really dominated offensively, it was fairly spread out.

Nice to take the first game in the series, and even nicer we won't have to see Chan Ho Park in a Rangers uniform anymore.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

This game was almost a complete opposite of the game from the night before. This game was crisp (2:38 vs almost 6 hours with rain delay), it had good pitching. If you put the two teams together, it was a total of 18 innings, and only 3 earned runs were given up. That's an ERA of 1.5.

The scoring was easy - the Orioles scored their run on a single to left. Our two runs came on solo home runs in the 6th and 9th (Soriano & Dellucci respectively). There was a total of 17 hits between the two teams, which you would think would account for more than 3 runs, but there you go. :)

However, the best thing to come out of this game was the fact that Sidney Ponson got hurt. Not that I ever wish hurt on people, but from a baseball standpoint, that will prevent him from being traded here, I would think. His name had been talked about, but to be honest, I don't want Ponson in a Ranger uniform. I can't see where he's any better than what we have. He might be an innings eater, but I can't get excited about him, especially given the Chan Ho Park type awful contract he has. So thank you Sandy Alomar Jr for that.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I have to say, I gave up on this game twice. First time was in the first inning after we went down 4 to nothing. Chris Young seems to have hit a wall, and it showed in this game, he gave up a walk, a single, and two home runs in the first to be down 4, and then down 5 after a single came around to score in the second. I've dropped Chris Young from all my fantasy teams, he doesn't seem very solid at the moment, but neither do any of our pitchers (besides Rogers, but he's benched by Selig).

I tuned back in again after the third inning, just in time to see us bop three home runs to tie the game at 5-5. One of which was the first home run by Tex as a right hander. Looked an awful lot like the one he in the the All Star game, too. Then in the top of the fifth, we go up 6-5 on an Alfonso Soriano home run. Feeling good again. Not very confident, mind you, but good, as we'd taken the lead. Doug Brocail did a good job holding the O's down, as did Gryboski. It stayed that way for awhile, when in the bottom of the 8th the Orioles managed to push across a run against Brian Shouse to tie it. Still feeling good. Kam Loe came in and finished off Shouse's inning. So we're tied after 8. Soriano singles, then steals second and third. After Hidalgo walked, Mark DeRosa stepped up and delivered a hit to the left field wall, that got stuck underneath the padding which allowed Hidalgo to score from first. That put us up two. I was feeling really good.

Then in the bottom of the ninth, Matthews botched a play and allowed Sosa to reach, setting the stage for Javy Lopez to homer to left, tying the game. That's the second time I gave up on the game. I got so mad when he hit that HR that I turned off the TV. However, I couldn't stay away long, after a couple of minutes of Super Monkey Ball on my Xbox, I came back to the game, figuring I'd get mad again.

After an uneventful top of the 10th inning, Sammy Sosa reached again on a fielding error (this time DeRosa). Uh-oh. Getting ready to give up again, but I didn't. Javy Lopez just got a single this time, and after a couple of outs, Luis Matos singled to center. Gary Matthews picked up the ball and tossed it home on a laser to Rod Barajas. Sosa comes in to the plate spikes up, in a very Ty Cobb way of doing things. Sosa was tossed out at the plate, but immediately drew the wrath of Rod Barajas. Spikes up sliding is really uncool, and I'm not defending that, but from what I saw on the TV, it appeared Sosa was immediately sorry about it, and appeared to apologize right away. I later heard that he did, and also called the clubhouse to apologize after the game. Still, one has to wonder if the Ranger palyers won't knock Sosa on his ass with a pitch at some point in the future. Was a fabulous play to toss out Sosa and save the game.

That set the stage for the 11th, and an inning that would put the Rangers on top for good. Hidalgo walked, DeRosa singled, and then Matthews got the game winning home run to cap off a fabulous night for him. The error that allowed the O's to tie the game aside, Matthews made two spectacular plays in the outfield, one of which being the assist to throw out Sosa at the plate. He went 3-7 with 4 RBI's and two home runs plus a double. In fact we had 6 doubles in the game (Soriano, Hidalgo, Tex, Matthews, Mench, & DeRosa). DeRosa had a great game, too going 3 for 6 with 3 RBI's.

We had 20 hits and every starter had at least one. Every starter except Blalock scored at least once. Could have been a lot more as we left 14 men on base. But as bad as that sounds, the Orioles left 16 on base, with most of them coming in the last 6 innings.

Really really long game. The game itself ran 4 hours and 13 minutes, and to make matters worse, there an hour and 37 minute rain delay before it even got started. And it got started in the rain no less! It was nice to write about one of these fiasco games that we ended up winning. The win has us at 50-50 after the first 100 games. I think everyone expected a bit more out of this team at this point. It's definitely not over, but the storm clouds are floating around, a few buzzards are up there, let's hope our guys can keep all that at bay.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

What a waste.

Gary Matthews was 3 for 4 with a home run and a couple of doubles. Matthews also made a totally sparkling defensive catch in the outfield, crashing into the wall (it made the #1 Web Gem on Baseball Tonight). Dellucci, Mike Young, & Sandy Alomar

Kenny Rogers went 7 innings, gave up three earned runs. Made several good defensive plays in the field.

We lost the game on a home run given up by James Baldwin in the 8th inning.

What a waste.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Hey, we got a win! Now, one could make the point that it's against a team that also had a 5 game losing streak, but a win is a win, so I'll take it. Joaquin Benoit started this game, and I have to say having him in our rotation in 2005 doesn't thrill me. Been burnt over the several years of his attempts at figuring it out. He was lights out in relief, so I was hoping he'd translate again to the rotation. He's had two starts in 2005, and the first one was "OK". This one he only went 5 innings, but gave up no runs on 4 hits plus 4 walks. Not a great WHIP, but the bottom line was no runs, so that's good. Hopefully he can continue that, as we certainly need the rotation help.

We used four relievers in the game. Ron Mahay didn't fare too well, giving up the two runs the Orioles got in his 0.2 IP. The remaining three (Loe, Shouse, Cordero) gave up none in their combined 3.1IP.

We actually were outhit 8-6 in the game, but Alfonso Soriano wasn't fooled. He had three of the team's 6 hits, including a solo home run, and two of the RBI's. He scored two himself, so he definitely was the most important player this game.

Was kind of odd that with a game without a ton of scoring and hits that it took three hours and twenty one minutes to play. Nice move by Channel 27 putting it in a 2:45 slot in their programming block. I fail to understand why they continue to do that - how long have they carried Rangers games? Why on earth do they slot games in places they know it won't fit? Doesn't make any sense to me.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Not feeling good about the situation right now.

We stink. Not ready to give up, but we stink.

Ever get that sinking feeling? That's the way it feels right now. Sure, we could still turn it around, but the gut feeling says that we won't. I want to believe, but our pitching is a shambles, and about to get more interesting what with the Kenny Rogers scenario. The trading deadline is when you hear that music signaling the calvary coming in over the hill. Well, we heard something yesterday. Kevin Gryboski & James Baldwin? Ugh. Now Gryboski probably won't be all that bad, but Baldwin strikes me as Pedro Astacio II. I can't see us making a serious run on someone like AJ Burnett or Jason Schmidt, so we're probably stuck plodding along like we've been doing this season. I'm not one of these fans that wants to "blow it up" or wants to insult management, calling them names. Those kind of fans would call in to the now extinct post game show on KRLD and (rightfully so) get insulted by Steve Busby. But it is difficult when you can't really see any out for this season. I wonder how those 3 fans in Montreal dealt with it for so many years, or the handful of hardcores in Tampa Bay deal with it.

The actual game as such was a real annoying loss - we had many men left on base, and we couldn't get the job done. Simple as that.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Jack Benoit started off this game in unbelievably spectacular fashion. He struck out the first four batters of the game. It was electric to watch! He then went and gave up back to back home runs to Jason Giambi & Jorge Posada. But even after that, I felt good. Benoit was pretty decent tonight. Through the first four. Then came the fifth, and when rookie Robinson Cano hit a three run home run, I felt like that was it. The ship had sailed. And sail it did. It also left behind three more home runs, for a total of 6 by the Yankees.

That's pretty much the story of this game. Home runs all over the place.

It was a depressing thought, the end of this game. Because it felt like we weren't in it, even given the decent pitching we got the first few innings. I thought we'd beat up on a journeyman pitcher for the Yankees, and we didn't. Starting to feel bad about the overall direction of the team this season. I never believe it's OVER until there's more concrete proof of it. There are still two months left, and we could pull a rabbit out of our hat. But with Kenny being out for awhile, coupled with the state of what's left behind him, I can't say I have a lot of confidence.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I don't have much time to write about this. But to be honest, what needs to be said beyond this?

Chan Ho Park was dominating. Mike Mussina was great. Hank Blalock delivered a winning blow in the 8th, and CoCo had a "2005 Save".

Nice to knock the Yankees out of first place after we let 'em get there the night before. :)

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I was at this game. Going there I thought it was going to be bad. Yankee games are always bad because of the jackass contingent of Yankee fans that always turn up. To that, I did get some amusement out of saying "Non All Star Derek Jeter" (thanks for that Tom!). But the weather ended up not being bad at all, in fact there was a nice breeze going, which was a surprise for mid July. I even wasn't irritated by the Yankee fans cheering for their people - but I did get a chuckle out of the extra emphasis that Chuck Morgan put on the announcement of "don't be an idiot in the stands" (my words). That announcement only seems to be used when Yankee fans are in the house.

The game itself was surprisingly good, even if there wasn't a lot of (good) pitching on either side. Let's face it, with a game that had a total of 338 pitches and 11 pitchers, you know it's not going to be great statswise. But it was one of those games that went back and forth and back and forth. I don't know exactly how many times the lead changed hands, but it was a couple.

I tend to like games that go back and forth like that. I detest games when we get behind 7-0 right away. Even if we come back from a deficit like that, I'd much rather the game be close all the way, even if we lose.

This was game two where Jason Botts rotts on the bench. I wish we had a formal position for him to come up to.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

This game was almost exactly like last night's game. Except we managed to get a couple of runs late. But Barry Zito did exactly what was done to us the night before. Shutout through 7+ innings. Was painful to watch, being so offensively inept. I don't know how Mariner fans put up with it. .

Anyway, John Wasdin now has two outings in a row where he pitched like the journeyman he was before the start of this season. Not sure what to believe with him at the moment, although there's more evidence of the crappy John Wasdin then the good John Wasdin.

Kind of sad that we're having to rely on him, though.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Well, there's little to say about this one other than Rich Harden was damn near perfect. Once he got into the 8th, I actually was rooting against the Rangers, I wanted him to get it. :) Park wasn't godawful, but he isn't pitching like the guy we need him to be in the second half. What a shock.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

This was the (what appears to be now annual) Jamey Newberg game. This is where folks who get Jamey Newberg's newsletter all gather together and attend a game. Last year there was a bunch of is crammed into the biggest suite they have out in left field above the bell. This year there was something like 200 of us, and we were spread out over ten suites which seemed to be above Sections 206-216. As with last year, even though I scored the game, my heart wasn't into it, as folks were chatting about the Rangers, the Futures game on TV, and other things, so I'm not writing much about the game, except this. Nice to get a sweep and go into the break only 5 down. I'd say most of us would feel pretty good about that.

The get together was nice, as I got to talk to some people I didn't know, some I did. A really nice mix. This was Rusty Greer Day where the team honored Rusty, showed a bunch of highlights, had some former players there, etc. They gave Rusty some gifts, and basically was nice to see him back out on the field again. Hopefully gets more involved with the team soon. As a father, I understand the desire to want to be with your kids very well, though.

There was a lot going on, as it was also the toy drive game, and those who brought at least one toy got put into a raffle for some door prizes. I won one, I got an autographed Drew Meyer ball - very nice. Thanks Jamey!

Before the Rusty Greer ceremony, we were all in the auditorium that's behind the the museum. We had several speakers, one being Will Carroll (always a good chat), Asst GM Jon Daniels, as well as John Wetteland, and finally Jim Sundberg. Was nice of all those guys to come talk to us fans, so it was all appreciated.

Anyway, here's some pictures of the proceedings. During the auditorium sessions, I had some issues with red eye. I tried to fix it, and in a lot of cases I did, but unfortunately I couldn't repair Jon Daniels' pictures. I posted one of him. It's not great, but the others I took were even worse.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I probably wasn't the only one watching this game thinking Kenny was nervous in the first inning. He gave up a double, a single, and a home run, and we were down 3-0 after just one out into the game. Quite honestly, I expected more boos out of the crowd. I think it would have happened if Kenny had not apologized a couple of days ago, but I'm tired of talking about that situation. But after that, Kenny settled down nicely, as those were the only runs he gave up. Kenny wasn't totally sharp tonight, he did give up 8 hits (no walks), but pitched well enough to earn his 10th win of the season.

Offensively, we exploded for seven runs in the third inning on a barrage of hits (I think 8 in a row, three of which were home runs) after there were two outs in the third. Gary Matthews got it going with a home run to left that TV quite clearly showed was foul, but was ruled a home run - even after the umps got together and discussed it. If that was ruled foul, and Gary was out after that, we wouldn't have gotten any of those 7 runs. So thank you Blue. We tacked on two more in the fourth, and three more in the sixth to go up 12-3. I was feeling quite comfortable. Kenny was rolling. Mark Teixeira had two home runs, 6 RBI, and 4 hits overall. Things were good.

Until our bullpen decided to roll over and die in the 9th. Kameron Loe was good in the 8th, but in the 9th, Juan Dominguez & Doug Brocail came on. Between the two of them, they faced 7 batters, and got no one out. We gave up a 7 spot to match the one we ourselves got earlier in the game. We managed to hang on, mostly because Francisco Cordero had to come on after our 9th inning debacle allowed it to become a save situation again.

We got the win, but it shouldn't have been anywhere near as close as it was. The Angels lost again too, so we're back up to 6 games down. If we can sweep tomorrow, we could go into the break 5 games down, which I think is better than most of us anticipated after the first two games of the Anaheim series here two weeks ago.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I think like a lot of Ranger fans, I got disgusted after the second inning. John Wasdin pitched like the journeyman pitcher he was before he appears to have "found it" this year. He gave up 6 runs in the second inning, to put us in the hole against Cy Young candidate Roy Halladay. If you were someone who tuned the game out after that, then I would agree with you, as I've been known to tune out in those circumstances. However, this game I stayed with it, and I was glad I did. We were only down 6-2 after the second inning, and we picked up another run in the third, and two more in the fourth.

However, the third was the moment of change for the game. Kevin Mench nailed Roy Halladay in the leg with a batted ball that really looked like a big ol' ouch. Halladay had to come out of the game, and it was mentally I think the moment that the game turned. Halladay was out, and I think a sense of "We can come back now" was what most were feeling. But we didn't take adavantage of it much, as the game remained 6-5 through till the bottom of the ninth. We had chances, though. In the second inning, Mark Teixeira was called out on a strike that really looked too low - Tex very openly complained about it, which he rarely does. Thing is, Hank Blalock came up to start the third and hit a home run. Now I know that doesn't mean he would have gotten one if he had come up in the second, but it's one of those Grrrr. moments. :)

But the bottom of the ninth was more or less handed to us on a plate by the Blue Jays. They made three errors in the inning. Hank Blalock was awarded second on a two base throwing error. Alfonso Soriano then singled to tie the game scoring Blalock. Sori tried to steal second, and Gregg Zaun tossed the ball into center, sending Sori to third on the second run of the inning. Finally, Rod Barajas hit a ball to short, and their shortstop threw the ball away trying to get Sori at home for the third and game winning error. Nice come from behind win, and we picked up one on the Angels, too.

