Recently in 2007 Game Recaps Category

Well, we ended up in last place again. There was a bit of a small thrill there with the possibility of not ending up there chasing the A's, but again, our little team from Texas ended up in the cellar. This was due to having been swept by Seattle, including Sunday afternoon's 4-2 loss to close out the 2007 campaign.

A.J. Murray started the game, and (technically) had a quality start. Six innings pitched, five hits, three earned runs (four total), two walks. Which aren't outstanding numbers, but not horrendous.

Aw heck. It's Game 162 of a not really great season. We lost. We're in last place. I don't feel like going into a lot of detail about the final game of a season that is now over.

I also considered doing an end of season writeup on each player, but I'm going to shelve that. Mostly due to my burnout post from a few weeks ago. I decided I was going to finish the season, then table the site for awhile and see how I feel. While I'm probably going to continue into 2008, I am going to take a break for awhile, so this will be the last post I make for awhile unless something major happens.

Or I get excited about my Phillies being in the playoffs and advancing. :)

This one was totally down to Miguel Batista. A pitcher I was hoping we would have tried to acquire a few years back when he was with Toronto. Batista looked really good this year for a well traveled pitcher (Pirates 92, Marlins 96, Cubs 97, Expos 98-00, Royals 00, Diamondbacks 01-03, Blue Jays 04-05, Diamondbacks 06, Mariners 07). His career numbers don't indicate the level of pitching he showed on Saturday, but I always got the feeling when he was a Blue Jay that if he could "just figure it out", he'd be incredible, and he looked it today.

Batista went eight innings, giving up just three hits and one run while walking two and k'ing five. Was quite the starting pitching performance. Unlike Kevin Millwood, who is our "ace". Our guy went 7, giving up 11 hits, 3 walks, 5 runs (4 earned).. The only really positive thing is that he went 7. Oooh. That's important in Game #161 of the season. :)

Offensively, we were closed down quite good. Three hits. Two singles (Sosa, Botts) and a double (Cruz). Brad Wilkerson had a sac fly for the only run we got. But... meh. A flaccid performance for sure on behalf of the team from Texas.

Well, whenever the game numbers start with 16, you know it's a sad time. It means this is the last series of the year, and Ranger baseball, like so many seasons before it will be over, because there's no October play for us. Sigh. There is also the issue of the 9PM start time. I had to be up early on Saturday, so I didn't see the whole game - in fact I fell asleep on it, and I didn't find out who won until I woke up after the game had ended.

As for the game itself, the Rangers threw out Edinson Volquez, who went 5.1 innings, giving up six hits and three walks (not that great), but allowing just three earned runs. By no means a great outing, but not exactly bad/awful, either. Just "OK". We ran out five relievers (Littleton, Rheinecker, Francisco, Benoit, & Wood). The first three were good, not allowing any runs. Benoit & Wood however, were not. They allowed three runs in the last 1.2 innings pitched by the Rangers, and the Mariners the win. Since I didn't see them pitch, I can't attest to the mechanics and all of how they pitched, but you can't argue with the BS & L stats in the box score for them. It wasn't good.

Jeff Weaver on the other hand was much better, if not great himself. Eight innings pitched, nine hits, four earned runs, but no walks. Weaver allowed three doubles (Kinsler, Vazquez, Salty) and a home run (Metcalf), and five singles. JJ Putz also allowed a fourth double to David Murphy. I did see the Metcalf home run, and it didn't look like a massive titanic power swing like you see some of the big sluggers take, but the ball just slid out. It was quite a pretty home run.

Michael Young got hit #201, and his average stands at a healthy .315.

Fortunately, Oakland was blanked by Anaheim 2-0, so we remain tied for third place with just two games to go.

I did like the quotes in the paper on Saturday morning from Ranger players saying they wanted to bring back the red uniforms for 2009. For some reason, MLB rules state that if you want to make a change to your uniform, the deadline for the FOLLOWING season is in March, so for us to change in 2009, we'd have to have it in by March 2008. Never quite understood that rule, but there you go. I've always liked red, as have a lot of people. Buck Showalter did, as he got the coaches to wear red in spring training. I actually thought that was a good idea, because it would help spot a coach in the sea of humanity that can be spring training workouts and the like. I hope this files.

Most Rangers fans will remember the memorable end to the 2004 season, where the players came out and took a lap around the stadium shaking hands, that kind of thing. You remember, this?

Well, the 2007 edition of "Your Texas Rangers" didn't quite do that, but they provided a memorable end to the 2007 season here in Arlington. Of course that would be a World Series win, but I think most Rangers fans head would explode. We'd probably also get about 50 in game flashes from Jamey Newberg if we got to that point, but I digress. The Rangers of this year's vintage turned in a memorable finish in what is likely the final home game for several players (Wilkerson, Sosa, Laird perhaps?). The Rangers bombed out the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, clubbing them into submission 16-2. What made that cool was that they were the 2007 AL West Division winners. A sweep at home to finish the season is sweet. It's even sweeter with the knowledge that it's against the team in first in your division. But what pushes the sweetness into the level of say Bianca Beauchamp covered in honey is that it ties us with the A's for third place. We're not alone in the basement anymore! :)

Where do you go with this one? When there is this much offense, it's hard to condense it down into a paragraph, so I'll go with the "list of highlights" route in talking about it:

• First off, Michael Young got three hits, getting his 200 for the season, and in front of the home crowd. I missed it by a day. :) What showed some more class was that Ron Washington pulled him from the game when the Rangers took the field, allowing him an extra ovation. I always like to see things like that.
• Jason Botts was 3-4
• Wilkerson, Metcalf, & Laird all had two hits
• One double (Laird)
• One triple (Byrd)
• FIVE home runs. Sammy Sosa (2 run shot), Nelson Cruz (2 run shot), Laird (solo), Metcalf (2 run shot), & Hank Blalock (a three run jimmy jack).
• Blalock's home run was a pinch hit (for Sosa) home run.
• Seventeen hits in all
• Six walks from the Angels staff

It's the kind of stuff you love to see. While 3-2 or 2-1, or even 1-0 games are awesome to watch, these 16-2 games are quite a lot of fun, assuming you're not "the two".

Our pitching was quite good. We threw five pitchers out there today (Mendoza, Rheinecker, Francisco, Feldman, White), and they all combined to go nine innings, seven hits, two runs, four walks, and five strikeouts. A pretty good line. Luis Mendoza looked quite good again for a kid. Quite good. We've been down the path of guys looking great in September (meaningless) action, and then not being able to dial it up again the following year. So I will reserve complete excitement, but I've really enjoyed watching Mendoza pitch, and hope he can worm his way into the 2008 rotation.