A nice side note is that Mike Young almost got a cycle. He had a single, home run, and triple after the fourth inning. But he never could get the double to finish it off. Still, he went 4-5 and his batting average is way up there now (.334 after this game). Gotta love he's going to the All Star Game, and Derek Jeter isn't.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I'm writing this on Friday, as I'm trying to wrap up a bunch of things at work for the weekend, so I don't have much recollection of this game. I didn't think Chan Ho Park pitched all that bad, though.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Well, I only superficially was paying attention to this game, as I needed to do a few things related to baby care. When I came back to peek at the score, and saw it was 7-0 starting the fourth, I turned it off. I find as my attention is demanded elsewhere more often I have less patience to watch games that we get bombed early in.

We did come back to make it at least respectable, 7-4. but it felt like it was 70-4. Always is with Wakefield. You either blow him out with 8 runs in the first 1.2 IP, or he does what he did, make you look stupid.

We looked stupid last night.

One thing I did like, even if it was at the Rangers' expense was Manny Ramirez' grand slam. That gives him 20 for his career, and he'll break the all time Grand Slam record held by Lou Gehrig (needs 4 to do that). I've always liked Manny. Don't have a concrete reason. Manny's also the only player who I have a foul ball from. About 6 years ago, when Manny was with Cleveland, he hit a foul off the hand of Aaron Sele, and I got it. My one foul ball in about 33 years of going to baseball games. :)

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I was at this game Monday night. I almost didn't go, because I had a nice day with my wife and daughter. But I went, and I was glad I did, saw a great game, and a great win. I got to the park, and ended up having a nice chat with a fellow who doesn't normally sit where my seat is about scoring the games. I was scoring on my PDA, and he on paper, so we had a nice chat about all that.

This game got off to a good start. We scored three runs in the bottom of the first and went up quickly. To beat Boston, I figured that was necessary. What was bothering me was the fact we left 7 men on base in the first few innings. Twice had the bases loaded and didn't get anything - both times the final out was made by Hank Blalock, too. That wasn't good. Something else that wasn't good was the fact that Ricardo Rodriguez walked three batters in the third inning on the way to letting the Sox back in the game by giving up two runs. Even with that, I felt pretty good about the game. They tied it in the 6th on a double by Trot Nixon, and I still felt good. Felt like we had another crooked score inning on the way. However, that feeling went out the window when Manny Ramirez jacked an absolute titanic home run in the 8th inning to give the Sox a two run lead. At the park they said the home run went four hundred and fourty some odd feet, but it lookd a LOT more than that. The record in our park is 491, which was straight to the top of Green's Hill by Paul Sorrento. This one wasn't at the top, was about 2/3 of the way up and off to the right a bit by my eye. Given the wall is 400, and the top is 491, I would think 2/3 up would be more than 450 at least, plus it was angled a bit to the right, which would add a few more feet. 440 something isn't enough, IMO.

Anyway you measure it, it's a pretty deflating home run. We picked up one of the two on a two run double by Rod Barajas in the bottom of the 8th, but we were still losing, and I wasn't feeling good about coming back, even given Keith Foulke's recent struggles. But the rest is history, led by a Mike Young triple. A walk, hit batseman later set up the table for Kevin Mench to win it for the Rangers.

The Angels lost too, so we picked up a game in that regard. Go Twins! :)

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I had a nice weekend with my wife and kid, and decided I'm not going to do updates for the Mariners series. Was nice to take two out of three up there. A few notes from the series:

1) Not surprised to see Kenny Rogers booed when he took the field. I wonder what kind of reception he'll get in Arlington his next start?

2) I was pretty surprised to see the Mariners DFA Bret Boone. I've never been a big fan of his, mostly because of his "bat flip" stuff - but he still struck me as a good player. I don't want him here (not that there's any room anyway), but I have to imagine someone will pick him up pretty quickly.

3) It's a good thing the Rangers don't have Safeco field as their home park - there were SEVERAL balls hit that were outs, which would have been home runs in our park. Hank Blalock got screwed out of two home runs in the same game that way.

4) Shame Kenny didn't get a win on Sunday - he pitched pretty damn well, and deserved a win.

If there ever was a game to bring some good feeling back (even just temporarily after falling 8.5 games back), this was it. 8 home runs, 18 runs, 15 hits, at least one hit by every starter. At least one run scored by every starter. A call that went our way (the home run by the angels that was denied). This was a good game.

Chris Young only went 5 innings, but given the temperature out there, and the fact that he had almost 30 some odd pitches in the first inning probably contributed to that. Young also struck out 7 in his 5 innings. He's looking pretty good at the moment. Juan Dominugez pitched two innings of shutout relief. Overall, I say our pitching was pretty good today. Not awesome, but pretty decent.

Offensively, where do you start? As I said above, 18 runs on 15 hits. That means we had a total of 7 hits that weren't home runs. Of those 7, three were doubles. Kevin Mench had three home runs, matching Alex Rodriguez's team record for that. I also thought Victor Rojas got extremely excited at Mench's third home run - I was listening over the internet at work, and had to laugh - his voice got so excited, I think he overloaded his microphone being too close. Enjoyed that, Vic! :)

We're still 6.5 games out, and headed to Seattle. Kenny Rogers is in tow, but as I write this (3PM on Fri), the verdict on his punishment is still not delivered from Bud Selig. So whether Kenny pitches at all on this trip (he's supposed to go Sunday) remains to be seen. I would have preferred going on the road with a better record than we got. We're still 6.5 games behind the Angels. That's a daunting proposition as we don't play them again directly till the end of September. Still, it could have been a lot worse. After game two of this series, I think most Ranger fans expected us to lose all of 'em and be 10.5 games back.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Was nice to see a win - I think if this game had been a loss, it would have made the night completely miserable as a Rangers fan. It's still not fun thanks to the "Rogers Rage", but we at least got a win the way the Angels seem to be getting them lately - bloops. This game felt like ours for the entire run. We were up early, and it felt good, despite the odd feeling of the Rogers Rage from earlier.

Vlad Guerrero hit a home run in the 8th. No surprise there. OK, we're up 6-4. No biggie. Cordero came in, got a couple of outs, and then gave up a double to Jeff DaVanon. Anaheim sends up Dallas McPherson who had very little at bats lately to face Coco, and he hits a two run home run to tie the game 6-6. Wow, was that a depressing moment. After the first two games, I was feeling good, and all that feeling went out the window when they tied the game.

Fortunately, we managed to win the game in the 11th on a bloop hit by Alfonso Soriano, but the 9th was still a deflating moment. Ricardo Rodriguez was spectacular, going 7.2 innings, giving up three runs, but only one earned. Brian Shouse finished that inning, and then Cordero gave up his couple in the ninth. Kameron Loe came in and pitched a couple of scoreless innings that allowed us to get the win, and take some of the attention (although not much) from Kenny Rogers.

Speaking of Rogers, did anyone watch the TV coverage? They had some really cool camera angles from a camera atop the office buildings out beyond Vandergriff Plaza. During the telecast, Josh said "We're looking for ideas for a name for this camera". I jumped online and called it the "Safe from Kenny Cam", but they didn't go with that. :)

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I was really enjoying this game. Even going into extra innings I was enjoying it. John Wasdin did far better than I anticipated. I normally don't enjoy extra inning games, because we lose them, especially if they end in the 10th, but if we get past the 10th, we tend to do OK. Then Anderson hit a grand slam, and I got all annoyed. I was ready to put the big deficit in the standings behind us emotionally until the grand slam. That was a major downer.

Dammit.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

My stepfather was in town visiting us (mostly to see his Granddaughter I would think). But anyway, we decided to take him to this game with some vouchers I had. Good thing I didn't pay much for these tickets. That was disgusting. It was so annoying I don't want to write much about the game.

Gerald Laird was here. I didn't know he had been called up, so it was a surprise to see his name listed in the starting lineup.

7.5 back at almost the halfway point. Not insurmountable, but YIKES!

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Rod Barajas won his job when Gerald Laird suffered an injury early in the 2004 season. Rod Barajas had to leave this game with an injury, does that mean that Gerald Laird will get his job back? We'll see..

Chan Ho Park pitched pretty decently (7IP, 5H, 2ER), but we wasted it, when we lost 3-2 in 10 innings. Andy Pettite pitched like the Pettite of old, going 9 innings, 7H, 2R (1ER), and basically outdueled Park. Kameron Loe kept us in it, by not giving up any run in his two innings, but Juan Dominguez came in and immediately walked two, and gave up the winning run. Annoying, given how poorly we've been playing lately, and given the slide we've gone into. We need all the wins we can get if we're going to tread water long enough to stay in the playoff race. Granted, the season isn't half over yet, but it feels somewhat dismal at the moment.

Probably might have something to do with the disappearance of our starting rotation (released, waived, punched a wall).

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Well, we finally won a game. Early on this game felt like ours from the start, and the Astros didn't have a chance. We were out 6-0 after 3. Chris Young had a no hitter going into the sixth inning. This was our game. But the June 2005 edition of the Texas Rangers almost allowed it to get away.

Chris Young & Mike Young were the story of this game. Chris Young went 7 innings and gave up 3 runs -a good start by all measurable accounts; it felt marred though given the way he exited, having given up a bunch of runs at the end. Mike Young continued to own Brandon Backe, going 9 for 9 career against him after his first two at bats. Both of which were home runs.

Cordero had to come in and get a save in game when he shouldn't have had to. We won, but it didn't feel all that good to me.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Sigh. Lost our fifth 5 in a row to an Astros team that doesn't look like the Astros team that we whomped on a few weeks ago in Arlington.

Osawlt looked like he was tossing a shutout, he gave up two back to back solo home runs to Barajas & Nix, but that was it. It was Oswalt's game. Definitely not ours.

We need a win.

Not good. Not good at all.

No time to write, although there's not much to write about. Looks like the old Chan Ho Park is back, and that can't be good. We did make an attempt to come back at the end of the game, but it was too little too late.

Only real good thing is that Pedro Astacio has been released. But Chan Ho remains, and Drese is gone. Go figure.

These west coast games are murder on my personal viewing habits. They start at 9PM, which is when my wife and I pretty much go into "Let's start getting the baby ready for bed" mode, which mostly involves washing bottles, and getting 'em ready for the next day. So by the time the baby is asleep, and the wife's gone to bed is when I get time to myself where I can watch the Rangers game. By this time it's almost 11:30, and I'm not going to make it through 3 hours of a game, so I watch games in fast forward. I watched this entire game in about 45 minutes last night forwarding on my TiVo. Would have been asleep otherwise. Thanks Mr Hicks for letting MLB off the hook about moving us to the AL Central. That's become a regular complaint of mine lately. I'm fairly sure it won't do a damn thing, but I still want to gripe about it. Now if TiVo could figure out how to put those 9PM games at 7PM where they should be, I'd be happy. :)

Given the fact we got behind immediately didn't help much - that makes me want to skip forwards anyway. :) Chris Young gave up a home run to Vlad Guerrero. No shame in that, Vlad can hit a home run on a ball 6 inches below the dirt. But it still doesn't make for a good game when he hits one in the first inning. That kind of sets the tone for the game, and it's never a good one. Thing is Paul Byrd never let us in the game. He had an amazingly low pitch count (92 pitches over 9 innings). He allowed 6 hits, and just one earned run, which was Dellucci's solo home run. This was definitely Paul Byrd's game.

As a Phillies fan, I remember Paul Byrd when he pitched in Philly, and as well when he pitched for Atlanta. For the most part he was a pitcher you groaned at when he took the hill. Don't know what's going on Anaheim, but he certainly seems to have figured it out. At the least last night he did anyway. He killed us, and with Guerrero also on the stick (har har), we didn't have much of a chance.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

The Father's Day stuff continued with me on Sunday. After attending the game on Saturday night, I spent a nice day with my wife and my daughter. We went out to the big mall in Frisco to a place called Build a Bear. I made a big polar bear for Samantha to have, and then Lynn and I went out for something to eat afterwards. The reason I mention this is that we left the house at 1PM, right when the Rangers game is on. We live in South Garland, so it took us a little while to drive all the way out to Frisco where the RoughRiders play. Listened to the game till I got out of the truck. When I left the truck, it was 2-0. When I got back in the truck after walking around the mall for awhile, it was 8-1.

I missed just about everything that happened in this game, so I don't have a lot of insight into it. From what I can read it appears that CJ Wilson did pretty good. His line isn't all that great (3.2 IP, 3ER, 2K, 0BB), but it would appear they weren't hitting him hard. It could have quite easily been 0ER from what I can gather, so I suspect he'll get another shot at it. The only real star for us offensively was Alfonso Soriano, who was 3 for 4. That was odd, as he has no runs scored, and no RBI's so while he did go 3 for 4, it wasn't terribly productive. The team as a whole outside of Sori only had 4 hits total for the game.

Doug Brocail didn't give up much of anything in his 3.1IP of relief. In fact, he had 6 strikeouts, no walks, and just one hit. A really good performance, but I personally don't have a lot of confidence in him. I hope to be proven wrong, though. Jason Standridge pitched for Texas, and didn't fare too well. He gave up 4 hits and 3ER plus a walk in his two thirds of an inning pitched, giving him one of those goofy ERA's of 40.50. Cordero game on for an inning of work. Usually that means he'll give up two or three runs, but he went 1-2-3, which was unusual for him in those circumstances.

Esteban Loaiza was supposed to start this game for the Nationals, but he was scratched. Spot starter Sun Woo Kim started in his place, which meant we weren't going to do good at all. Of the spot starters we faced this year, they've dominated us. I hate facing those guys, we never seem to do much of anything against guys who weren't supposed to start that day.

On to Anaheim. I know it's not make or break, but I have to imagine losing 2 or getting swept out there won't be good. Need to win 2 out of 3 out there, and then most of next week's games back here.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

We won the game. Pretty handily. Mark Teixeira and Alfonso Soriano led the way with home runs. Tex has two, Sori had one, as did Matthews. In fact, all the runs in this game came via the long ball. The Nats 4 runs all came on long balls. Frank Robinson was honored before the game, which was nice. In fact, the guy who impressed me most in this game from the other side was Ryan Church. He really put on a show, going 3 for 4 with two home runs. He just looked good. Ricardo Rodriguez was really good (7IP, 3ER, 2K, 0BB), and (crossing fingers) he looks like he might be the answer, as our rotation now has some big holes in it with the departure of Ryan Drese & Pedro Astacio.

But none of that was what this night was about for me. This was the first game I attended with my daughter. A couple of weeks ago, my wife was trying to figure out what to do for Father's Day, as it was my first one. Without boring you to death with the details, Father's Day has never meant anything to me, as my dad split when I was 12, so this day was a day when I pretty much "shut down". Well, now that I have a daughter of my own, my views are likely to be different as I'm the recipient of Father's Day, not the "giver". Anyway, Lynn suggested we go to a Rangers game for Father's Day, since I like baseball so much. This of course was a great idea to me, and I jumped on it. We were going to go on Sunday on the actual Father's Day game, but a 1PM game at a projected 100 degrees is NOT a good idea for a nine week old, so we decided to go Saturday night. This posed a problem as Saturday night was almost sold out. The only tickets left when we got to the gate were in Section 344. That really doesn't much bother me, I'm happy sitting anywhere in the park. Plus with my daughter being only nine weeks old, she won't realize it. I'm sure it didn't help my wife, since she really needs the scoreboard to be able to pay attention, and in the $5 cheap seats, you can't see it (as you're technically behind the thing). Still, it was Father's Day weekend, and I was attending the first game with my kid. I also found out you don't need to buy a ticket for a kid that is this young, but with the game being so packed, I bought two extra kids tickets (at $2 each) just so we could have some room for all the baby stuff we brought with us. :) I was just concerned with BEING THERE, where we sat was pretty much irrelevant.