I can't leave without saying something about Michael Young. I did post the congrats graphic during the game when he actually got the 200th hit. Given the horrendous start to the season he had, I think most Rangers fans doubted he'd get there, and he did. Some might question the backloaded contract he was given earlier this year - the usual stuff about "at the end of the contract....". Well, that kind of contract is also to pay a very VERY fan friendly player to be the "face of the franchise". Michael Young is the kind of player who you look at and feel good about being a Texas Rangers fan. That's what they're paying him for, outside of his baseball skills.

While there are three more games to play in Seattle, this had the vibe of the end of the season, didn't it?

My last game of the season was going to be Friday night, but I fell sick on Friday afternoon, so I ate that ticket, and bought a cheapie one for tonight's game (and moved to a better seat). Speaking of that, Victor Rojas said there was just over 30,000 at the park. No way. That might have been the number sold, but no way were there 30,000 in the park. I was there. Gotta love those numbers. :)

Anyway, I drove to the park expecting Jamey Wright to start. When I got there, I saw that AJ Murray was starting. OK, I wasn't quite sure what to make of that, since he's not one of my favorite pitchers, but I don't actively dislike him, either. So OK, he's starting. But he's not a starter as such, so he won't have a ton of stamina. Four innings, 70-75 pitches is probably what I figure he'd get. Well, we got better than that from Arlington John. His line was five innings pitched, five hits, one earned run, one walk, and four strikeouts on 73 pitches. His only blemish was a solo home run to Erick Aybar, which was his first career home run.

The home run by Aybar was actually the only extra base hit by either team. Combined the Rangers and Angels had 16 hits, all but one were singles.

Dustin Moseley started for the Angels, and he, like AJ Murray was making his first career start. Moseley was bit better in some regards than Murray, as Moseley didn't give up any runs on four hits, although he pitched one less inning than Murray did. Then came old Rangers friend Darren Oliver. Oliver, who has been pitching well after the All Star break did not really pitch well tonight. He was't awful, but the Rangers had just enough in the right places to combine it with a gift from Darren to get all three Rangers runs. The first Ranger run came on a balk by Oliver, scoring Kinsler. The other two runs came on subsequent singles by Blalock & Murphy. That was it for the Ranger scoring.

Michael Young was hitless, which was a bummer, I was hoping he'd go 3-4 while I was there to get 200 hits. Still, he needs 3 hits in four games, I'd say it's a safe bet. Ian Kinsler however, did go 3-4 with three singles to left field. That was nice.

Bonehead move of the game goes to Reggie Willits who was on first when Orlando Cabrera flied out to David Murphy in right. For some reason, Willits had full jets on and was all the way at third when Murphy caught the ball, and he probably could have walked to first to double off Willits for an unassisted double play by the right fielder. He of course tossed it to Catalanotto for the Nelson Muntz double play at first.

It was a nice game. Well pitched, just enough offense to win, and the weather was pretty good, too. Plus I picked up a few of those free passes they were handing out so it will cover the games I go to in April & May (save for opening day).

On another note, JerryLandâ„¢ is starting to look more and more like a stadium. I've been watching it go up since they started real construction, and I can just imagine how much more finished it will look the next time I'm out in Arlington in early April. I will say this though. In the program tonight was a 6 page spread showing all the development that will happen inbetween and around the Ballpark and JerryLandâ„¢. I am NOT happy about it, as they're eliminating almost all the really close parking. I need to digest it a bit more, but they're calling this project "Glorypark", and you can see some maps at the website for the overall project here. It will seriously change parking at the Ballpark. If you remember what it was like in 2003 going to games at Arlington Stadium when the Ballpark was being built, I imagine it will be those kind of nightmares all over again. I'm going to contact one of my friends at the Rangers and ask for permission to use some of the charts and diagrams and all that. At that point I'll have a larger article on Glorypark with more to say.

"The other guy" in the Alfonso Soriano trade started for the Rangers tonight (Armando Galarraga), and was quite good, at last before the fifth. He took a no hitter into the fifth inning. His overall line isn't great, but he did have a major "wheels off" fifth. When he exited after 4.2, his line was 4.2IP, 4H, 5ER, 4BB, 4K, 1HR, 87P. But before that he looked great. I don't think he's a realistic option to make the rotation next year, but he's shown enough decent stuff (in my opinion, but I'm no expert) to warrant a look in Surprise next March.

On the other side, we got to Ervin Santana, who gave up six earned runs in his 5 innings of work. Five of them were on two longballs. One to Michael Young (a three run shot), and another to Marlon Byrd (a two run home run). Santana's line was actually worse than Galarraga's; 5IP, 8H, 6ER, 2BB, 4K, 2HR, 102P. Chris Bootcheck and Jason Bulger followed, giving up one run each in their one inning of work each. That was all the Rangers scoring.

Offensively, the highlights were the aforementioned home runs. Besides that, we also had an almost cycle by Gerald Laird who was missing the home run. Salty also had a triple; two triples for the Rangers in one game is pretty rare, but they were both hit to that 407' part of the park in right center, so it wasn't a huge surprise in that regard.

Mike Wood tried to give the game back to Anaheim (sorry, not calling them Los Angeles. They're not) with two runs in the eighth, but we managed to hang on and get the win. Wes Littleton got a fairly conventional save in this one, unlike the one he got a month ago in Baltimore in the 30-3 game.

Michael Young watch: 2-4, total of 197. Needs 3 hits in five remaining games.

Speaking of Galarraga, anyone know what the Big Cat Galarraga is up to? I know he retired, but is he still in ball anywhere? Anyone know?

Kevin Millwood finally pitched the way his "#1" tag says he's supposed to pitch. Seven innings, seven hits, ZERO runs, ZERO walks, five strikeouts. A great outing for Kevin. What's sad about 2007 is that he's our team leader in wins. WITH FRIGGIN' TEN! TEN! Kevin is making $7.5 million this year, so that's $750,000 per win this year, assuming he doesn't get anymore (he's got what, one more start - maybe two)? Anyway, it was a great outing today - it's just a shame we didn't get 15 of them this year. Benoit & Wilson also worked they way they were supposed to, as opposed to the guys wearing #36 & #53 the last two weeks or so.

The Orioles pitcher (Jon Leicester) wasn't all that bad either, really. Eight innings, seven hits, three earned runs - a quality start. This was just one of those games where one pitcher was better than the other. Surprisingly, it was the Rangers pitcher on the better side of the ledger.

Michael Young went 1-4, now needs five hits in the final six games. Barring injury, this should not be a problem.

The last week of the season. Bummer.

I was pretty darned sick on Saturday, and as such, fell asleep two separate times on this game. Due to that, I'm claiming illness and not writing about this game. :) A couple of quickie remarks, though:

Nice to see 20HR from Kinsler. The 20/20 thing is cool.

1/5 for Mike Young. Six more to go.

The Orioles starter's name was one of the more bizarre ones I've seen in awhile - Radhames Liz.

The first O's reliever wasn't much better; he's an ice cream flavor - Rocky Cherry.

The pitching mostly sucked in this game.