As the game started, I was thinking about all the emotional things you hear about baseball, generations, family, and all that. I did tear up a bit at the start of the game when I realized I was Daddy. It was something I never had for myself, as my recollections tell me I never attended a baseball game with my own father until I was 23 (which was a Colorado Rockies game in Denver their inaugural year in Mile High Stadium, before Coors opened). So I was a bit teary eyed when the game started, as I full well intend on going to a boatload more games with my daughter. I also will be back on August 23rd with her to pass along a tradition I've had for years. That's when I go to a Rangers game on my birthday, or if they're not in town on my birthday, the closest calendar date game. I picked this up from my mom a long time ago when I was a kid, and is something that I carried on myself back home in Philly when she couldn't go, and then when I moved to Texas. I was Dad. I was the person taking my wife and kid to a game. I realized at that time I had achieved something in life a lot of people look for, and don't have - that's a family to love, and a family that loves them. My wife and I are very perfectly matched, and the child we've had I think is a great mix of that. Granted, she's only 9 weeks old, and we don't know her personality yet, but being borne from Lynn and myself, she'll turn out to be pretty good, I would expect. And she'll love baseball, dammit! :)

We got there early enough so that we could visit the gift shop. Since it was Samantha's first game, we had to get her a souvenir or two. We were sent some money from my mother so that we could get some stuff for Sam's first game. As I'm a season ticket holder, I have a 15% discount card off of merchandise, so we made use of that. We got Samantha a really cute little outfit that she'll fit into in a couple of months that will make her look like a baseball, I think. We also got her a Rangers pennant for her room, and we also managed to get the tickets for the money my mom sent down. All in all, we made out pretty well with stretching money. After the gift shop run, we went around to collect a free gift the Rangers had sent. I signed Samantha up for the Rangers "Jr Rangers Program". It's a fabulous deal. You pay $12 for a season, and you get vouchers good for 6 free kids tickets spread out during the season. You also get a player photo frame, a baseball, and a membership card. You also get a free gift once per month (as well as newsletters mailed to the house). So we walked over to the kiosk where you collect the monthly gift. I was expecting it to be a magnet, or a picture, or something small. They handed me a Buck Showalter bobblehead. I was quite surprised at that. Was a major bonus. I have to say the Jr Rangers program is an extremely good value if you have kids that like attending Ranger games. $12 for all that is stupid cheap for what you get. The final bit of merchandise was something I got when I renewed my season ticket package last winter by a certain date. We got a free laser engraved bat, which I had engraved with the words "Samantha Anne Siegler - 1st Game Jun 18, 2005 - Rangers vs. Nationals". So we got the souvenir thing covered well. :)

I then walked some more (which was starting to get to my wife, sorry honey, I know I pushed it on Saturday) and went upstairs. This was a season ticket game of mine, but I didn't use my regular seat so my wife and daughter could attend. But I wanted to stop by my regular section so the folks who sit there with me could see my daughter, as could the users in that area. I enjoyed showing off my baby, but by this point we needed to head to our seats, so we headed all the way down to section 344, which is the next to the last section in the outer right field seats. We sat down, and I broke out the scorecard in the program. As I wanted to save the program for Samantha for later on, I wanted to make sure I had scored the game too. I always do that, but rarely on paper anymore, and never in the Rangers program. But this one I wanted to in there. During the game, Samantha was extremely well behaved. She had a couple of small moments of screaming, but nothing major at all. She spent most of the game in mommy's arms. I held her for a little while, but I spent most of my time watching Samantha, as well as the game. I thought the fireworks would scare Samantha. She did jump at the first one, but then it seemed like no big deal. In fact, any "new" loud noise she moved for, but then basically ignored it. One tip - if you're sitting in Sections 333 or higher and have a little kid, make sure to cover them when the home run fireworks go off, as they tend to deposit soot on you. She had three bottles at the game. The first one shortly after we had first got there. The second one was during the game, and the final one was after the game was over. The team had a fireworks show for everyone after teh game was over. We skipped that, but Lynn was in the outer concourse feeding Samantha during that, so we got to see some of the really high ones (as we were in a bad place to see the fireworks). We then left to go to the truck, as I've learned fireworks shows are a great way to avoid traffic after the game. Walking to the truck we got to see some of the fireworks, and the big finale as we were actually leaving the parking lot.

So to bring this to a close, I was overwhelmed by emotion at the start of the game. It's more powerful now that I'm looking backwards at the event instead of sitting in the seat in the ballpark thinking about it. I absolutely adored watching my wife and my kid at the ballpark with me. It's something that I think all parents should experience. Granted, I'm sure it's enhanced a lot by the fact that I'm a big baseball fan. Non baseball fans probably won't get that feeling. Having a kid of my own to take to games has been something I've been looking forward to for many years. Even pre-dating the time I first met my wife 18 years ago. But having the kid to pass on my knowledge of baseball to will be great. Hopefully she's not someone who doesn't like baseball. That will kill Daddy. :)

As a final memento of the day, I burned a copy of the game's broadcast to DVD off my TiVo, and I saved the box score out of the newspaper the next day for the scrapbook.

I love my daughter. I love my wife, and all the cares of the world didn't exist when I was sitting there in the park with the two of them.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

This was an interesting Kenny Rogers day. First off, he had another great pitching performance. He went 6.1, giving up 8 hits, and just one earned run. Struck out 4 and walked three. His usual 2005 pitching performance. But the Rogers real moment of the day was the remark in the press about how he's not going to talk to Hicks about a contact extension, he's "authorized Scott Boras to do that after the all star break". Great way to get inside the team's head there, Kenny. He also said there will be no "hometown discount again". To my knowledge, he never got one. When he left the first time after 95, he was talked out of town by Boras to higher money. When he left after the 2002 season, it was because Boras convinced him there was to be better money than the Rangers were offering, which was WAY overpriced at the time. He had to sign a last minute desperation deal with the Twins. He came back here this current time on a deal that no one else was offering. I think Boras will talk him out of town again. Let's see how much Kenny REALLY wants to stay here. But I can't feel that the discussion about this issue will be a distraction, especially if it starts carrying over into the press. Stupid Scott Boras.

Back to this game.. Offensively, we mounted a 15 hit attack, lead by homers by Hank Blalock & Kevin Mench. Blalock was 3 for 5 with 3 RBI's and a run scored. We also had three doubles (Soriano, Young, Mench). Every starter had a hit in the game, so it was pretty well balanced. We did strike out a bit too much (9 times, 3 by Dellucci), and walked only three times.

I missed most of the game due to baby related stuff that evening, but saw enough to see the important parts. :)

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

No time to write about this game.

No time to write about this game.

A few complaints. Why take Chris Young out? As evidenced by what followed, he could have done better. And second, why do we keep putting Cordero in with huge leads? He always gives up a few runs. That's starting to annoy me.

But the rest of the night was great. We were led by Chris Young, who seems to be the #2 of the staff. He's got that feel about him the last several starts that he's a big time big league pitcher. Sure, he's young (har), and he's got a lot to go through still, but you can't help but feel good about the way he's pitched lately. He pitched a 7 inning 2 hit shutout with just one walk and seven strikeouts. I would have left him in for more, but you can't argue with how well he pitched last night. It was fabulous!

And Alfonso Soriano led the charge with two home runs, and 4 RBI's. Soriano's swing looked great all night - he actually had two more swings that looked like home run balls off the bat. One died on the track in center field just to the edge of Greene's Hill. The other one REALLY looked like a HR ball, but died on the track in front of the scoreboard, and was caught by Ryan Langerhands for an out in one of the best outfielder catches I've seen in this ballpark. One handed over the head, crash into the scoreboard, and land face down in the dirt on the track. Was very impressive. Was also nice to see the Ranger fans giving him a hand on TV for that. Classy move.

Mike Young went 1 for 3, and is now batting .309 after being pretty slow early in the season. Teixeira is at .286, although his power numbers seem fine, and seems to be a pretty good candidate to get elected to the All Star game by his peers, as the moron fans seem to be electing Tino Martinez, who doesn't deserve it. My gut feeling says we're sending Mike Young & Mark Teixeira, along with Kenny Rogers & Chris Young to the All-Star game. I feel that we're not sending Blalock this year - have no hard facts on that, just a feeling.

It's nice to finally beat the Braves. We're now 1-6 lifetime against them.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

The losing streak comes to an end with a 6-2 win on Sunday afternoon over the Marlins. After the way the road trip went, I personally find it hard to get excited after a win there, but a win is a win I suppose. We're still only 2.5 games out of first, and seem to have enough to stay in contention (although likely not get anywhere in the playoffs should we get there).

RicRod was called up formally for Sunday's game and went 5 innings, giving up just two runs on 7 hits and three walks with 7 strikeouts. That's a terrible WHIP, but since only two crossed the plate, it's not all bad. :) Another 2005 newcomer John Wasdin was perfect in his four innings of relief, getting the odd save. We had surprising pitching from a surprising source. Like most Ranger fans, I felt good about RicRod last year, then felt awful when he got wailed on with a batted ball, and it ended his season. I really hope he can rediscover that form of mid last year, as it would be a big help to us in the back half of the season. Can't say I'm thrilled about Wasdin, even given what he did last night. I don't see him as a permanent piece of the puzzle at all.

We go home now to play the Braves. Hopefully being at home helps out, as we could use several wins, and I'm not confident about getting 'em against the Braves and the surprisingly good Nationals this coming weekend.

(For those of you who don't get the "Topes Win" reference, it's a Simpsons gag.)

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Looks like the Philly stink carried into this game, too. We lost when our bullpen couldn't hold the lead. Kenny Rogers, our best pitcher this season by far had his worst outing of the year, giving up 5 runs in his 5.2IP. Rather un Kenny like, for sure. Juan Dominguez pitched in this game (his first appearance of 2005, I believe), and was OK. Not terrible, but he did give up a run.

Kevin Mench did stake us to a 4 run lead on an absolute no doubter grand slam in the second inning. But that was about it, really. We didn't garner any sustainable offense, if my memory serves (I'm writing this two days after teh game).

The most amusing moment in the game came from Kenny Rogers. He tripled into the right field bermuda triangle, and after he called time out, immediately bent over with some heavy breathing - they showed video of the bullpen guys laughing at Kenny for his triple. Kenny also had an RBI in the game earlier, so he more than held his own offensively. :)

The rest of the game was just annoying. :)

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

After the debacle in Philadelphia (which my brother properly taunted me over), I figured we'd be OK. Nope. We went into Florida and continued to stink up the joint - dare I say, like rotten fish? Get it? Marlins? Fish? Har-har. :) The stink brigade was led by Doug Brocail, who gave up FIVE earned runs in his total of .1IP. Brian Shouse wasn't far behind, giving up two runs in his 1.3 IP. And bringing up the rear in this stink brigade is good ol' Chan Ho. He gave up 5ER in his 4.2 IP. Not horrible, but let's face it. It's Chan Ho. :)

The capper was Mike Lowell's grand slam. Lowell was batting about .025 this season it seemed, but of course came up big against us.

Did I mention the total lack of deodorant for out pitchers tonight? Man, they STUNK! The roster overhaul of this past week continued before Friday night's game, although the way I feel at the moment, it won't make much difference. John Wasdin? Somehow I don't think he's the answer.

But hey, the Yankees are under .500 and in fourth place - so that'll brighten up my day.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Ugh. Will write more later.

Update: No I won't. Game made me too mad.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I've said this before, and I'll probably say it again. Whenever you pitch against a guy who is making his major league first start, you either score 50 runs in the first inning, or what happened last night happens - you can't do anything against them. It's the nature of the beast with an unknown quantity like that.

We got shut out by Robinson Tejeda (not Tejada, guys!) last night. He went 5 innings of two hit shutout ball. In fact, the Phillies pen (former Ranger Aaron Fultz, Ryan Madson, Billy Wagner) went 4 more innings of shutout ball. Between the four Phillies pitchers, we managed just 5 hits the entire night, with Rod Barajas getting two (the others by Teixeira, Blalock, Hidalgo). That's pretty much the story of the game. The Phillies pitchers closed us down.

On the flip side, our pitching was pretty decent, too. Starter Chris Young more and more looks like a really good rotation guy every time out this season. He went 5.1, giving up 2 runs on 5 hits (6K, 1BB). Our pen (Tejera, Regilio, Shouse) didn't give up any runs in their time on the hill.

The highlight of the game for me was the opening of the 6th inning when they showed the Philly Phanatic and Rangers Captain dueling it out with lightsabers, in Jedi gowns. That was most amusing. Stupid me didn't save the game on the TiVo, I deleted it before I got a chance to take a picture of that. Anyone get one?

But the big talk of the day had to have been the DFA'ing of Ryan Drese. I don't think anyone following the team would have predicted THAT. A guy who was a 14 game winner just last year, and was this season's opening day starter gets DFA'ed. I'm really surprised they didn't carry on with him longer than that, especially since he has a guaranteed contract through next year (and an option for 07). Oh well, I seriously doubt we'll be able to hang on to him and get him to the minors through waivers. It's just a surprise to me. Hmm, I know we're bringing up RicRod from AAA to take his place on Sunday, but an opening in the rotation, eh? Perhaps there's more to those Roger Clemens rumours.. Nah, just joking. :)

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

This was an odd game for me. My adopted team (Rangers) vs my hometown team (Phillies). I'd always wanted this to happen. Finally did (outside of spring training in FL). So it was with much anticipation I drove to the Cheesesteak place not too far from my house to pick up a couple for my wife and I to eat during the game. I pulled up, and the place was gone. Out of business. That was an omen for the Rangers for the night, and sort of put me in a down mood, as I was really in the mood for that. I didn't really know what to do with my baseball loyalties, as I didn't really care who won the game.

When I got home, I was about an hour behind the live game on my TiVo, and my brother called me. Wanted to know if I was watching (dumb question). I said yeah, but I'm an hour behind, and while he didn't tell me the score, he told me enough that the Rangers got torched. The way he told it, it seemed like we gave up 8 runs in the third inning. We did give up a bunch, but it wasn't as all horriffic as my brother made it sound. Note to self. Don't answer phone calls when watching games behind on the TiVo.

Ryan Drese, however, looked bad. It was his shortest outing this year, only 2.2IP. He gave up 5 runs on 8 hits. The other three were given up by Ron Mahay in his .1 IP. A scary thing is how well Benoit has been pitching out of the pen. I read where they're thinking of trying him in the starting rotation again. Have we not learned our lesson with him? He'll go there and stink up the joint. Leave him in relief where he's finally doing good.

Offensively we were powered primarily by the longball again. In Philadelphia, that's an easy thing to do in the new park. We had two run home runs by Hank Blalock and Rod Barajas for a four spot in the fourth. We tacked on another one in the 8th on a Mike Young solo home run. That gives Young a hitting streak of 16 games, and I believe 10 or 11 games where he's also scored a run in a row. Soriano who was hurt somewhat came in and pinch hit, and extended his own hitting streak to 12 games.

When the Phanatic was in Philadelphia recently, Rangers Captain had let out that he was going to Philly. If he was there, he wasn't on the TV coverage last night.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Got extremely busy, didn't have time to write much.