I actually had a ticket to this game, and had left early to go to the game. However, 5 minutes after driving away from work to head there, I felt sick, so I turned around and came back. I'm currently trying to fight off an oncoming fever, and I knew if I drove out to Arlington, sat out there, I'd feel utterly miserable by the time the end of the game came around. I was right, half way through watching the game, I felt sick. Ugh.

I did miss a good one. I really did want to go to the game for two reasons. First was the calendar giveaway. Second was the fact that Luis Mendoza was starting; I wanted to see him in person. He got his first major league win, even if he could have pitched longer than he did. He only threw five innings, for a total of 71 pitches, giving up just one run on four hits and a walk. It has been theorized that he was on a pitch count given it's the end of the season, and he's pitched more than he's pitched before. Possible, but it's always an eyebrow raiser when you take out a guy for no injury for no other apparent reason. Mike Wood followed up with two scoreless frames.

However, CJ Wilson & Joaquin Benoit followed him, and while their lines don't show it, they weren't really that great. CJ gave up just one hit, no runs, and no walks. However, only 8 of his 16 pitches were strikes, and it felt he was constantly in trouble. Benoit was worse. A walk, a hit, and another walk loaded up the bases. Benoit threw 22 pitches in all, and 13 of them were balls. Blech. He lucked out by allowing just a sac fly, and then a strike 'em out throw 'em out to end the game. If you saw Baseball Tonight on Friday night, there was a look that Roy Halladay had watching his game fly away to the Yankees. I don't imagine Mendoza was quite that crazed looking, but one wonders how much Mendoza was thinking "Aw no, not that again".

Still, we got the win 3-2. Can't argue with the bottom line, I suppose. Nelson Cruz, getting a rare (lately) start, jacked a big home run into the left field seats for his highlight of the game, going 3-3 in all. Michael Young got one hit, so he needs 7 more for 200.

Nice to get the win, although I was disappointed I didn't get to go.

You know, after I issued the statement saying I was going to stop, I actually feel like writing again once I made the decision to take a break when the season is over. Except today. I feel like I'm coming down with a fever, and the brain is like pudding today. So I'll just have something really short about Thursday's game.

The bullpen blew it. Simple as that. I hate 10 inning games, we almost always lose.

Two hits for Michael Young. He's at 192 now. Nine games to go.

So much for that thought from the last game. I said we needed to run the table to finish at .500. Forget it. Best we can do now is 80-82 if we run the table; again rather unlikely to happen. Rangers lost.

In what was probably his final start of the season, and if Evan Grant has anything to do about it, his final game as a Ranger completely, Vicente Pidente appealed his suspension, and having only thrown to (or at) two batters the other day, was "fresh" enough to make this start. (An explanation for my usage of Pidente is here. So out he goes. Five innings, 97 pitches, three hits, three earned runs, but five freakin walks. So yeah, he deserved the loss. You know, assuming this is his last start of the year, it means it cost us $1.5 Million for each of the six wins Pidente got in 2007. Course on the other hand, that's the same number as Roger Clemens has this year, and he's making several truckloads of dough. :)

Andreas Galarraga (whoops, Armando - anyone else have that flashback every time Armando pitches) was the only other pitcher the Rangers used. He went three innings. Four hits, one run, 2 walks, 2 k. Not bad. I'm sure he'll be in the mix for the pen in the spring, although I think it's probably going to end up in AAA.

Offensively, we had seven hits in all. None by Mike Young who still needs ten for 200. David Murphy, who is more and more looking like a real option for a front line starter in '08 led with two hits; a double and a single. Marlon Byrd had a double, and all the rest were scattered amongst other players. Cat had a home run, but that was the only RBI of the night. The box score seems to show a rather flat team. In fact... Our old buddy Brad Wilkkkkkkkkerson has earned the golden sombrero for this game by striking out four times! Thanks for making me bust out Photoshop to edit the sombrero image for you buddy. ;)

Now I didn't watch the game, I was at my bowling league night. The game was on, but is almost impossible to pay attention to, so I didn't see any of Pidente's outing. I did see the remark by Adam over at Lone Star Ball this afternoon that said this:

Was listening to the game tonight on the radio.

Vicente Padilla walked Garrett Jones (a rookie hitting well below .200) after starting out 2-0 with a couple of what Eric Nadel referred to as "blooper balls."

Nadel wondered, after the walk, why Padilla would throw two of those in a row, at the start of the count, to someone like Jones.

Victor Rojas said, "Because Padilla is the biggest mental midget in the major leagues. He just doesn't get it." Rojas, a couple of batters later, said it was "pathetic" having to watch Padilla, and that if he were Ron Washington, he'd pull him and tell him to start serving his suspension if he didn't want to be out there.

I've never heard a home team's announcer be so harsh about one of the team's own players.

I wish I had heard that. It's the kind of honesty we haven't heard since Tom Grieve was busted saying rude things about Hideki Irabu a couple of years ago when he thought his mike was closed, and it was not. It's really REALLY nice to see that kind of honesty from a broadcaster. In reading around today, I see a few remarks from fans that seem to think it means that Victor is going to be fired over it. If Victor is fired over that, I'll seriously protest, that's the kind of thing we should be ENCOURAGING from our broadcasters, not shirking away from. The story went that Vince Cotroneo was let go before Vic because Vince didn't want to be a "team cheerleader". In emails I've had with Victor, I've gotten the opinion that Victor doesn't like being a cheerleader either, and one would think they would have asked that coming in. I really hope nothing happens to Victor over this. It shouldn't. It better not.

Another game by Kevin Millwood that was wasted by one of his teammates. This night it was an unusual source, it was Michael Young, who had three errors in the field. That's highly unusual for him, he's usually a rock. But three. Ewww... That had a lot to do with the two unearned runs that got charged to Kevin's ledger. Take those away, and Kevin had a pretty decent night. 6.2 innings, only two earned runs (four in all). Bit too many hits (ten). Walks weren't too bad (two), but no strikeouts. Pitch count was 110. Bill White finished the seventh, and Littleton pitched the 8th. In all the pitching wasn't bad at all for Texas tonight.

The problem was the three errors by Michael Young. But even worse than that were the 13 men left on base. I don't have an exact count by inning, since I didn't score the game, but there were several innings late where we left men on base. We had bases loaded and one out in the sixth, and hit into a double play. We just couldn't get the job finished offensively.

The best moment was probably that play where Nick Punto was thrown out at third. It was awesome. David Murphy picked up the ball that had stuck to the wall, tossed it to Ian Kinsler, who threw one of the most perfect relay throws I've ever seen. It was so perfectly thrown, that Travis Metcalf didn't have to do anything, Nick Punto just slid into his glove, and he was out. It was quite spectacular. Ian Kinsler also made a great diving play in the game, but I think the Murphy to Kinsler to Metcalf outfield assist was a far cooler play.

Michael Young did get three hits, which gives him 190 for the season. He needs 10 hits in the final 11 games to get to 200. The way he's hitting, it doesn't seem like it will be a problem, but one never knows for sure.