Kenny Rogers pitched extremely well again. He's been amazing since the start of May. With each performance, I have to imagine Scott Boras' eyes are getting bigger. In fact, that scares me. Two of our best players now (Rogers & Teixeira) are both Boras clients. Not good.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Got extremely busy, didn't have time to write much. But the best thing to write about is the total lack of good pitching in this game.

Chan Ho Park got his 100th career win, but he really didn't deserve it the way he pitched. He was bailed out by our offense who beat up on an even worse pitcher, Jose Lima.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Aw dammit. A team we were expected to stomp on continues their odd mastery of us by taking a pitcher's duel on Friday night by the score of 2-1.

Pedro Astacio took the hill for the Rangers and had a good performance. He gave up just two runs in his seven innings pitched. I could whine about that, but then I look at what Roger Clemens is going through this year, and it could be a lot worse. Still, one hates to waste a good pitching performance by the most inconsistent of our starting pitchers. That's exactly what we did by scoring only one run, and that run was not exactly a power display.

Our offense was asleep on Friday night. KC's Hernandez isn't exactly a bad pitcher, but he isn't one you would expect to give up just one run over six innings, but that's what he did. The Royals threw out three relievers who threw shutout ball, so we couldn't mount any kind of comeback.

The saving grace is that the entire AL West lost last night, so we remain .5 of a game back of the Angels for first place.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Sorry, no time for an update for this game.

The streak has come to an end at nine wins. Ryan Drese didn't keep the great pitching performances intact, going 6.1 innings, giving up 10 hits and 6 runs (5ER). On the positive side, he didn't walk anyone, but gave up too many hits. But it wasn't all bad, Drese looked good through 6 innings, as we were up 4-1, and feeling good. But the wheels fell off in the seventh inning, when we gave up a 5 spot to the Tigers. That was the game in a nutshell, unfortunately.

Offensively, we had a few more home runs by the currently hot Richard Hidalgo, and the extremely hot Kevin Mench. Dellucci went 3 for 5, but no runs scored, or RBI's.

The bottom line for me is that the game felt like the 10th win in a row until the seventh inning when all the air went out of it due to the 5 spot the Tigers got.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Rogers finishes the month 6-0. His era was 1.6something or other. Several consecutive shutouts. I bet Roger Clemens would kill for some of the offense Kenny Rogers was getting this month. Kenny was godlike this month, and it was the backbone to our winning ways in May. May 2005 was also the month with Kenny Rogers on the calendar the Rangers handed out in April. For the record, Ryan Drese is the calendar boy in June, so hopefully he'll have the same kind of month. :)

Don't have time to write much else, but it was really nice to keep the streak going. Let's see if Drese can keep it going tonight in Detroit, and keep us in FIRST PLACE - something we gained last night when the White Sox beat the Angels. :)

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Going into last Sunday's game against the Astros, I don't think most people thought Chan Ho Park had a shot in hell to beat Roy Oswalt. And he did. The further thought occurs that I think even fewer people figured Chan Ho could pull it off twice in a row, beating Jon Garland. But he did. That's the most amazing thing about this 8 game winning streak to me - Chan Ho Park has won twice during it, and hasn't been blasted out of the water, like he had been the last few years. We beat the White Sox - the team with the best record in baseball coming into this series 2 games out of 2 (third was lost in a rainout). That's the first time our team has ever (including the Senators days) gone 8-0 in a homestand. Most impressive.

This game didn't start out that way. After 5.5 innings, we were losing to Garland, 3-1. He was pitching well, and Chan Ho wasn't. Chan Ho didn't stink up the joint, but he did walk too many, and had too many jams. It's quite amazing actually that he only gave up three. Anyway, Garland was doing well. Until the sixth when we just teed off on him. Hits were all over the place, and we put up a 6 spot to go up 7-3, and we didn't look back. We added 5 more runs in the final two frames to really blow it open - something I don't think anyone would have guessed.

Don't have time to run down all the individual stats today (you can check out the box scores below). But I mean - wow. Now we're going into Detroit, who has been playing better, but I think we match up well against. We should stomp on Kansas City (although we've had trouble there the last few years), and then we're off to my hometown team Philadelphia. Not sure how we'll do there. I just wish I could see them in person there.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Rainout. It's going to be made up when the White Sox return at the end of August. I did wonder about the TV coverage, since this was supposed to be a national game, and the national coverage cut out after 6PM. If the Rangers had ended up playing the game, I wonder if our local coverage folks would step in and broadcast the game locally anyway. Would have been irritating to lose the game like that.

Oh well, doesn't much matter, it's being made up later. Park & Garland have been pushed to Sunday instead. We will end up missing Mark Buehrle because of the rain, so that's a good thing.

While our winning streak to this point was really nice (who can totally argue with 6 in a row), I think most Ranger fans were leery of the fact that it was against the Kansas City Royals (arguably the worst team in the AL), and against the Houston Astros (who after our series were 2-19 on the road). So I think it was with a decent sense of concern that we entered the White Sox series on Friday night. Now this isn't the same White Sox, as they were running out their version of Chris Young (our starter), Brandon McCarthy. Both of these guys are considerations for Rookie of the Year. So it wasn't like Kenny Rogers vs. Jon Garland. Still, it's a way better team than our last two opponents were, and that made for some concern, I would think.

We started off fine, with a home run by Mark Teixeira in the first inning. Was a line shot over the right field fence, and it kind of set a tone. We then picked up a second run with another home run in the bottom of the second, this time by Soriano, who appears to have heated up nicely lately. McCarthy got under control and kept it at 2-0 until the bottom of the fifth inning. It was then we experienced another power surge. After a (shock! - gasp) Dellucci walk, Mike Young jacked the first pitch he saw over the left field wall for a two run home run to put us up 4-0. Blalock singled to right, and the Soriano golfed another pitch right over the right field wall for an opposite field two run home run, putting us up 6-0. All six of our runs this evening came on the long ball.

And all along, Chris Young was keeping the White Sox off the scoreboard. That is, until the seventh when he gave up a solo home run to Paul Konerko. Chris Young went another inning after that for a total of 8 innings pitched. He gave up just the lone run on a homer, and striking out five with no walks. An extremely great performance, and it carried on the excellent starting pitching we've gotten the last week or so. Brocail came on for the 9th, gave up a run, and then had some guys on base, so Cordero came on for one of those cheap saves, where it's based off of guys on deck. Still, a win is a win, and a save is a save, so I'll take both.

A truer test comes Saturday when we send Chan Ho Park against Jon Garland, Chicago's best pitcher at the moment. I think most people would say we have no chance here, but we had no chance last Sunday when Park went against Oswalt, and we see how that turned out. Granted, the White Sox are likely to score more runs for Garland than the Astros scored for Oswalt, but still - I've been feeling good about the team, I think we have a shot, even given the enormous drag factor of Chan Ho Park.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I don't have time to write anything about this game on Friday, trying to finish up a project at work. I'll say this though. Two sweeps in a row, 6 wins in a row. That feels nice (even if it's teams you should be stomping on).

I was up a good percentage of the night last night dealing with the baby, so my wife could get some sleep. Because of that, I don't have much energy in the "creative writing" department, so I'll give this one a miss. A few bullet points, though.

Nix's pitch looked like a strike to my eyes watching on TV, but it was interesting to see that kind of emotion out of a player who usually shows none.

Astacio probably saved his job last night.

Blalock tied Bell's record for errorless games at third by a Ranger.

Hidalgo seems to have figured it out.

We're now tied for first with the suddenly hurting Angels.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I missed this game, as my wife and I spent a very nice evening out at the Dallas Arboretum with our daughter. We got something to eat afterwards, so by the time we got home it was almost 11PM, and then I accidentally found out the score, so I didn't bother to watch the whole game. I just skipped through the game on TiVo at super high speed just to the points where the Rangers scored. I should have paid more attention, as there was something interesting in the 6th inning, an "altercation" between Ryan Drese & Rod Barajas in the dugout. According to the papers, they "disagreed on pitch count", and depending on whose article you read, there was a physical fight, or just had to be seperated. I didn't see it, so I can't comment on it.

As for the game itself, Ryan Drese pitched like he did last year. The game was quick moving, taking only 2:28 to complete. Drese pitched seven innings, giving up just two runs in his time on the hill. He did walk three, which isn't good, and did bring his ERA under 6 at the end of the game. It was groundball city from what I can gather, which is necessary, if we're gonna make a run at the Angels this year.

Offensively, we were definitely led by Richard Hidalgo who went 2 for 3. Both of his hits were home runs, accounting for his 3 RBI's in the game. If you take away Hidalgo, the entire rest of the team had 5 hits the entire night, and those 5 hits were gotten by just three guys (Young 2, Mench 2, Soriano). Not a balanced attack at all. But a win is a win, and we've now won 4 in a row, and are 5 games over .500. The feeling seems to be that things are picking up finally. Hopefully we can keep it going.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Going into this series, this was the game I figured myself and most Ranger fans had pretty much no hope on. Chan Ho Park vs Roy Oswalt. We're going to lose 11-1. Even given the state of the Astros' offense, it's Chan Ho Park. So the final score of 2-0 was no surprise. The fact that Park beat Oswalt WAS a surprise.

Park was just as good as Oswalt was - and more so. Oswalt was what he always was. Great pitcher, doesn't give you much. In fact, of the two runs we did get, just one was really "earned" (although officially they both were). The home run by Teixeira was the one I'm talking about. The one in the first we really didn't - we got a triple off the glove of Houston's centerfielder who doesn't normally play there. Had the Astros played their regular CF, we wouldn't have gotten that hit or that run, most likely.

But still. I'm shocked that Park won. A win is a win, but I'm starting to think this Park changing his delivery stuff has been working, and THAT scares me, because it means he'll be here next year, too.

I was at this game, and man was it way too hot for a May game. This felt like the worst days in August. As it was a day game, my seats were in the sun all game (save for the 9th I believe). So I and all the other regular season ticket holders in my area abandoned our seats and went and sat up top in the shade. All but one guy and his friend who stayed in the sun - rookie mistake that is. :)

Chicks must have loved this game, as chicks dig the longball. There's not much else to say about this one except I can't believe how awful the Astros are on the road.

We just destroyed them, and what's mildly amusing is that this is the second in three games we've played against them when we won 18-3 (as we beat 'em by the same score in the last game we played against them in 2004 in Houston).

We set a new franchise record for home runs in a game with 8. Was a joy to watch from a Rangers fan standpoint. I also like the Astros, so that part wasn't fun.er the weekend on this one.

56 games. 59 scoreless innings, 2,632 games. Kenny's streak wasn't anywhere near those ones, but it certainly was impressive while it lasted. Kenny's scoreless streak was broken up after 31.1 innings pitched. I think most everyone assumed it wouldn't get near Orel's record 59 (which Josh said on TV last night was in the mid 60's if you count playoffs, too). I think people probably expected it to go a little deeper than 4 outs last night. But that's OK - it was still a great game for Kenny, a win for the Rangers, and it was nice that it was broken up at home, so he could get an ovation.

But to me, the biggest event of the night wasn't Kenny's streak, it was Laynce Nix, who basically was the Texas Rangers last night. Laynce went 2 for 4 last night, but wow, was it productive. He had a total of 6 RBI's (a career high) with a home run and a run scored. He definitely carried our team. In fact, if you take Nix out of the game, we had just 7 hits outside of him, and only one other RBI (Mench). This was definitely Kenny & Laynce's nights.

We're even hearing in the local press now that the Rangers want to extend his contract. Gee, I wonder why. Would be nice if it could get done in season, so we don't have the crap of Boras holding us hostage with other teams' (phantom, usually) offers. I wouldn't mind picking up Kenny for another year or two.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the spectacular defense in the game turned in by the Rangers in the second. After Kenny's streak was broken, our guys in the field kept it from getting a lot worse with TWO runners thrown out at the plate. One was on a throw from Laynce Nix direct to Alomar, and the other was from Mench in left to Mike Young as a cutoff. Both were great to watch, and the second I thought he was out, but a nice swipe tag from Alomar saved it. Was really odd to see two outs at the plate in the same inning like that.

It was also nice to see Nolan Ryan again - he was in the booth with Josh & Tom for awhile. Miss seeing him around the park.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

There's not much to say about this one. Mark Buehrle was great (7.1IP, 0ER). Ryan Drese was not (5.1IP, 5ER). We had a total of nine hits that were scattered all over the place, never got anything going, leaving 10 men on base.

Andres Torres got his first start as a Ranger, and went 1 for 5. That was about the most interesting thing to me about this game, and that's about all I can think of to write about this one at the moment. :)

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I expected us to lose this game. A 1-4 pitcher who has been shaky against a 7-0 pitcher who has been totally dominant? I expected the score to be like 17-1. We lost alright, but we didn't fall out totally. Never seemed to get it going against Garland, which is the story of the day. Garland beat us to his major league leading eighth win of the season. He deserved the win, he pitched well, going 7 runs, giving up just 2 runs on 5 hits.

It did feel like we were behind the 8 ball however early however. It was because of some extra help from the umpire at third who CLEARLY blew a call calling Aaron Rowand safe at third when every replay showed he was out - and it was really obvious, too. That directly led to their first run, and while that one run didn't decide the game, it came in the first, so one never knows what kind of mental tone that set for everything else that followed. It did lead to Steve Smith being ejected - he definitely is our most ejected coach. :)

Offensively, we didn't mount much of an attack. We only had 6 hits, and three of them came from Mark Teixeira - and two of those 3 were doubles. The remaining three hits were from Blalock, Nix, & Hidalgo. Only two RBI's were Tex and Hidalgo (who now has his average way up to .212).

I'm glad the old Ranger farmhand Scott Podsednik has gotten a good career together. He's not a Carlos Beltran, or even a Cliff Floyd - but he's a good solid respectable player, and from what I remember, a pretty nice guy, too. Good for him - the sport needs more good solid players like that. I like seeing him now that he's in Chicago, I couldn't see him when he was in Milwaukee.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

This game definitely had some rollercoaster moments. We started off early with Dellucci getting on base. Then he got thrown out stealing. Then Mench hit a home run. Then in the bottom of the first, Chan Ho Park gave up a grand slam which was fueled by a couple of walks. I got immediately disgusted. Even with our habit of coming back, a grand slam in the first inning is pretty much a statement made by a team, and even though we ended up winning the game, I still felt down because of the grand slam.

Speaking of Dellucci, he did have an odd trifecta of making outs this game. IN the first, he walked and was caught stealing. Later he walked again, but was picked off of first. And finally, in an odd way of finishing that, Dellucci was attempting to steal second again when Kevin Mench struck out, and David was called out on (rather obvious) batter's interference on Mench's part. All we needed was for him to get hit by a batted ball and be called out. :)

Kevin Mench did make up for his interference outs by hitting a game winning home run in the top of the 9th, which led to a 1-2-3 league leading 13th save by CoCo Cordero. But Kevin wasn't absent from the goofiness tonight, even taking the interference call into play. There was one point where he was just taking his practice swing inbetween pitches, and on one of them, he went and wailed on AJ Pierzynski's catcher's mask, and knocked it clean off his face. Was an amusing clip, as you don't normally see things like that. Reminded me of that bit from a couple of seasons ago when Arod was doing his "tap the bat on the plate" to start his at bat, and the bat shattered on the plate. Just the kind of thing you don't normally see.

Tomorrow's game looks like a lopsided win for the White Sox on paper. Pedro Astacio who has been uneven at best goes against Jon Garland, who has been nothing short of brilliant this season. The potential for an ugly night on Tuesday really exists. :)

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Before this game, Gary Matthews Jr was placed on the DL with a hamstring problem (prompting the calling up of Andres Torres, a spring training surprise). While one never feels good about players going on the DL, I have to say the injury problem that cropped up during Sunday's game was a bit worse than Matthews trip. Perhaps not "worse", but more troubling, as it was Mike Young. He left the game with lower back stiffness. He's day to day, but it can't be good. Hopefully it's not something that will carry on long. I'm sure Mark DeRosa can be a capable SS, but I doubt he's a long term answer if Mike Young has to go on the DL or something.

As for this game, Chris Young showed a bit of why we wanted him signed and not let to go play basketball at the end of last season. CY went only five innings, but allowed just two runs, and probably pitched well enough to carry a win, but Ron Mahay let that go by the waysides with 3ER in his 1.2 IP. CY did have a really high pitch count, he tossed 96 through five innings. Not good there, but if you overlook his pitch count, he was pretty decent from what little of the game I did get to watch. The game was definitely a letdown as we could have swept the Twins, who are not playing terribly well right now. Wasn't helped by Brad Radke only allowing 2 runs over his seven innings. Joe Nathan bounced back from his fiasco on Friday night to nail down a save.

Hidalgo went 1 for 3 - nothing special, but it raised his batting average a few more points. In fact, none of our hitters had more than one hit apiece, although Kevin Mench did have a home run, and both Mike Young and Dellucci had doubles, so we weren't totally dominated, it just felt that way. :)

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

This night (and the last few he's been out there) have belonged to Kenny Rogers. The only bad thing about all his recent success is that I see Scott Boras seeing more dollar signs from this performance. That scares me. But in the meantime, we have to be enjoying his 30 straight innings of shutout ball. On this night, Kenny tossed a 6 hit complete game shutout with no walks and 2K's, and 104P. Mostly due to Kenny, this was an extremely crisp game, coming in at only two hours and seven minutes. What else can you say about that? Rogers was magnificent.

On the other side of the coin, Hidalgo had a good night for two nights in a row, going 2-4 with one run scored. His average after this game is now "up to" .200. He'll need another dozen or so of these nights to make a major change in his batting average. I really want him to do well. But he's seemed sluggish all season.

But this night was about Kenny. Couldn't be a whole lot better. Makes me wonder if he has another no hitter or a perfect game in him, as he's danced with both a few times in the last few years. I wonder how many more scoreless innings Kenny has to toss before we start seeing footage of Orel Hershisher's streak. :)

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

If the bullpen lost the game for us in the last game, in this one it was the saviour. Ryan Drese was looking like the 2003 and earlier edition of himself again (another disturbing trend I'll get into when I have more time). Drese gave up 6ER on 9H in his 3.2IP. But the bullpen allowed us to win the game. The bullpen pitched 7 innings of shutout ball, giving up just 3 hits and 2 BB with 8 K's. An impressive performance by our gang. Too bad Drese appears to be regressing, and can't match the performance that got him off the hook.

Richard Hidalgo had the kind of game we brought him in to have in this one. He was 3 for 5 with 2 runs scored, and 2 RBI. He's still below the Mendoza line, which is sad, as it's where Jordan was last year when he was considered a failure. If this carries on much longer, I wonder how long we'll continue with Hidalgo. It's a shame, as it doesn't seem like he's really awful, but when you look at his numbers, you have to shrug your shoulders. If we talke Hidalgo out of the lineup, that means we'd probably go with an outfield of Mench, Nix, & Matthews.

We did get to Twins closer Joe Nathan for 3 runs in the 11th inning, something that was definitely out of the ordinary, as Nathan hadn't allowed an earned run up until that point all season. That was nice to see. We're back to two games over .500 - about where we seem to have gotten - not too far up, not too far down. Feels like a .500 year at the moment, doesn't it?

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

So far this season, we've done pretty well in daytime games. This was a getaway day afternoon game. I forget what our record is, something like 7-3 or something - I'm really not sure of the numbers. But we didn't help that record today, losing 6-5 to the Tigers, to drop the series to them in the rubber game.

Pedro Astacio, who by all accounts was on thin ice with his last few pitching performances, saved his spot in the starting rotation - for now. He went six innings, giving up two runs on 6 hits. Additionally, he had 4K's, and no walks - the no walks probably was the biggest point since the runs came on a home run - could have been worse with walks.

Offensively, we were pretty efficient, getting 5 runs on 7 hits. Alomar & Mench both had multi hit games. Dellucci had a pinch hit home run - which is always exciting to see.

Overall, it was a pretty decent game, until the bullpen came in. Our relievers (Loe, Mahay, Brocail) gave up 4 runs (3ER) in their 3IP. None of them was unscathed, and basically lost the game for us. Overall, our bullpen hasn't been great this year, but it's kind of felt (to me) that it's come around a little lately, so this was a step backwards in my eyes.

Thursday is an offday (hate 'em), but with my family coming in town for my daughter's christening, I likely won't get to watch much baseball this weekend anyway.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I'm scared. It's May, and Chan Ho Park hasn't pitched himself out of a job yet. His line wasn't spectacular last night, and he didn't get the win, but he's looking at least servicable this season, which frightens me. If we manage to get to the playoffs, and he's still in tow? Yikes - that makes my hair stand on end. Doug Brocail is looking like the Doug Brocail pre-2004 so far this year. His stats aren't terrible (2-0, 4.91, 10K, 10BB), but they won't win any Cy Young awards. He also doesn't have that feeling he had last year. I'm not advocating dumping him, but I worry when he comes out of the bullpen now. Park had a really cool play during the game, a ball pinballed straight up in the air after kicking off his ankle, or leg or something like that. Park barehanded it coming down and tossed out the runner by half a step - was a very nice play. I actually wanted him to stay in the game when he was pulled, and THAT is the scariest thought of all. :)

Offensively, I thought we had the game wrapped up early. It certainly felt like it when we went up 3-0 after 1, and 4-0 after three. Park was pitching well (!) and we seemed to be hitting the ball well. Park got in a minor jam, and Brocail let several inherited runners score to tie the game, but Matthews came through in the 7th with his first home run of the season; a game winning home run.

Both us and the Angels seem to be putting some distance between ourselves and the A's/Mariners. The division was all knotted up within a half game of each other awhile ago, and after last night's play, we're 1.5 behind Anaheim. Oakland is 5GB, and Seattle is 6GB.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Dammit! That's about all I can think of to say about this game right now, other than Chris Young probably should have gone out for the ninth.

At least our entire division lost tonight, so the standings remain unchanged.

Kenny Rogers shut down the Indians during his 7 innings on the mound. He gave up no runs (extending his scoreless streak to 21), six hits along with four strikeouts, and four walks. Speaking of streaks, Mark Teixeira now has a 12 game hitting streak, too. Soriano didn't have any more home runs, but Mike Young did in the first inning to put us up 2-0 after the second batter of the game. This game felt more in control than last night's game.

There really isn't much to write about here. Rogers gave up nothing, we got a bunch of timely hits, but no one player dominated offensively.

Pudge and the surprisingly good Tigers come into town Monday night. Let's see how we fare. I don't expect it will be easy at all.

One other remark. With Rogers pitching this well, Scott Boras has to be salivating at the chance for another contract, eh?

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I was at this game, and before the game started, I was talking to a few of the other season ticket holders in my area, and we pretty much all agreed that Drese had become a question mark. No one really knew what to expect from him tonight, as he had gotten not destroyed like Astacio did last night, but pretty much hit around well. Much to our surprise, Drese pitched like Drese from last year. His line was extremely impressive.. 9IP, 6H, 1ER, 1BB, 1K, 100PT. It also was his first complete game win of his career, despite having a few complete games under his belt already.

Offensively, we were lead by Alfonso Soriano, who for the second night in a row had two home runs, with 3 RBI's, and three runs scored. The other two RBI's came from Mike Young and Rod Barajas (the last run scored on a throwing error). We actually only had 9 hits, but they were placed together well. Young and Teixeira had two each, as well as Soriano's 3. Nix & Barajas chipped in with one each.

Was a nice game to be at - we won. Always good, but the game felt "in control" since the bottom of the second. Nice to not have to sit in the stands going "Oh God, we need 4 runs in the last 2 innings to just tie it".

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

The picture below of Buck Showalter arguing with an umpire below pretty much sums up this game. Pedro Astacio pitched even worse than Chan Ho Park did the first three years here and allowed seven runs in the first inning, and exiting after .2 IP in the game. That's an ERA of 94.5 for this game. Hell, Rangers Captain could probably pitch better than that. Nolan Ryan RIGHT NOW could pitch better than that. Hell, I bet even Jose Canseco could pitch better. OK, I think you get my point. There was a smell coming from the pitcher's mound of epic proportions in the first inning. Oddly enough, that's where it ended.

Joaquin Benoit allowed 4H and 1 run in his 4.1IP. Kameron Loe allowed no runs and a single hit in his two innings. Mahay and CoCo allowed a hit each, but no runs. Our bullpen was pretty spectacular, too bad Astacio was craptacular.

Offensively, Alfonso Soriano led the way with two home runs and four RBI's. Blalock also had a homer, and Gary Matthews chipped in for the 6th RBI. But it wasn't enough due to the craptacularlness of Pedro Astacio. Another of those, and we won't be seeing anymore "Vote for Pedro" signs at the Ballpark, eh?

Buck Showalter got tossed for the first time as a Rangers manager. Was cool though to see him turn his hat around backwards and argue - the mark of a true manager/ump argument, IMO. That and Billy Martin's old "Kicking dirt" piece which I've seen Lou Piniella do a few times. :)

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

We had a 7 run fourth inning, and a 6 run 8th inning. That was pretty much the game in a nutshell. :)

Plus it rained a lot. Don't have time to write about this one. Was nice to get a sweep inside our own division. Plus the Yankees are tied for last place with Tampa Bay. It's all good.

We're back to 500 again. 28 games in, we're at .500 and are in second place, 2.5 games back. Not too bad. Not great, as we seem to be stuck in quicksand in both the pitching and hitting departments. Although you wouldn't know it the last two games in Oakland. Let's see if we can win 3 games in a row this season (a first) and get over .500. :)

Last night was an odd game offensively. We actually were outhit by Oakland 9-7. But we bunched a couple of hits behind a few walks, and a gift infield hit for a 5 spot in the 6th, which was the difference in the game. In fact, pitching wise, this game went much like the night before, with a pitcher doing really fabulously well until he just broke down and allowed a bunch of hits/runs.

Chris Young had a pretty decent line - he went 5.2 IP, 7H, 0R, 3BB, 3K. It's always good when you don't allow any runs, but he did have 10 baserunners during his 5.2IP, which means he was in hot water a couple of times. I liked he tossed a shutout during his time, a little disturbing his WHIP was almost 2. We used four relievers in this game (Regilio, Mahay, Brocail, Shouse), and the only blip between all of them was the HR that Ron Mahay allowed to Durazo to bust up the shutout. Overall, our entire pitching line was quite fabulous, with an ERA of 1.00 for the game.

I'm starting to hear rumblings that Soriano is whining about his being moved to fifth place. He doesn't want to move to SS, he doesn't want to play OF. He doesn't want to bat anywhere else besides fifth, he doesn't want to run unless it's exactly right. Uh, it sounds like he's a candidate to be moved with all the whining. Move him in July and play Esteban German or Ian Kinsler permanently at second. I think Mike Young probably is better served now staying at shortstop. I always assumed he'd go back to 2B after Soriano goes, but I now feel it's better he stay where he is.

Yankees Watch: They got bombed 11-4 by the Devil Rays. Kevin Brown gave up 6 runs in the first - Buhahahaha!

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I thought for awhile there that Kenny Rogers might have had a chance at another perfect game. He started last night's game retiring the first 14 batters in a row. That streak ended in the bottom of the fifth when Mark Ellis doubled to left with one out, ruining the no hitter and the perfect game. Kenny has pitched well this year so far, and last night was the pinnacle of his pitching this season. He very well could have 5 or 6 runs, but our team hasn't rallied behind his pitching. His total line for Monday night:

8IP - 4H - 0R - 2BB - 5K - 109 Pitches

Kenny was masterful. We should have won this game three to nothing, but CoCo almost blew it in the bottom of the ninth. His line was nowhere near as pretty.

1IP - 1H - 2ER - 3BB - 2K - 38 Pitches

If CoCo had blown it, it wouldn't have been the first time. Last year CoCo blew two games Kenny pitched on the road in June. But we got the win. Offensively we didn't have much going on. We had a double in the first inning which was a total gift, as Bobby Kielty blew it, and the official scorer gave us a double when it clearly should have been an error. Hank Blalock will take the double and the RBI, thank you very much. Dellucci had a home run in the third for the second run, and we got an RBI single from Layne Nix in the ninth for the third, and as it turns out, important run. We only had six hits total, Rich Harden was quite good, just Kenny was a bit better.

We're back to 13-14, and are two and a half games behind the Angels at 15-11. Given how sluggish and mediocre we've been playing overall, this is a major surprise to be in this place at the start of May.

Yankees watch: They're 11-15 and firmly in fourth place, 6.5 games behind the Orioles. Random thought: If the Orioles do well, hang in there the entire season, and make the playoffs, I wonder if Peter Angelos will continue to whine about the Nationals in his back yard.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I don't have much time to write commentary on the games this weekend, but I have a few comments..

Fri: Win 7-2. Chan Ho Park? Who has been wearing his uniform?

Sat: Lose 9-2. I was at this game. I enjoyed being at the game. I didn't enjoy our bullpen, though. :(

Sun: Lose 6-5. No time for a commentary.

When this game ended, I could only stare at it in disbelief. This was not a game we were supposed to lose. It just felt like ours the whole way. I'm still a bit stunned. Was nice to see Chris Young pitch so well, though. Wasn't nice to see Almanzar NOT pitch so well.

We'll get over it, but man - was I bummed when this one was over. Don't have time to write much about it, I'm not getting to do the update until almost 5PM the next day, so I don't feel like recalling all those negative feelings right now. :)

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

This game felt like the Rangers' game almost from the start. Rogers shut down the M's in the top of the first, and then we were up 3-0 after the third batter on a Mike Young 3 run home run. Kind of never looked back. We put up a five spot in the bottom of the first, and cruised. Richard Hidalgo provided the other 2 first inning RBI's with a single up the middle. His slump is starting to be disturbing. We picked up a few more runs in the fifth inning on a Mench single, and a Nix single. Nix also added an upper tank home run in the 7th for our 8th and final run. Offensively it seemed to flow pretty well, what with 11 hits overall. Not an insane number of hits, but they were properly put together for best use. :)

Pitching wise, Kenny Rogers finally got some run support, and got his first win of the season on April 27th. CoCo came in to get an inning of work in the 9th, but gave up the two runs. That wasn't pleasant. Shouse and Regilio were in between them, and gave up nothing in their innings. In fact, outside of CoCo, we gave up just three hits in 8 innings and no runs - an extremely well pitched game (CoCo had 3 hits and 2 runs in his one inning).

But the best moment for me of the night was the Philly Phanatic. I grew up in Philly, and like Kevin Mench, I know the greatness that is the Phanatic. I loved the top of the 5th so much with Josh & Tom that I dumped that to DVD so I could watch it later. I really enjoyed him hamming it up with Rangers Captain (who takes a bum rap from a lot of fans around these parts). I would have loved the night even if the Rangers lost 8-2 because of the Phanatic!