Also, this was our 81st loss of the season. If we still want to finish at .500 we have to run the table, and go 11-0 to close out the season. That is unlikely to happen. :)

Our "closer by committee" committee blew a pretty decent start by Edinson Volquez, who looks like he may have gotten his act together. We have seen guys pitch well in September and then stink up the joint the following season, so I'm not getting too excited about that.

Still, it was a good outing. Volquez went six innings, gave up two runs (one earned) on five hits and one walk. Struck out six. A pretty decent outing there. Hate to waste those. Bill White came in and pitched a decent shutout frame. That's when our closer committee blew it. CJ Wilson gave up a run in the eighth, and Joaquin Benoit gave up two, including the walk off winner. Granted, one of Benoit's was an unearned run, but that didn't much matter. It was a run; we lost. Speaking of losing, we're three games behind Oakland for third place. Reachable for sure, but that "gut feeling" again tells me it won't happen. Sigh.

Offensively, we were lead by Guillermo Quiroz & Travis Metcalf. Both had two hits and an RBI. Metcalf had a double and a home run, scoring twice. The rest of our offense was pretty scattered. Between the remainder of the players, there were three hits and one RBI (Young).

As a side note, is it just me, or does Bill White have that "Jim Morris feeling"? I know that is not the case, but it just "feels" that way to me, even though my brain says it's not.

I thought about just posting "Sigh" and nothing else for this game, but given my mindset on Saturday, I wanted to end the season with some real commentary, and not the cop-out of a one word commentary. ;)

Well, I wasn't in much of a mood to watch baseball for two reasons:

1) That "I want to stop" post I made on Saturday
2) Football was on.

Still, I tuned in to the beginning of the game as I was flipping channels. The Rangers didn't do much in the top of the first inning, but they did in the bottom. Or at least Padilla did. Yeah, we won, but this was probably the moment most people will remember.

It's of course not as famous as this fight picture...

Or even a good a fight as this one from last year...

But for some reason, fights on a baseball field always fire up the crowd. Most people seem to think "headhunters" or guys who have a reptuation for throwing at people are a bad thing. I disagree. I like that. These fans who were against this were obviously never fans of old school baseball. Back in the day, most people pitched that way. And the hitters either just took it or fought. There was no whining about rules, and this and that. It was part of the game. A part that's been lost. You think Roger Clemens doesn't do this? Of course he does. I like this. It's not like Chan Ho Park, who hit people by accident. This is message baseball, something that we need more of.

As for the game itself, it was a big back and forth game. I did see the six run top of the second, which was cool to watch. I did not see the five run bottom of the third, which would have not been cool to watch, had I seen it. We traded singles in the fourth and fifth, and we went into the top of the 8th down one run.

Michael Young took care of that with a grand slam in the top of the eighth. I didn't see that, either. Shame, but I was on football then. He came close to a cycle as well, missing the hardest one; the triple.

As is the case with a game that had 20 combined runs and 21 combined hits, there wasn't much in the way of great pitching - the box score confirms that.

The Rangers lost this game to Oakland. It's now their fifth loss in a row, and are now 4 games behind Oakland for escaping the basement in the AL West. Looks kinda bleak, doesn't it?

The sad part is that TV didn't even care. This game wasn't broadcast in the Metroplex. I don't understand that. There's 162 games in the season. If we were one of these teams with crappy TV coverage like the Montreal Expos used to have where only a handful of games were on a season, I'd understand it. But not the Rangers. We either have 162 or close to it every year. I believe this was the only scheduled non TV game of the season. So what's the deal with this one? Why was this date so special that it didn't get on TV. We broadcast 161 other games (plus the 2 or 3 from Spring), so why not this last one? Doesn't make any sense to me to schedule 161 of the 162 games. Someone please explain that to me.

Oh yeah, the game itself. After my post of earlier today, I'm not in the mood to write about game particulars.

I'll make this short, because this game made me mad.

Their big inning (7) was better than our big inning (6), and that made the difference. Sigh.

We went into this series one game behind Oakland for third place. Lost the first two. Now down by three. If we lose one of the remaining two games, I say it's done, we're in the basement. Oh sure, mathematically we aren't out, but that "gut feeling" says it's over if we lose any more to Oakland this weekend, as Saturday and Sunday are the only games left against them directly all season.

As the season draws to a close, it's getting hard to get motivated to write about games like this. I still like the team, and still care, but another season like this means that game numbers above say 135 are ones I'm less inclined to write about. Sometimes I'm tempted to go "Ah they lost. If you're reading this, then you probably know why already anyway". Still, I didn't want to quit on the season, so I'll have a few words to say:

Kevin Millwood started the game, and coming into this series, I felt good about our chances of passing Oakland and staying out of the basement. Early on though it didn't seem like that was a possibility. We went down 2-0 in the first inning, and then 4-1 after three, and then 6-1 after five. Blech. Seen this story before. Rangers starter struggles, gives up a bunch of runs, team can't come back. I'd expect that from youngsters, but not Kevin Millwood - a veteran. He just looked flat. 92 pitches in 4.2 innings, 8 hits, 3 walks, 6 earned runs. Very Mark Clark like. On the positive side, our bullpen didn't give up any more in their 3.1 innings of work.

We did try and come back late though. After a mostly sleepy offense which generated just one run through six innings, we got some offense going in the seventh. Single, double, single resulted in the first run. Then Ian Kinsler was hit by a pitch, and Michael Young doubled home the other two runs. Was kind of a bang-bang sequence, not a long buildup of 10 pitch at bats and just singles. Kind of happened in a hurry, if you take out a pitching change in the middle.

But it wasn't enough. It got us close, but the scoring was over at that point. Another loss. Sigh.

I didn't see this game at all, as it was on during my bowling league night. There was a TV on about two lanes away from us, so I would peek at it, but it was so disjointed I can't say I watched it at all. :) But from looking at the box score, this one can be summed up as..

Justin Verlander was better than Edinson Volquez. Of course that's not a completely fair assessment, but I'd like one of our young pitchers to come up and get 17 wins in his first two full seasons as well - that always seems to happen to other teams, not us. Verlander pretty much shut us down for the game.

Michael Young got two hits. Needs 21 to get to 200. 16 games left. Better get a couple more multi hit games in a hurry. A 5-5 game would help too. :)

I'm going to let this one go without further comment, as there isn't much else to say. We now head to Oakland for a four game series which very well could determine third place in our division - them or us. We're one game behind them going in.

Anyone think McCarthy was rushed back for this? At this point in the season, there's little to be gained from coming back off the DL just to make a start in a lost season. If he was not feeling great, than maybe starting this game wasn't a great idea. He didn't even get out of the first inning, giving up 3 hits, three runs and a walk. Not good by any stretch.