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Well, my daughter was born on Saturday April 16th (an 8-0 loss by the Rangers no less - thanks guys!), and when I stopped doing updates a few days before that, the Rangers' stats were a winning percentage of .444, we were tied for third place one game out. I don't do any updates for about 11 games or so, and what do I find when I come back for updates? We've got a winning percentage of .476, we're tied for third and are 1.5 games out. So basically, not much has changed. Which is both good and bad. I would have liked to have made some progress there, but as we've kind of treaded water during this time, no one else has stepped on us to keep us down, either.

In this game, Ryan Drese, who was a very pleasant surprise in 2004 didn't show the same kind of stuff. He was beat around a bit, giving up 11 hits in his 6.1 innings of work. He allowed 5 runs (4ER), and didn't seem to have a good control of the game at any point. He did strike out five, but the way I saw him pitch, that was a surprise. Ron Mahay followed Drese with a pretty good 1.2 innings allowing no runs, which kept us in the game. However, Brocail came in and gave up two in the 9th which to my eyes seemed to deflate the Rangers. We had been down the whole game, but were within striking distance. Just needed one. Then we needed 3 to tie, four to win, and it didn't seem like we had any gas in the tank after Brocail's ninth.

Offensively, we didn't do a whole lot. We had a total of 8 hits. Four of them were home runs (Dellucci, Teixeira, Mench, & Soriano). All of them were solo. That left just four other hits for the entire game. Even given that, we still were very close until the ninth. Just didn't seem to be able to get much going.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Will have a full recap in the morning.

On second thought, no I won't - I have to take my wife to the hospital. :)

There are a lot of jokes in the local press today about "not being a hitters Park", or some other Park joke. I'll resist that, although last night I have to admit I wasn't rooting for him to do bad so he could be released. I have to wonder if he can do what Ryan Drese did last year. So far it seems to be working. And in the ninth game of the season, one of our starting pitchers got a win - and it was Chan Ho Park, of all people! Ho went 6.2 innings, giving up 3ER on 5 hits, and striking out six, including the side in the second. Most of the hits came in his last inning, when Buck adeptly pulled him before it got ugly. But before that, he was electric. I'm not ready to put myself behind him, but it was nice to see him pitch well, and it was nice to see Chan Ho fans in the stands again. If you read some of my early reports when Chan Ho first came here, I absolutely loved the atmosphere the ballpark had when he pitched well. There'd be entire sections of Korean fans, and they'd have signs, they'd have drums, they'd hoot and holler when he did something good. I really REALLY loved that atmosphere. It made me want to come to the ballpark just to check out the Park fans. I miss that. So in a way, yeah - I'd like him to do well, and bring that fun back to the Ballpark. However, my brain says it likely won't happen. We'll see, I guess.

Offensively, we did pretty well last night. Mike Young capitalized on a bases loaded situation with a clearing triple. Barajas, Mench, & Mike Young were all 2 for 4. Soriano was 3 for 5. We had one home run for the night, and it was by Adrian Gonzalez. And wow, was it a no doubter. Off the facade of the upper deck, as far as I can tell, and the Angels' right fielder didn't even make a run for it. The game felt a lot more in control than the final score of 7 to 5 would indicate.

Our bullpen tried to give it away again, but we managed to hold on. Doug Brocail gave up 2 earned runs, although I believe they scored on a Cordero pitch. Cordero did get his third save of the season after it originally wasn't a save situation going into the 9th - he only pitched .1 of an inning.

A win is a win. I'll take it.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

This was a pretty annoying game. We were never really in it, despite losing by only 5. I'll have a recap tomorrow, but I likely won't write much, as I tend to not want to write much about games that annoy me.

I will probably have an update on R.A. Dickey, who seemed to just double over in pain and had to come out of the game for no particular reason that I could tell.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

It's opening day. That's always a fun day. I started the morning at my wife's doctor for our next appointment for the baby checkup. We were there a little longer than anticipated, so I didn't get to spend as much time walking around the park checking out the new things as I usually do. I did make a pass around the ballpark. Some of the things I saw that were changed were..z

1) Covers on the top most part of the escalators going into the third deck. I asked Chuck Morgan, and he said Texas state law made them do that. I think it should have been done ages ago, it's much safer I think, and if you're coming up into rain or sun, it's just better.

2) The big hot dog stand. I didn't have one, but I did see the new giant hot dog. There's a whole article about the hot dog in the Dallas Morning News today, too! It certainly looked pretty large. It better be for $8.

3) The maintenance door in left field which used to say Armitron for years now says Reliant Energy. Additionally, there's a new Borden Milk sign in the bullpen, and a Comcast ad in right field. Speaking of Comcast, it looked like all the TVs in the concourse had Comcast ads underneath them now.

4) Several new player banners in the concourse - Richard Hidalgo was one, saw a new one for Rudy Jaramillo.

5) The Rangers score was finally taken off the left field scoreboard, so we can get all of the out of town scores on there now. Since the Devil Rays & Diamondbacks were added, one game wasn't shown, as the original configuration of the Ballpark's scoreboard didn't have enough slots to display all the newer teams. Now it does, since the Rangers game isn't shown there.

But overall, there really weren't a whole lot of changes to the ol' Ballpark since last season. Was nice being out there, and it was a great day weather wise. We had the usual pregame stuff, a marching band, the military made an appearance, and we had a plane flyover - a B52 bomber that was pretty close. I managed to get a good shot of that as it flew over. There was a really cool looking flag that the military guys held out on the field - was a US flag, but it was in the shape of the United States, too. I liked that.

The one moment I was really looking forward to during the pregame ceremonies was the unveiling of the Johnny Oates sign unveiling. They had Gloria Oates (his widow), and Adam Oates (his son) there. But the entire thing was RUINED by the fact that they had a gaggle of photographers standing in front of the damn thing! I COULDN'T SEE IT - and I wager most people couldn't either. It was really annoying - I mean to the point where it made me made enough to register a complaint there, and then I also called Chuck Morgan on Tuesday morning and expressed my distaste with this. Oates meant a lot to me, a lot more than he does to most people, because I knew him from outside his days as a Ranger manager. And the stupid damned photographers just stood in the way, and you couldn't see any damn thing that was going on there. They need to GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY - so that the fans can see things. Good Lord did that make me mad! :( And I really wanted to enjoy that moment, too. Even the TV cameras were interfered with if you watched the TV coverage of it. :(

Once the game got started, I calmed down a bit, as there's always something to be sitting in the sun at a ballpark, scoring a game, and having a beer. It was great, no matter how good or how bad one's team is. So when Soriano got us out to 1-0 with a leadoff home run, the day felt good. We were up 2-0 after the first, and even after Anaheim tied it in the third, it still felt good. Felt even better after 5 when we were up 6-2. However, that was the end of our scoring. The Angels pecked away with runs in the 7th, 8th, & 9th to tie the game, finally winning it in the 10th. Kenny Rogers was fine, going seven innings giving up three runs. We had beat up Jarrod Washburn for 6 runs in 5.1 innings - I was feeling good. Ryan Bukvich wasn't - he gave up two in his .2 of work. Cordero blew his second save in four tries, and RA Dickey gave up a home run to lose the game. The bullpen curse isn't very good. I'm refusing to blame it all on the non appearances of Francisco & Alamanzar. I know that's part of it, but the guys who are there shouldn't be tanking like this so much just because two guys aren't there. That doesn't feel right. Offensively, three of our six runs came from the longball. Soriano in the first, Barajas in the fourth, & Blalock in the fifth. We had a lot of hits all over the place, 14 in all. We left 9 men on base in all, twice we left the bases loaded! ARGH! Frustrating.

Generally when games are sellouts, or near sellouts, to avoid traffic, I tend to work my way downstairs before the game was over. This time was no different. After the Rangers batted in the 8th, I took off for the lower concourse. I usually watch the game on the TV's as I walk down the concourse from home plate to first base. Then I'll watch it from the open area underneath section 40-41 and avoid ushers who want to boot you out of there. However, this time, when we didn't win it in the bottom of the 9th, I left. Which is very unusual for me. I hate leaving games early, but this game gave me a feeling of doom. Plus with 50,000 there and it being 4PM, I wanted to avoid the 5PM rush hour going through Dallas back to Garland. I got to my truck right as the Rangers were batting in the bottom of the 10th, and they didn't put it together at all, so I didn't miss anything in the time I left. Plus I actually felt a little guilty being there at the game when my wife was at home feeling rather uncomfortable from being 39.5 weeks pregnant. I went, I had a good time, but I didn't enjoy it like I normally would. Was worried about my wife, the thing with the photographers and the Oates ceremony irritated me, and the ending of the game really irritated me.

One amusing moment during the player introductions was Mike Young. Chuck Morgan started off by saying "Playing Shortstop #3... "Playing Shortstop #10"... He accidentally read Arod's Number instead of Mike Young's number, although he corrected himself before the name was read. I felt it was an amusing gaffe, I didn't think much about it. However, Channel 4 news really picked on him. They did a story about it, how "We thought we were done with Arod", and they talked to about 3 or 4 people in the stands. I thought it was a bit much by Channel 4 to pick on Chuck like that - was an honest mistake. I called him this morning and asked, and he said there's new lineup cards this year that are different than what he got before, and the #3 was the batting order, not Arod's number - that part was coincidence, but he was reading the player's batting number order, not the former position holder there.

However, it was nice to say hi to Kirobaito & Douglas from my forums - thanks for stopping by guys!

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

With my wife due to give birth almost any day, I spent this evening out to a nice dinner with her, and wasn't thinking much about writing commentary for my site. I did watch the game, it was a good win, but I'm not going to write much, as I need to head to bed (as I write this, it's 1:15AM).

Drese wasn't terribly good today, Dellucci got a HR off a lefty, and we got some help from a fan in right field who Bartmanned a foul ball.

Of the six games we've played so far this year, this was the fifth decided by one run.

Tomorrow's the home opener! Yeah!

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

Let's hear it for the new guys!

This was a game where our new acquisitions had a major part in the win today. First off is Pedro Astacio. I have to admit I was in the camp of "Why the hell did we sign this guy"? He struck me a someone who wouldn't pitch will in our park, he has a history of big ERA's, etc... So it was much to my amazement, and I suspect every Rangers fan, that he was absolutely masterful today. He went seven innings, giving up 6 hits, only 2 runs with seven strikeouts, and NO walks. Watching his fastball tail back in against left handers was stunning - there was some pinpoint control, he was getting both corners. It really made me excited to see him pitch again. If he keeps this up all season - wow, would that be a steal of a signing.

The other new guys who were a big deal today were Richard Hidalgo and Sandy Alomar. Alomar was someone again who most Ranger fans thought "Uh, why?" But for this day, he was really on the ball with his offense. He went 3 for 4 with 3 RBI's. They were all singles, but hey, they were productive, as he drove in three. Richard Hidalgo, who made some nice running catches in the field was only 1 for 5 today, but WOW was the one a big one. It was a two run home run in the ninth to give us the win. On TV we saw him running the bases with his arms both outstretched. Was a great moment. Can't forget Hank Blalock's two run home run too, which was set up my Mr. Boone. :)

So let's hear it for the new guys! Something else that's new that I didn't care for is this really nasty trend the first week for the bullpen to not be able to hold anything. I know Almanzar & Francisco aren't here, but that alone shouldn't account for the almost total collapse of the bullpen. I don't have numbers to back up this feeling, but it seems that everyone they bring up lights it up. It feels like spring training again, only with guys that matter instead of the guys you won't be seeing again like you get in spring training. I mean - OUCH! At least Cordero got a save today, although he was very Wetteland like in allowing two men on base before closing the door.

The end of the game was definitely a rollercoaster, what with allowing four runs in the bottom of the 8th to blow the lead, and then scoring 4 runs in the top of the ninth to win it. A most enjoyable finish to the game, if the road to get there wasn't so wonderful. It saves us from the embarrassing potential start of 1-4. We're 2-3 now, which is just fine, as the rest of our division is pretty much with that same record. :)

Still, a win is a win, and I'm really encouraged by Astacio's performance today.

P.S. Thanks again, Bret Boone. That really helped.

You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.

I'm just too mad to do an update on this on Friday night. :( It's our bullpen letting us down again, which is a disturbing trend, even if it's only Week #1.

If you have something to add, don't forget to use the "Leave a Comment" link right below this text.

The 9PM start time problem hit me early this season. I fell asleep in the middle of the game, and then I got so tired, I stopped watching before it was over. I really wish we could get out of the AL West, not because of the competition, but of the late start times.

Anyway, what I did see wasn't that great. Chris Young did not get off to a good start, throwing a boatload of pitches in the first few innings (92 over 4IP), giving up seven hits and 3 earned runs in his 4 innings pitched (for an ERA of 6.75). R.A. Dickey who followed him didn't do much better. He pitched only two, and gave up an additional 3 earned runs. New pickup Matt Riley looked pretty decent, even getting Guerrero in a rundown between third and home. Bukvich, who is probably headed back to AAA when Almanzar comes back, or when we activate Astacio on Saturday. Brian Shouse took the loss, giving up the winning run to Steve Finley in extra innings (our second of those in 3 games).

Offensively, we were shut down for the most part by John Lackey, who looked even better than Colon & Washburn the last few nights. For the first four innings, he was lights out. But he ran out of gas in the fifth, and we put up a four spot to (at that time) take the lead. We even scored two runs on two wild pitches (including one that doinked catcher Molina in the facemask) - but Dickey couldn't hold it. Of the six hits, only Mike Young had more than one (2). Hank Blalock got a hit, but he's still slow getting out of the gate, with an average of .077 at the moment. One of the big highlights was the 15 pitch at bat by Adrian Gonzalez which lead to a walk (and later a run) when Dave Dellucci doubled him (and Hidalgo). Soriano's hit was a home run, and it seems his power is OK.

General comment: The more I watch him, the better I feel about the acquisition of Richard Hidalgo. It could change of course, but for now, he seems like a really good pickup. The only real worry is that the stated reason of using this year as a springboard means we likely won't bring him back next year, as we have several kids behind him.

You can view my full update for this game here.

The second game felt an awful lot like the first one. We gave up a run in the first inning, and then it stayed that way for a long time. We were "right there" the whole way, but couldn't bring anyone across. It got a bit more irritating when we left five men on base in the first two innings alone! Just couldn't get it done. In fact, the game stayed 1-0 until the eighth.

In the middle of that, Kenny Rogers had a ball batted up the middle pretty fast that he tried to catch with his glove, but replays showed it nicked the top of his pitching hand. That's two games in a row that Jamie Reed had to come out and deal with something (in fact, twice in this game too, as Hidalgo got hit in the kneecap with a pitched ball earlier). Rogers stayed in after that, but eventually came out of his own request after six innings. Unfortunately, Jarrod Washburn was like Colon the night before, and was pretty untouchable in terms of runs anyway. :) So Kenny left with a loss on the hook.

However, in the eighth, our new right fielder paid dividends. Richard Hidalgo jacked a two run home run over the short left field corner wall in Angel Stadium for a 2-1 lead. These kinds of games tend to turn emotionally pretty quickly - at that time, I assumed the game was won. It felt like a win. But Cordero couldn't hold it. Actually, Cordero came in early in the 8th after Doug Brocail & Ron Mahay left him with bases loaded. Got out of that, but in the bottom of the ninth, but a ground rule double scored Josh Paul to tie the game up and send it to extra innings. We almost really blew it the bottom of the eleventh. Ryan Bukvich had pitched a good 10th, but in the 11th, he was wild, putting two on with nobody out, but some picking and choosing of relief pitchers by Showalter got us out of that.

It set the stage for Alfonso Soriano's game winning HR in the top of the 12th. Brian Shouse, who pitched the final 1.1 innings, picked up the win. There were a lot of pitchers used total. The Rangers used 7 (Rogers, Brocail, Mahay, Cordero, Bukvich, Dickey, Shouse) and the Angels used 6 (Washburn, Shields, Donnelly, Yan, KRod, & Prinz).

Did anyone think that Tom Grieve was really going to give out his phone number? Was amusing, though. He did narrow it down, if someone wants to dial 1,000 phone numbers, they could get through. :)

You can view my full update for this game here.

The season started. I was messing with my wife while watching the game - I said "You know when this game is over, that's one less game in the season to look forward to". I almost got slapped upside the head for that, but I did get a good solid glare. It was nice to have Josh & Tom back on the TV, but I'm sure Tom doesn't like those intros where the camera is looking top down. :)

Ryan Drese was our opening day starter, and we haven't had the same guy do two consecutive opening day starts since Ken Hill in 96-97, so he's another on the carousel. Speaking of that, we had another opening day center fielder this year which is like 10 out of the last 11 years with a different guy or something. Drese was really well - in fact, other than Vlad Guerrero, he was spectacular. No shame in falling to Guerrero, he could probably golf a ball out of a home run if it was underground! We got our first quality start in the first game of the season. Drese went seven innings, giving up six hits and 3ER. Two of which were directly attributable to Vlad. So while it was disappointing that the birthday boy did not get a win, he pitched really well, and it was a good sign of things to come, I would think.

On the other side, our nemesis, Bartolo Colon went 6.2 innings, giving up just one run and six hits. He did seem to labour a lot more (Colon had 108 pitches in 6.2 and Drese had just 87 in 7 IP). We did have our chances, we left nine men on base, including four in the first two innings. Colon felt beatable last night, but we couldn't cross the line and get the win, although we played really well.

Offensively, we only had a total of seven hits. Only four of our players had hits, everyone else was an ofer. Soriano went 2 for 5, Tex went 2 for 4, and had a HR, Gary Matthews went 2 for 4, although one of his hits was wiped out when he tried to stretch a single into a double, and almost made it with a really weird acrobatic "slide". The final hit was from Mike Young, who got a hit to the right side of the field (what a shocker). In fact, one of Teixeira's hits was a single that should have been a double. It looked like a HR off the bat, but hit the wall, and Guerrero absolutely cannoned the ball back to second - it was quite amazing to watch. I always liked this guy for years in Montreal when no one had heard of him. Glad to see him getting a bigger audience.

We lost the game, which is never good, but I didn't much mind. It was Game #1. :)

You can view my full update for this game here.

I'm going to be on vacation until Tuesday, so I'm not going to do updates for the remaining spring training games, but I'll be back when the regular season starts on Tuesday.

I will cover roster moves made during this time, though.

I'm going to be on vacation until Tuesday, so I'm not going to do updates for the remaining spring training games, but I'll be back when the regular season starts on Tuesday.

I will cover roster moves made during this time, though.

Well, that was a mess. About the only good thing is that Chan Ho Park gave up 9 hits and 8 runs in 5 innings. And today is decision day on the roster according to the local press. Look at the line score. It was brutally ugly going back and forth.

                       1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9  10   R  H  E
                       -  -  -   -  -  -   -  -  -  --   -  -  - 
  TEXAS                0  1  2   4  0  1   0  0  2   2  12 15  1
  SAN DIEGO            4  0  0   0  2  3   0  1  0   3  13 16  1

You can view the rest of my update on this game here.

As I write this, the game has ended, but I haven't seen any box scores on the game. But with a score of 2-1, you can be pretty assured of one thing. There was a lot of pitching and defense. There always is in a 2-1 score. Was definitely a crisp moving game, coming in at only 2:13.

The linescore is in, and that alone tells me a few things. Chris Young pitched well. The two runs he gave up were in the first and the sixth. The run from the first was a home run to JT Snow, and the Rangers tied it up in the fourth with our only run, a solo home run by Gary Matthews Jr (who seems more and more to be not just a backup outfielder). But that was it for Rangers offense. We did have seven hits all told, but the only one that mattered was Matthews' jack. Chris Young was a hard luck loser today. :(

Our old buddy Al Levine, who is with the Giants (I wasn't aware of that) got the save. Nice to see him hanging around. I rather liked him when he was a Ranger awhile back.

This game started off pretty much like one would want it to. The starting pitcher was great, we got off to a lead early, and it held up. Kenny Rogers went 4 strong innings, giving up just one hit, one walk, and had six strikeouts, for no runs. The guys who followed for the next 3 innings (Montero, Bukvich, & Feldman) all gave up a total of no runs and 2 hits (both by Feldman). It was looking like a walkway win, a great one with great pitching.

Then we hit the eighth inning. RA Dickey came on for the eighth, and after some glowing praise by Josh Lewin (might have been Tom Grieve, I can't remember now), he proceeded to not only let the Brewers back in the game (at that point, we were winning 4-0), but let them tie and then TAKE the lead by giving up an ugly six spot. After the top of the 8th, we were losing 6-4. Dickey was totally ineffective in this game, and even gave up a balk.

That was pretty disheartening. But in an inning that had shades of last May against the Tigers, we managed to pull off our own six spot in the bottom of the frame to retake the lead, and the game. I believe we had 7 straight singles at one point - although at least one of them probably should have been an error. It was nice to see the team (although at this point, the regulars were all out of the game) come back. Laynce Nix was a later inning replacement, and went 2 for 2 with 2 RBI's. In fact, two was the number of the day, as several of our guys had two hits.. Soriano, Mike Young, Adrian Gonzalez, Mark Teixeira, & Kevin Mench. A pretty nicely balanced attack.

The bonus for me was that this was the first Rangers game on TV with Josh & Tom. There were two games on ESPN earlier in the spring, but we didn't have our guys in the booth. This time we did. It's likely going to be the only spring TV game I get to see, as there are two this weekend, but my brother will be in visiting, so I doubt I'll be watching much Ranger baseball.

You can view my full update for this game here.

One of the guys who has been a phenom this spring has been the White Sox pitcher Brandon McCarthy. His line has been fabulous. But not anymore. The Rangers torched him. McCarthy gave up 9 hits and 7 earned runs in 3.2 IP. The amusing thing is that none of the other White Sox pitchers gave up anything. We had scored all our runs in the second (5) and third (2) innings. After that, donut. Cotts, Hermanson, & Walker kept the Ranger bats under check for 5.1 innings. But the pasting we put on McCarthy was more than enough.

In the pasting was a home run by Hank Blalock (his first of the spring). In total, Blalock and 3 RBI's. Gerald Laird had two, and Adrian Gonzalez had one. In fact Gonzalez went 3 for 4, and is looking more like a guy who is ready to come up to the majors in my eyes. I suspect if he doesn't make it up this season, he might get moved, unless we're holding on to him incase Teixeira/Boras wants insane money for Tex to stay. Richard Hidalgo also went 2 for 4, and is looking like an awesome acquisition so far this spring. Alfonso Soriano seems to have broken out of his slump, going 2 for 3 this game, although from what I'm reading, he still isn't at 100%, and it might be mental.

Pitching wise, Ryan Drese pitched like he was in mid season form, going 6 innings, 5 hits, and just one earned run. The only downside is that he walked 4 and only struck out 3. But still, he got the job done, and has earned the opening game nod from Buck Showalter; Kenny Rogers gets the home opener. Our other pitchers (Nunez, Tejera, Wasdin, & Brocail) gave up just one run (it was Tejera) over their combined 3 IP.

Overall, a very well played game. Too bad we haven't had more of these this spring.

You can view my full report for this game here.

I don't know what you know about Christian Holy Week ceremonies, but I spent the night before at church in a vigil, and as such I got under two hours of sleep for the night. I crapped out early on Friday night, I was blowing z's by 9PM, which means I heard little of the Rangers game.

Ricardo Rodriguez broke his streak of awesome pitching performances this spring with a real "Chan Ho" type of outing, going 4.1 innings, giving up 12 hits, and 6 earned runs. Ron Mahay who also has been spectacular all spring had a stinker of his own, giving up 3 hits and 3 earned runs in his one inning of work. Not a good night for our staff at all, save for Ryan Bukvich who gave up nothing in his 1.2 innings of work.

Offensively, I can't really tell what happened with the Rangers, as all the online box scores are broken, giving zeroes across the board for every Ranger player, and it only lists the starters, too. Some highlights I can glean from repots are that Kevin Mench had a home run, as did Gerald Laird (his third), who seems to be trying to win back his job again, he's playing as well as he did last spring too, I think.

You can view my full update for this game here.

The Rangers beat the Royals 6-4 behind a mostly good performance by Chan Ho Park (damn). Proper update on Friday.

No time to write a proper story for this, as I didn't get to do THIS until after 5PM the day after this game happened. I will say this. We finally won, and it's interesting that the combined scores of today's and yesterday's game was A's 25, Rangers 22. Lots of runs in the last 18 innings of baseball. :)

You can view my full update for this game here.

Ugh. In the first two innings, I felt like we were going to have a good second half of spring training. That died in the third inning. We went into the third up 6 to nothing. We left the top of the third losing 7-6. Then after the fourth, we were losing 9-7. Only two runs, and 5 more innings to play at that point, but it just felt bad. I did listen to this game over MLB.com's Gameday Audio on the A's feed. Was nice of them to have Eric Nadel & Victor Rojas on there as guests, and they made a couple of shoutouts to "Ranger fans listening". Nice of them to be cognizant of that issue.

Anyway, in listening it felt like there wasn't any pitching at all in the game. It was hit after hit after run scored, etc.. Total of 24 runs and 25 hits between the two teams - not much good pitching going on. In fact, Ron Mahay was the only real bright spot for us pitching wise, going two innings and giving up no hits, and no walks. Wes Littleton only pitched .1 of an inning and he didn't give up anything, but that doesn't really count, IMO. The other guys (Regilio, Hughes, & Bukvich) just stunk up the place.

Offensively, it was nice to see a couple of home runs from Sandy Alomar (that still seems weird talking about him as a Ranger), and Laynce Nix, who needs to turn it around in a hurry to keep from losing his starting job to Gary Matthews, who in my opinon has earned it. Scary moment in the first inning though as Teixeira got plunked with a pitch, and came out of the game after trying to stay in. It didn't sound good listening to the game, and on Wednesday it doesn't seem like it's a big deal, but still - you never want to see that to one of your better players.

We're awfully close to having the worst record in the majors during spring training. We're already the worst in Cactus League play. We're 6-14 (.300), and the next worst are the Royals at 7-11 (.400), and two games ahead of us. Over in Grapefruit League play, only the Marlins have a worse record than us at 6-15 (.295), but we're pretty close to falling below them. :(

You can view my full update for this game here.

Well, we've reached the "unofficial" half way point of spring training (at least for me). This is the lone scheduled off day, and we reach this point with a winning percentage of 315, having gone 6-13. Most of the games (including Sunday's) have been of the kind where our "regular" players are doing OK, but the guys who won't be here come opening day are tanking the games, and are causing this record. The cliché of "it's only spring training" leaps to mind here, but even with that, it's still disturbing to see your team 6-13 with only 13 more games to go. That means we have to win 10 of the remaining 13 games to get to .500 for spring, and that's not happening. I can see the DMN & FTW papers having a gloomy outlook.

Something that's not gloomy is Ricardo Rodriguez' performance in Spring Training. He's looked really awesome the last few times out, and my gut feeling says that assuming Ranger management doesn't screw it up and hand the job to RA Dickey or someone else, RicRod should be a great addition to the starting rotation. I rather like what he's doing, which is something I can't say about most any other of the starting pitchers. While no one has really stunk up the joint completely, RicRod just feels electric, and Sunday was no different. His line was 5IP, 0R, 6K, 1BB. Kameron Loe & Travis Hughes got torched, between the two of them, they gave up 7H, 6ER in 1.2IP. That was pretty much the game there.

Offensively, our leader of the day was an unusual one, it was Manny Alexander, who went 4 for 4 with 1 RBI, 2 runs scored, and a double. Alfonso Soriano had a mini hitting streak, going 2 for 5, increasing his total number of spring training hits to 4. Sandy Alomar, who has been mostly absent from spring training games that I've noticed went 2 for 4 as well, as did Kevin Mench.

I doubt much we're going to get back to .500, but it would be nice to see us play a bit more consistently - hell, I'll take good as spring training winds down.

You can view my full update for this game here.

I was finding myself in a weird position yesterday. I was rooting against my own starting pitcher. When a Ranger would catch the ball, I'd get mad. When Park would strike someone out, I'd be irritated. In fact, I got four and two thirds innings of that, as Chan Ho Park pitched well again for the second outing in a row. Only one of the 3 runs Park gave up were earned (thanks to Soriano). All told Park's line was 4 hits, 3R, 1ER, 4K, OBB. No walks again. It's even been a couple of outings since Park plunked someone with a HBP. The scary thing is if Park does this two more times in a row, people might start to believe he's figured it out, and I just can't bring myself to do that. I think it's a given he'll make the club out of camp, but how long will it last? Even if he does pitch well into the season, no one will believe it. They'll wait for the other shoe to drop, for him to walk 5, give up 4 home runs, and hit 3, and then people will say "The real Chan Ho is back". The three years before were an enigma. He was expected to pitch well, and didn't. Now he's NOT expected to pitch well (or even keep his job according to a lot of folks), so he goes and is having a fairly decent spring. I'm scared.

Other folks who aren't doing what they're supposed to are Laynce Nix, who still hasn't gotten it going. He's never really been a "tear it up and bat 340 hitter", so I wonder how he'll recover from his slow spring. Alfonso Soriano, who possibly still could be hurt, either physically, or can't bring his mind to bear on getting past that mental barrier folks need to get past to get back to where they were playing wise. He's got two hits out of about 5,000 at bats this spring, and he made two errors yesterday. Neither Nix nor Soriano are doing very well at all this spring, for whatever reason. With Gary Matthews doing really well, if Nix doesn't get it together soon, he's likely to find himself on the bench, or in AAA. Soriano will stay simply because of his contract, but if he keeps doing this into May, we might find Ian Kinsler at second, or someone else entirely. Who knows?

Anyway, about this game - we had a few longballs in the third (Young, Barajas) to give us a 3-2 lead in the third. The Angels tied it up in the 5th, and it stayed that way until extra innings, where we did what we usually do. Give up a couple in the top of the 10th, and then don't score any ourselves. RA Dickey pitched the 10th, and was the losing pitcher, having given up both of those runs.

We play the Brewers on Sunday afternoon, hopefully we can pick up a win, something that has been hard to come by lately. Be nice to have a win going into our lone scheduled off day on Monday.

You can view my full update for this game here.

I'm back with an update - sort of. I posted pages for the last three games (including today's). However, I haven't had the time to add commentary of my own, so I'm just posting them w/o that.

On Wednesday we beat the Diamondbacks pretty well 9-2. We then lost to the Giants by the score of 7-5, and today to the Padres 4-2.

Overall, we're now 6-11 for the spring.

I unfortunately am too busy to create a page for this game. We won the game, but that's about all I have time to write today. :)

If I find some time this evening, I might back create one, but for now, I don't think I will have the time to do this. Today's game might also get shafted. Gotta do the paycheck stuff first, ya know.

That winning streak of one is over. We lost the second of two split squad games on Tuesday to the Brewers by the score of 6-4. This game was on Rangers radio, but I didn't get to hear much but the end of it. As my wife is now exactly 4 weeks from delivery, I'm trying not to spend time away from her if she wants to do something, or if she needs something, so boring her with a spring training radio broadcast wasn't what I had in mind for the evening. We watched some of The Incredibles, which came out on DVD Tuesday.