Jamey Wright followed and pitched a "quality start" in relief, going six innings, giving up one earned run on four hits and 2 walks. Struck out three. That's a pretty decent start. I'm starting to wonder if he'll be brought back next year to compete for the rotation, or if he'll try and parlay his relatively decent (if not great) season here into a bigger paycheck and a guarantee elsewhere. Wouldn't be the first time something like that happened (Gary Matthews, anyone?) Wes Littleton cleaned up, going the final 1.1 innings, and didn't give up any runs.

After very few singles in game one, that's all we got in game two. Seven singles. Four by the first two batters, so it was a spread out offense (aka silent). The only run we got was on a sacrifice fly by Marlon Byrd. Was a pretty flat offense.

That's usually attributable to the opposing pitcher. The Tigers threw a guy who I think holds the record for most "J's" in his name. ;) That would be Jarr Jurrjens. He threw five innings, giving up just three hits and one run. In fact, he left the game with only 72 pitches, I wonder why he was cut short. His line indicates he didn't really need to come out. The rest of the Detroit pen combined for four innings of shutout ball.

Hard to come back against that.

Game one of the doubleheader in Detroit went pretty well.

Vicente Padilla took the hill for us, and was pretty decent, given his rather sub par 2007 season as a whole. Pidente's line was six innings, three hits, no runs, three walks and six strikeouts. 99 pitches in all. Pretty good line. Mike Wood followed, and gave up the brunt of the Detroit offense in a rather poor looking line. 1.2 innings, 6 hits 5 earned runs, and one strikeout. Not good. AJ Murray was the only other pitcher we used, and he went 1.1 innings, and gave up the the final Detroit run.

Offensively, this game was all about the longball. We hit seven of them. That I believe breaks a club record for most home runs in a road game. I think that's what I heard Eric & Vic say during the broadcast. David Murphy had one, Marlon Byrd had two, Jarrod Saltamacchia had one, Ramon Vazquez one, Hank Blalock had one, and finally Freddy Guzman had one. That was Guzman's first major league home run, too. What's amusing is that Guzman had taken over for Byrd in center, so that was three jacks from the CF position.

In all, of the 14 hits we had total, 11 of them were extra base hits. Just three singles in all this. Which is a nice segway into...

David Murphy almost got a cycle. He did have a shot, he needed just the single, and was up, but struck out. At least he got the chance, unlike Cat the other day. Speaking of Murphy, he's starting to look like a realistic candidate to be a regular player next year. He's certainly taken advantage of his late season opportunity. He definitely seems like a more realistic option than Nelson Cruz, or perhaps even Marlon Byrd. Problem with that is that Cruz has a friggin cannon of an arm, and Byrd seems to have become a fan favorite. Heck, he's doing a lot better than Jason Botts. Anyway, Murphy looks like a good bet to be around for awhile.

It's a weird time. It's that time of year when I get burnt out from writing about the Rangers, mostly because of all the losses. It's the start of football season, and while I'm a baseball fan first, you can't not be excited about Week 1 in the NFL. Which is what I spent most of this day watching. I only briefly watched the Rangers game, and saw little of it. However, this is an exciting time, as we've been playing very well the last two months or so, have decent to OK pitching (if not awesome), and have an outside shot at ending the season at .500.

But this game was cool, because it was a sweep of a division rival, and we ended up tied for third after the game was over. For the first time in quite awhile (sometime in May I think), we weren't in sole possession of last place. We do have an off day tomorrow, so if Oakland wins on Monday, we're right back in the cellar, but they do seem to be in a bit of a free fall, so I think it's a fairly realistic option that we end up in third this year.

Anyway, as I said above, I didn't see much of this game. But it did seem like one of those games in the rain that was a mess in more ways than one. The Rangers had three errors, (which I'm sure contributed to the four unearned runs that John Rheinecker gave up), and 13 hits. This was not a fast moving game at all (4:08 in all, including a 90 minute rain delay), and while the actual game time wasn't too bad for a 21 run, 22 hit game, it just felt like it went on for 10 hours.

One of the parts, and it was the biggest part I did get to see was the eight inning outburst in the second. The home run by Sammy Sosa was seemingly vintage 90's Sosa. It was a titanic shot into the club level. I still dispute that those home runs only went 440 feet up there. It seems like it would be a lot further than that. Nelson Cruz had three hits, Sammy Sosa had three hits, Young & Botts had two, and the remaining three hits were split between Hairston, Byrd, & Laird. Sosa continues to deliver when asked to, and really has been a surprise this season. No, he's not gonna hit 60 home runs anymore with 135 RBI, but if you had said when we first signed him that he'd have 19 home runs and 83 RBI, I think most of us would be satisfied with that.

Combined the two teams used 13 pitchers. That kind of thing happens in rain delayed 20+ run games. :) In fact, of all those pitchers, the only pitcher to pitch more than two innings was old Rangers friend Colby Lewis, who tossed four for the A's. Bill White for the Rangers threw two, and everyone else was less than that. Lots of trips to the mound. :)

Hopefully we can keep the momentum going (we have won 5 in a row now) into Detroit where we have a doubleheader on Tuesday.

Michael Young Watch: 175 hits. 25 hits needed in 20 games.

Well, Kason Gabbard was supposed to start this game, but did not due to a blister. So the Rangers tossed out there Luis Mendoza, who made his major league debut in this game. Mendoza came over from the Red Sox last year in one of those trades that at the time made the majority of Ranger fans go "Huh?" I'm sure Jamey Newberg probably liked it, because I don't think the lowest guy in rookie ball can change his choice of breakfast cereal without Jamey knowing it. However, most of the rest of us probably didn't think much of this deadline deal when it was made last summer, if they even remember it at all. BTW, here is a press release announcing it last summer.

The kid did pretty well. Just two hits, and no runs with no walks. No strikeouts, either. Unfortunately, he only pitched two innings. This was because he got wailed on in the leg by a batted ball, and was down on the ground for a bit. He did finish the inning, but was unable to come back for the third. You kind of felt bad for him, as he was doing pretty decently, and from the short sample, seemed in line to get his first major league win in his first major league start. You have to feel bad for someone when something like that happens.

Anyway, he was followed on the hill by AJ Murray who did pretty well until the back end of his three innings in relief. In all, Murray gave up two runs in three innings on 3 hits and a walk. He was followed by Mike Wood, John Rheinecker, & Wes Littleton. Rheneicker gave up one run, but it was unearned on an error by Michael Young. I'd say we had a really good combined line for all our pitchers tonight.

Offensively, we got to Chad Gaudin for 6 runs on 10 hits. Gaudin was great in the early part of the season, but not now. I dropped him a month ago or so from several fantasy teams I had him on. The Rangers had two solo home runs in this game (Kinsler & Blalock). Blalock's was a no doubter into right. Kinsler's was not so sure - it barely cleared the wall, but it did prompt a funny clip with the woman who ended up with the ball; Victor & Tom certainly enjoyed that clip. Byrd & Blalock both had three hits, and Kinsler had two. The remaining five hits the Rangers got were all spread out over five other players. One of them was Michael Young, who is now at 173 hits, needing 27 in 21 games to get to 200 again. Reachable, but any kind of injury or slump will kill that.

If we sweep the A's tomorrow, we'll finish the series tied with them for third place. Four more games remain on the schedule with them after this series. So it could be interesting. Be a minor victory to not remain in the basement - we've been there since some time in early May, I believe.

Short and sweet update.

Edinson Volquez looked like what he was touted to be when everyone was touting the "DVD" pitchers.

Frank Catalanotto shouldn't have been pinch hit for, despite the righty/lefty thing. He deserved the shot at history.

Cat had a great night, and fueled our offense. Nice to see after the horrid start to the season he had.

This is the kind of game that Ron Washington has said he loves to see. Well pitched, close, and a more traditional kind of game than the slugfest, no pitching contests we seem to still get into way too much year after year.

It started with Vicente Padilla, who looked a lot like the 2006 version of himself, not the guy who has been wearing #44 most of the year in 2007. Padilla went 6, giving up no runs on just two hits. He walked two and struck out five. Only tossed ninety balls - probably could have gone more, not sure why he came out when he did. Wes Littleton followed, and wasn't as good, going less than an inning (0.2), and giving up the two KC runs on a home run ball hit by John Buck, the KC catcher. Littleton was followed by Bill White, the surprising September callup, who made his major league debut this game, going 0.2 innings, striking out one, and giving up one hit. But no runs. A nice performance for Bill. Ranger pitching was closed down by Jamey Wright, and Joaquin Benoit, who got the save. Rather well pitched game in all. Nine innings, six hits, two runs, two walks, seven strikeouts. Nice combined line.

The Rangers didn't have a lot of offense either, but got it when it counted. In all we had just six hits, and all were singles, except one. Catalanotto had one, Young had two, Wilkerson had one, and Blalock had two. Blalock had the only non single hit; a double.

As Wash likes, a nice low scoring game that the Rangers cam out on top of.

The game just ended. I'll have more to say later. But since I was online, I thought I'd post a marker now. :)

Edit: Don't have time to write today at work, again too busy.

I thought about using the Simpsons clip with Homer and "I've seen teams suck before..", but I just used that a couple of weeks ago. But it was appropriate. The Rangers stunk up the joint pretty good, losing to Kansas City, 8-1.

Ugh. What is it with them? If they were good, it wouldn't be so much of a puzzle, but they're not. Gah!

A lot happened in this game, but if you're a Rangers fan, the thing that was probably the coolest thing was the return of Hank Blalock. This was his first game action since going on the DL back in May. Was nice seeing the Hammer at the plate again. Especially with Mark Teixeira gone, I think this team needs a shot of "familiar" instead of seeing a parade of guys from AAA this year like we have. That's usually good, but this fan was happy to see someone familiar instead of someone trying to make their mark, know what I mean?

Anyway, Hank went 2 for 4, but the second one was the memorable one. It was a grand slam in the 8th off of Scot Shields, a guy who usually torments us. Was quite nice to see that. In fact, all eight of our runs were off of the longball. Blalock's grand slam was four, Ian Kinsler's home run was two, and Brad Wilkerson's home run was two more for a total of 8 runs. While one would like a more balanced attack, you can't argue with the results; we won the game.

Kason Gabbard started the game for us, and didn't pitch all that well. Went six innings, gave up 5 hits, which isn't too bad, but also walked 5 (bad), and gave up 5 earned runs. I like the 5-5-5 deal from Domino's Pizza, but definitely not from my starting pitchers. Wes Littleton came in, and was almost perfect in his two innings of work, only walking one batter, and nothing else. CJ Wilson gave up two earned runs in his relief appearance, and tried to give the game to Anaheim, but didn't break. He earned the save, and we got the win.

Now we go home to play the Royals, a team we should utterly destroy, but never seem to be able to beat.

For some reason I always find it amusing when we win a game over an opponent by the same score they just beat us by the day before. I can't explain that. :)

As this was September 1st, this means it's time for callups. We brought up two guys, both of which would have likely been here anyway if it wasn't for extenuating circumstances (injury, punishment). Neither is your classic "September callup". These would be Hank Blalock, who was activated from the 60 day disabled list. He didn't play in the game, but it was nice to see his name off the DL. Edinson Volquez was also brought up, and started the game.

Edinson had a few too many pitches (94 in 5 innings), but pitched well enough to get the win. In his five frames, Edinson gave up 7 hits, 2 walks, and three earned runs. Struck out four. Not dominating, but not really bad, either. I'm sure he'll be in the mix for the starting rotation in 2008. Jamey Wright pitched well in relief. He's been like Benoit in that regard. He's pitched extremely well out of the pen, not so much as a starter. Wright went three scoreless innings and looked pretty decent. He gave way to Joaquin Benoit & CJ Wilson, who combined try to give the game to the Angels, but we hung on in the end.

One amusing note was Marlon Byrd. In one of the middle frames, a ball was popped up to him in center, and he completely lost it in the sun. When it finally came down, he had to twist out of the way to save himself from being bonked in the head. It was comical, but fortunately it didn't cost any runs. Next time up though Byrd deposited a Dustin Moseley pitch into the bullpen, redeeming himself. That was the only home run the Rangers had this game. We did have three doubles (Byrd, Murphy, Wilkkkkkerson) and a triple (Kinsler). Byrd went 3-5, Kinsler was 2-3, and Salty was 2-4. A pretty nice offensive game.

Not a fan of our games on national TV, I much prefer our own guys. I wonder what Tom Grieve does on days like that? Play golf? :)

Michael Young Watch: 1-5. .304 average, 164 hits (36 to go in 26 games)

I didn't get to see much of this game due to my projects still going on - I was swamped with several big ones all at once, so the Rangers site took a back seat. But I did see some of this one.

This game qualified as a back and forth game. We'd score, they'd score. That happened several times, so it was one of those games where you figured it was going to come down to something small happening late.

Vicente Padilla started the game, and his line tells you it wasn't a particularly well pitched game. One one hand, he pitched into the seventh, which is good, but then you see he gave up six of the Angels 7 runs on 10 hits, ad one walk. Also for a guy who gets strikeouts, he had zero again. That's a bit of a concern, I would think. He gave up one home run, a two run shot to Garret Anderson. Mike Wood came in and pitched 1.1 innings of scoreless ball. Frank Francisco finished up, and got the loss. He wasn't really terrible, as he gave up just one hit and two walks. But they were bunched, so that didn't help.