I don't have the time to write anything on Wednesday, as I've got a pile of work staring me in the face, so I'll just let folks read the rest of the page update I have.

The Rangers finally won again for the first time in almost a week. We won the first of the day's two games. This was the split squad game against the Rockies. We won 1-0 in 10 innings.

I sat here at work refreshing this page. I kept seeing the zeroes pile up in the line score. Got past the ninth, and I wondered how long they would continue a split squad game in extra innings. It was a fast mover, going 2:45 for 10 innings, but there were virtually zero runs, and no TV to bog things down, so that's probably why these things move much faster in spring training. :)

Anyway, even before I saw a box score (which I still haven't seen as I write this), I knew it would be all about pitching. 10 innings, and only one total run, there was definitely some pitching going on.

RicRod continues to show he is picking up right where he left off when he got hurt last summer. He went 4.2 innings gave up no runs, and just three hits. Ron Mahay & Erasmo Ramirez followed, and between the two of 'em, they pitched 4.1 innings. No runs, just two hits (both by Eraser). The final frame was pitched by Keith Stamler (a name I don't recognize), and he got the win. Overall, 10IP, 0R, 5H, 6K, 5BB. I suppose the five walks are the worst thing, but we didn't get burnt by 'em.

Offensively, obviously not much happened, either. He had a total of 9 hits. Only one player (Joaquin Arias, 2) had more than 1 hit. I would have loved to have seen this game myself, this must have been a fun one to behold.

You can view my full update for this game here.

The Rangers dropped their fifth in a row to the Angels this afternoon by the score of 10-6. It started out OK. In fact, it started out GREAT! Chan Ho Park pitched four innings, gave up no runs, one hit (which was a bunt single), and had two strikeouts. He even didn't have his random hit by pitch he always seems to have. But I hate it when Park does this, because we all know he'll be right back to the old ChoP we know and love and give up 600 runs the next time out. I'm tired of being teased like this by him. He might even put out a good performance next time. But it won't last. Let's cut him now. Put someone else in there.

The next two pitchers actually kept us in the game. Carlos Almanzar and Vlad Nunez gave up no earned runs, although Nunez had an unearned one. But then not only did the wheels fall off the wagon, but the wagon itself fell apart. Jason Stanridge gave up 7 runs (6ER) in his inning of work, and Kameron Loe gave up two runs (1ER) of his own following that. The wagon destroying 8th inning had the Angels had the first 9 batters reach without an out; they sent a total of 14 that inning. The Rangers comitted 3 errors, and gave up a total of 9 runs. We were winning the game 4-1 at that point, but were losing 10-4 at the end of the inning. This is the point where people who write about the team say that "it's just spring training, and these guys aren't going to be here come April anyway". That's true, but man, does a 9 spot look UGLY up there.

Offensively, we had a total of 12 hits. Rod Barajas went 3 for 3 with a double & Adrian Gonzalez was 2 for 4 and an RBI to lead the charge. No home runs, but Hank Blalock had a triple. Mike Young also had a double and two RBI's. The offense was mostly scattered around.

We're now down five in a row to 4-8.

You can view my complete update for this game here.

My wife and I were doing some stuff together yesterday, as we won't have much time for that in a few weeks once the baby arrives. So we're driving around, and I turned on the XM baseball schedule, and they said the Rangers were on Channel 181. I turned there, and it was Eric! I had forgotten the Rangers were on the radio. So we listened while we were driving around.

I tuned in when we were up 2-0. Then I got to hear Richard Hidalgo hit his second home run, and I got to hear Alfonso Soriano finally get his first hit of the spring - a home run as well. So we were up 5-0. Made a stop, and when we came out, it had gone to 5-3. Uh-oh. As we were driving around, we lost the lead due to some ineffective pitching in the middle innings. We picked up one in the bottom of the 8th to make it 7-6, but we couldn't get the important tying run across the plate. Wasn't really a see-saw game, as the lead only changed hands once. Seemed more like a "club the other guy" game. We scored 5. They scored 7, and then we had one late as a final whimper.

Pitching wise, Chris Young did really well his first three innings, not giving up anything. If I'm not mistaken, his entire line came in inning 4, when he likely ran out of gas, which isn't too common in the first third of spring training games. Travis Hughes came on and poured more gasoline on the fire, giving up 4 runs in his one inning of work. The remaining pitchers we used (Brocail, Montero, Shouse) kept things at bay, not giving up anything else, but we couldn't come all the way back.

That led us to our fourth spring loss in a row. Last win was last Wednesday against the Cubs. Hopefully Mondays' game against the Angels will be different. :)

You can view my recap page here.

Last Saturday my wife had her baby shower, and today we had a birthing class to attend, so I didn't get ot listen to much Eric & Vince on the radio so far this spring. I did hear them for a bit today, which was nice to hear after the ESPN guys calling Ranger games. Bleargh!

Anyway, in a move I wasn't aware of ahead of time, last year's first round pick Thomas Diamond started the game today. He walked the first two batters, then calmed down, and didn't give up anything else except one hit (and no runs) in his two innings of work. I didn't get to hear this part of the game, so I couldn't get a guage as to how sharp he was, but it was nice to hear he did well overall. I seriously doubt he's a contender for the rotation, this is probably just a nice look-see. I suspect we might see Diamond in September. Possibly next year.

That was the end of our good pitching for the day. The remaining pitchers we used (Regilio, Bukvich, Ramirez, & Rupe) all gave up runs. Bukvich gave up 5 (3ER). Most of this was in an ugly 6 spot we gave up in the bottom of the 6th. Crooked numbers in the linescore are never good when your opponent gets 'em. Never.

Offensively, we had a total of 9 hits, no one player with more than one. The three runs were batted in by Young, Matthews, & Blalock. On the plus side, four of our 9 hits were doubles (Colbrunn, Derosa, Blalock, & Young). Alfonso Soriano didn't play today. I didn't hear why, I don't know if it's health related, or they just gave him a day off. But Soriano is still hitless in spring training as far as I know.

The less drops us to 4-6 in Cactus league play, and we now have a three game losing streak.

You can view my recap page here.

I didn't realize that this game was on XM Radio right away, or I would have listened to it earlier. When I started listening, we were down 3-0 going into the top of the seventh. It was at that point we put together a two out rally to take the lead, 4-3. It was started on a two out two strike single by Gerald Laird, and then several other hits followed at that point. Right after that inning ended, I had to stop listening, as I had something I had to do. Good thing, as we immediately gave up the lead, and never scored again. So I got to hear the best part. :)

Of the 6 runs we gave up today, only two were earned. Kameron Loe gave up 3 runs, all unearned. Juan Domignuiez gave up 3 as well, two of his were earned. What's more amusing is that the four runs we scored in the seventh were all unearned. Of the 10 runs scored by both teams, 8 of them were unearned. That doesn't usually happen. Bartolo Colon looked in mid season form according to his box score. 4.2IP, 4H, 0ER, 5K.

Offensively, Gary Matthews Jr went 3 for 3 with a stolen base. That was the leading offensive performance by a Ranger today. On the flip side, Soriano still hasn't gotten a hit in all of spring training. I think he's 0-13 now or something like that.

This loss drops us under .500 for the spring.

You can view my recap page here.

I don't have time for a full recap today. In fact, as I write this, the box scores haven't shown up online anywhere, so I can't even make one up (which is what I have to do when I don't get to see or hear the game).

Didn't look like a great game from watching the box scores while it was going on. The only bright spot from what I can tell was Adrian Gonzalez who had both Ranger RBI's with a pinch hit double. Beyond that I don't have any other info.

You can view my recap page here.

This was a refresh the line score game. I saw us take a 1-0 lead in the top of the first, and I thought things would be fine. Then I saw the score after the bottom of the first. We were losing 3-1. Our good old buddy Chan Ho Park gave up three runs in the bottom of the first. In typical Park fashion, he had one stinker of an inning, and the rest were pretty decent. Overall Park gave up 3ER in his 3 innings of work. Not that good (that's an ERA of 9), but the three in the first was a real eye roller. Jason Standridge, who got the win, also gave up 2ER in his 2 innings of work. The remainder of the pitchers we used (Shouse, Brocail, and Rupe) didn't give up anything. Rupe also picked up a save. Oh yeah, there appeared to be the random hit batter by Park. That was something that Josh & Tom talked about a lot, the seemingly out of nowhere hit batter. There was one in Park's line, I suspect it was the random kind. :)

Speaking of pitching, Kerry Wood started for the Cubs, and took himself out of the game after the second after feeling a strain in his right shoulder. Wood gave up a run in his two innings, but we staged a comeback against former Ranger prospect Ryan Dempster, picking up 3 runs (2ER), and finishing it off with two runs against Cubs reliever Roberto Novoa.

Offensively, no one really stood out. We had 5 RBI's (one of our runs was unearned), and no one had more than one. Teixeira was 2 for 3, and Esteban German was 2 for 4. But everyone else had a single hit. We did also leave 14 runners on base, so it could have been an explosion; we just left too many guys out there to really dominate this game. Still, we got a win, and that's all that really matters in the long run.

Also, Alfonso Soriano is 0-12 to start his spring training games. I don't think it will be a problem in the long run, but seeing that stat did make me raise an eyebrow.

View my complete update for this game here.

The Rangers lost to the Giants this afternoon by the score of 5 to 1.

Offensively, we had virtually nothing. We had a total of 6 hits that were pretty scattered through the game, and we only had 2 up until the 7th inning. We had a home run by Richard Hidalgo in the 7th for our third hit, mounting effectively no offensive attack. We also didn't have most of the regular lineup, either. No Teixeira, no Blalock, no Soriano. That's ultimately no excuse, but when your biggest boppers aren't in the lineup, you don't expect to score as many runs as you have been the last few games (picking up 16 in one game and 17 in another over the last few). We did make it a little interesting in the 9th with a hit, and a walk, but didn't mount anything serious.

Chris Young started the game, and did fairly well going three innings and not giving up anything. Carlos Almanzar was beat up a bit for two runs in the fourth to take the loss.

But basically, this day belonged to the Giants pitching. We got nothing really going, and other than Hidalgo's HR, no Ranger passed home plate.

View my complete update for this game here.

This was the first time we got to see the Rangers on TV this season. However, it wasn't our TV guys, it was the ESPN crew, none of which really excited me, as the guy they had doing play by play is their hockey guy, isn't it?

Anyway, Nick Regilio, who had a looksee last year as one of the 17 guys we had start games in 2004 was the starter. He went 2.1 innings, and gave up just one run on 3 hits, although he walked two. In fact, I believe one of the walks was the run he gave up. However, the next two pitchers kind of stunk up the joint. Lou Pote, who I don't expect to be on the roster come April gave up 3 runs on 3 hits in 1.2 innings, which included two HR's. However, Nick Masset didn't do much better. He also went 1.2, but gave up 7 hits, and 5ER! Eeek! The remaining three pitchers we used (Hughes, Bukvich, & Nunez) didn't give up anything in the combined 3.1 IP between them.

Offensively, not a lot going on. The four RBI's were from Kinsler, Dellucci, Colbrunn, & Kevin Mench. Mike Young was the only player with more than one hit (he went 2-3).

I'm feeling better, although not totally clear of the health issues I had this past week, so I should be a bit more timely in my updates.

View my complete update for this game here.

I was still sick, plus I had family in town this weekend for my wife's baby shower, so there wasn't much going on with me baseball wise. Was nice to see the can of whoop-ass opened up by the Rangers on another team. Too bad I couldn't see or hear it. :)

We didn't bash them into submission as there were only two home runs. We just hit them to death. We had 20 hits, and most of them seemed to do something. Gary Matthews (who probably isn't a bad choice as starting CF if Nix doesn't ratch up his hitting) went 3 for 3, and Adrian Gonzalez furthered his case some more going 3 for 5 with a home run and four RBI's.

Not much to say as I'm trying to get back into the swing of things having been out of work for over a week.

View my complete update for this game here.

This game was the first Rangers game to be on the radio with our Ranger broadcasters! That is a moment of great celebration for me. However, for the 2005 season, I had to miss it. The reason is that this afternoon, my wife had a baby shower, and it was at our house, so I had to spend the afternoon dodging estrogen, and baseball wasn't really on the radar. :)

From reading the boxscore, I see that Soriano had his first action of the spring, although he didn't do anything, he had a big ofer. Ricardo Rodriguez looks like he's coming along extremely well, possibly headed towards a spot in the starting rotation based on today's performance and his work so far this spring. That's really nice considered how his season ended last year. Big shame that was in 04 for RicRod. He went two innings, and had no runs scored, and struck out 4, which was nice to see. In fact, all of our pitching today was great, except for Veras, who gave up all three runs the Royals scored. Wasdin, Mahay, Hughes, & Erasmo Ramirez all gave up nothing in their sessions. Nice to see that.

Offensivesly, we didn't have the 17 run explosion that happened yesterday, but we had 5 runs, and both Mike Young and Richard Hidalgo led the charge, both going 2 for 3. Gerald Laird also added a solo home run. Seems like a pretty balanced attack.

I would have liked to have listened to the game, though, even though we got a boatload of baby stuff from some VERY generous friends and family members.

View my complete update for this game here.

Ranger management is on record as saying that Chan Ho Park has to earn his roster spot this year, that he's not going to be guaranteed it just because he has a boatload of cash invested. He did not help himself on Friday. Chan Ho went two innings, gave up 3ER, 5 hits, including one home run. Now granted, we gave up a total of 13 runs, so Park wasn't the only one with a bad line. But of the 5 Ranger pitchers who gave up runs (we had 7 total), Park is the only one threatened with a loss of a roster spot if he doesn't pitch well. And I'm sure most Ranger fans would probably cheer his release. I'm kind of ambivalent towards it. Sure, I want to team to do good, and he's not helping, but I saw the festive atmosphere from the Korean fans when he WAS doing good, and I wished it could have been something that worked. Oh well. If he has another of these, I suspect the talk will probably start in earnest about letting him go.

If I read the box score right, we only actually had two home runs to account for the 17 runs we had. Mench & Adrian Gonzalez were both 3 for 4, and .... aw hell, there's too much offense to just list it - check the box score below. I didn't write this until about 36 hours after the game was played, so I have not much to add, but it definitely was nice to see a win, even if we did give up a boatload ourselves.

View my complete update for this game here.

Official Spring training games start! Unfortunately, as anyone who has read my site for the last few years knows, these games are torture, since they're not on TV or on radio. You can sit on one of the major baseball sites and refresh the scoreboard, but that's nowhere near as much fun. It also makes it hard to write about the games. :)

We lost the opener 6-4 against our Arizona roomates the KC Royals. We used five pitchers in this game. Two of them (Chris Young, Erasmo Ramirez) gave up nothing in their innings of work. Starter Kenny Rogers gave up one, and RA Dickey gave up two, but only one was earned. Kameron Loe however, didn't fare too well. In his 1.2 innings of work, he gave up 5 hits, and 3 earned runs. Loe did have three strikeouts, though.

Offensively, newcomer Richard Hidalgo made a mark with a home run and a sac fly, for 2 RBI's. We only had 10 hits, and no one player had more than one, which might have contributed to the 11 runners we left on base. Soriano didn't play, but otherwise, the starting lineup appeared to be what the projected starting day lineup will be. Kinsler and Arias had doubles, and Ruddy Yan was caught stealing.

From what I can read from the boxscore, a lackluster start to the official beginning of spring training.

View my complete update for this game here.

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.

View my full game page here.