Offensively, we had a bunch of hits. Ian Kinsler led off and had three hits, all of which were good solid hits. He looked good. Michael Young also had three hits, and is going to need several more of those to get back to 200 hits. He's at 163, and needs 37 in 27 remaining games. Definitely doable, but will need several three hit games to accomplish that. Jarrod Saltamacchia had two hits (one a double). Ramon Vazquez also had two hits, so it was nicely spread out. Nelson Cruz had a solo home run in the 7th. We did leave nine men on base, and with 14 hits total, there was definitely opportunities

Random remark: Our old friend Darren Oliver got the win as he was the pitcher of record in the 10th.

Another remark: Scot Shields is one of the better relievers out there. Wouldn't mind having him, but I somehow feel that Joaquin Benoit can be that way - which is quite an accomplishment given how many times in the last 4 years or so his job hung on by a thread.

Final remark: Nice to see Ron Washington extended. Would have preferred it be for more than one year, but I'll take it. Makes you wonder if that was done in part for Torii Hunter. We'll see.

No time to do an update for this game. Way too busy with other projects at the moment.

No time to do an update for this game. Way too busy with other projects at the moment.

No time to do an update for this game. Way too busy with other projects at the moment.

No time to do an update for this game. Way too busy with other projects at the moment.

No time to do an update for this game. Way too busy with other projects at the moment.

No time to do an update for this game. Way too busy with other projects at the moment.

The Rangers return home from Baltimore on a red eye, their plane landing at 4:15AM. I wonder how much of that played into the Rangers play tonight. They hit into four double players, which effectively killed any of the rallies they tried starting. We did get four runs, three of them coming on home runs. The only other one was a Michael Young single, which was the only time a rally worked for us, really.

The player by far with the best night was Brad Wilkerson. He went 4 for 4 with the two run home run, three singles, and a run scored. Outside of Wilkerson, no Ranger had more than one hit. We seemed flat, which again could have been due to the travel time from Baltimore.

Pitching wise, Kam Loe was victimized by an error by Travis Metcalf that was the major catalyst for the Mariners seven run sixth. Of the seven runs they scored, five of them were unearned. Shame, as he was fairly decent until the mess in the sixth, which could have been mostly avoided.

Adam Melhuse was dfa'ed today. To be honest, I'm surprised that didn't happen sooner. He was dead weight once we got Saltamacchia, and he wasn't going to be around long term. Hopefully he can catch on with someone in the last week before playoff roster eligibility is cut off. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but got squeezed out in a roster move. Later Adam, we barely knew 'ye.

I finally made it out to the ballpark on a Thursday for their "Thirsty Thursday" promotion. The $1 soft drinks are 12 ounces - the size of a soda can. Technically less with the ice in there. I think if you take three or four of them together they come up to the size of the $5.50 giant cup soda. So it's still a discount somewhat, although not the enormous discount the "$1 soda" seems to scream. The $1 ice cream on Sunday is a much better deal. The $3 beer on "Thirsty Thursday's" might be a little better, as the regular $6 beers are 18 ounces I believe, and the discounted one is $3 for 12. Course I can get a longneck 12oz beer for a $1 at home, so hey... :)

To wrap it up, does Mike Ogulnick even LISTEN to the radio broadcast? He started off the show by saying how great the Mariners pitching staff is when he was praising them, but if he had been listening, he would have noticed that Eric & Victor had spent time talking about how pedestrian their pitching staff actually is. They talked about how low the M's are in terms of the ranking of overall pitching staffs. Once again Ogulnick made me turn off the postgame show due to something silly he said. Can we please get Busby back on there? Busby wasn't afraid to tell someone they were wrong, even his own co-host.

OK, it's not a traditional sweep, but we swept the doubleheader. :)

We won game two, but not nearly as convincingly as Game 1. John Rheinecker took the mound for the second game, and went five innings. He gave up 5 runs (4 earned) on 6 hits, 5 walks (way too many), and 3 strikeouts. Two of those 6 hits were home runs. It wasn't particularly a good outing. Still, after the drunken euphoria that was game 1, I think this performance got overlooked. :) Frank Francisco wasn't particularly good, either. 0.1 innings pitched, three walks, two earned runs. Ugh. The rest of our pen threw shutout ball. The last two (Benoit & Wilson) were the big deals. Benoit had a weird line, in that he gave up no runs, but had a blown save. I'm sure Francisco loved that. Anyway, CJ Wilson got the save, and probably will compete in spring next year with Aki to be the Rangers closer in 2008.

The Orioles pitching wasn't great either, but not nearly as mind bogglingly awful as they were in Game 1. The starter (Olson), and the second reliever (Hoey) combined for 6 innings, giving up 8 hits, 9 earned runs, and walking 5. The other two relievers (Bradford & Walker) gave up nothing.

Offensively, it was a lot of singles for the most part. We had 11 hits in all, and just one double. Michael Young was 3-5, Sammy Sosa was 2-5, Nelson Cruz was 2-5, and Travis Metcalf was 2-3. In fact, Metcalf was the one with the double, and drove in four RBI. That's a combined eight RBI for Travis in the doubleheader.

What a night. 39 runs also sets a modern record for runs scored in a doubleheader. It was a record setting night in Baltimore. All seven hours worth at the park.

Just how do you write about this game? There's just so much to write about.

The game started at 4PM when I was still at work. I had to mow the lawn tonight when I got off of work at 6, and I figured with the doubleheader going, game two would be starting when I got home and got started on the yardwork. I have to say I was not expecting game one to still be going when I was pushing the lawnmower around.

But it was. As the game went on and on, I started thinking about what I would write. Usually when the Rangers win big, I have some variant of "Rangers beat...", "Rangers blew out..", "Rangers destroyed...", but none of that applies. I mean, how can any of those things apply when you score thirty freakin' runs? THIRTY! That's just nuts! That's the most runs scored by anyone in 110 years. It's a record for most runs in a nine inning game in the "modern era". The Rangers broke seemingly every one of their own records in offensive categories. What's most amazing to me about this game is that we only scored runs in four of the innings. There were five innings where we put up a zero. We had just 14 runs going into the top of the 8th inning, so we scored 16 in the final two frames (all of which was lawnmower time). Also, in one of those strange statistical abberations, Wes Littleton got a save in this game. : I just don't know how to describe this game, and do it justice. There's just so much to talk about, and a lot of folks who are a lot better than me in writing about these things will ahve something to say, so I'll do something different. A few words about each Ranger player in the lineup:

Frank Catalanotto: Frank went 3-6 with two runs scored, two RBI's and two walks. Struck out once.

Ian Kinsler: Ian went 3-7 with three runs scored, two RBI's, and one walk. Did not strike out.

Michael Young: Michael went 2-5, scoring once, and was one of two players without an RBI. Now has 151 hits for the season.

Travis Metcalf: Travis didn't start the game, officially went one for one (he did walk and score twice). But the one was a big one, a grand slam for his four RBI.

Marlon Byrd: Marlon was 2-5 with four RBI's. He walked twice, and scored all four times he was on base. One of his two hits was huge, was the other grand slam we got this game. As a bonus, Byrd's slam won someone $25,000 on TV.

Jason Botts: Jason had a weird line. He went 3-7, with two RBI and two runs scored. He also struck out four times, qualifying him for the golden sombrero.

Nelson Cruz: Nelson went 2-7 with two runs scored, and two strikeouts.

David Murphy: David had a nice running play in the ninth beating out a ground ball to second. It was very Pete Rose in it's execution, and allowed more runs to score. He did have five hits (5-7), he scored five, and drove in two.

Jarrod Saltamacchia: Jarrod went 4-6 with two home runs, 7 RBI's, one walk, one strikeout. Was quite nice to see 7 RBI's from your #8 batter.

Ramon Vazquez: But not as impressive as getting 7 RBI from your #9 guy as well. Vazquez had two home runs as well on his 4-6 night, scoring four times, and struck out once.

Kason Gabbard: Kason started the game for us, and went six innings. He gave up seven hits, three earned runs, walking one, and striking out three. Since I listened to this game on the radio, it was hard to tell "how" he pitched, but you can't argue with the win. Another quality start - he's bee a good pickup.

Wes Littleton: Wes came in and finished out the game, going the final three. That's where the oddly awarded "save" for him came from. No runs allowed, just two hits, walking one, and striking out one.

Of course the flip side to all of this is the Orioles pitching. Given the Rangers scored thirty runs on twenty nine hits, you would have thought the Orioles would have brought in a position player to throw some of this game, but that didn't happen. The Orioles threw just four pitchers out there. Here's their stats:

1) Daniel Cabrera: 5 innings, 9 hits, 6 earned runs, 1 walk, 4 strikeouts, 2 home runs
2) Brian Burres: 0.2 innings, 8 hits, 8 earned runs, 1 walk, 1 strikeout, 1 home run
3) Rob Bell: 1.1 innings, 5 hits, 7 earned runs, 3 walks, 1 strikeout, 1 home run
4) Paul Shuey: 2 innings, 7 hits, 9 earned runs, 3 walks, 5 strikeouts, 2 home runs

Paul Shuey was interesting, as five of the six outs he got were strikeouts - an intersting little stat.

When I was in the back yard when the Rangers were getting runs 20-30, I was just shaking my head. It was just amazing - listening to Eric & Victor was quite the pleasure. When Vazquez got the three run home run to get to #30, I just said "Oh good Lord" out loud to nobody in particular. It was quite impressive. In fact, my brother called the house while I was outside and asked my wife if we were watching. My TiVo did not pick up the schedule change for the doubleheader, so when I got home, I started recording, so I got just the 8th and 9th innings on TiVo. Listening to Josh Lewin was quite interesting, too. Some of my favorite quotes by him were "It's an Xbox game come to life", "It's a 100% massacre", and some others that I can't recall right now. I also caught a few minutes of Baseball Tonight right after the game was over, and they had Tim Kurkjian on the phone. His voice was quite intersting, he was almost speechless trying to talk about it. Never quite heard a baseball guy talk like that about a game before.

What a win. I suggest going to the major baseball sites (mlb.com, ESPN, Dallas Morning News, etc) and read the pros talk. There will be a LOT (an awful lot) to read about this one in the next day or so.

Simply amazing.

He was't quite near as dominant as Johan Santana, but he tried. Bedard was pretty good though. He went seven innings, gave up just five hits and two runs. He struck out 11 Rangers, though. Couple that with the game against Santana, and the Rangers struck out 30 times in two games. The Rangers had a total of five hits in all. Two were by Marlon Byrd, and two were by Nelson Cruz (the fifth by Jason Botts). That was it. We were shut down again.

Padilla was as the MLB recap said "no match" for Bedard. Padilla went 5 innings, gave up seven hits, six runs, and four walks. No strikeouts, and two home runs. Not gonna get it done that way.

The Rangers and Orioles game was rained out on Monday. It will be made up as a doubleheader on Wednesday. Not that exciting of news, but hey... :)

Johan Santana. That was all you can say about this game. Santana just dominated the Rangers in every way possible. In eight innings, Johan gave up only two hits (both to Sammy Sosa), and struck out 17 batters, setting a new personal best, and a new Twins franchise record. It was totally dominating. Sosa actually almost tied the game, the pitch before he hit a double in the seventh he jacked a ball that just missed the left field foul pole by a couple of feet. It was mildly amusing to see closer Joe Nathan get booed for the 9th inning. I personally would have loved to have seen Santana go out there for the ninth, and if he gave up any kind of hit, then bring in Nathan. I would have loved to have seen Santana get 20 strikeouts. The way the Rangers were flailing up there, I thought it was a real possibility.

This all overshadowed a great pitching effort by Kevin Millwood. Millwood deserved to win this game the way he pitched. 7 innings, four hits, one run. Few too many walks (five), but you can't argue with 7 innings, one run allowed. He's been very good lately, and hopefully can carry this over into 2008.

But this game wasn't about the Rangers, realy. This picture below sums it up, in my opinion.

Ranger pitching was the star of this one. Kameron Loe came off the DL, and threw five innings of shutout ball. It wasn't the most crisp outing I had ever seen (three hits and five walks), but it was enough to get the job done. The Rangers turned three double plays this game, so that helped a lot. Loe was followed up by Mike Wood (2IP), Frank Francisco (1IP), Joaquin Benoit (1IP). Of the three relievers, there was only one walk issued (Francisco), and no more runs, so Ranger pitching was pretty well today.

It's nice to see because of the quote that came out in the paper over the weekend from Thad Levine (I think, I can't recall for sure as I write this) saying that the free agent pitching class this off season is going to be rather thin, now that Zambrano is off the market. The quote said something about if there's a great deal available, they'll get involved, but wouldn't be surprised to see the Rangers make no free agent pitching moves. We'll need a lot more days like the one we got today before that will be swallowed without complaining by knee jerk radio call in Ranger "fans", swallowed by the Ticket, and especially Randy Galloway.

Boof Bonser (my vote for silliest name in all of the mlb) was not good. In 4.2 innings, he gave up 7 hits, 5 earned runs, and 3 walks. Of the hits, two of them were home runs. One to Saltamacchia, and one to Marlon Byrd. Byrd had a great night. Went two for 4 with the aforementioned home run. He drove in four runs in all.

Michael Young was 2-3 keeping his average at .305. He has 149 hits, and with about 40 games left, he won't have much time to go cold if he wants to hit 200 again. It would be a nice feat considering how horrendous the start of the season went for him.

Always nice to see a shutout thrown by our boys.

You know, I enjoy great pitcher's duels. In all honesty, that's what this game was. Both Kason Gabbard and Carlos Silva pitched really well. Between the two of them, they combined for 13.2 innings, and combined gave up 10 hits and two earned runs. A pretty good pitcher's duel. Even the pens were pretty well stacked in the stats categories. But as I've written about many times here, I'm no fan of extra inning games. I'm OK if we can get by inning #10, but when we lose extra inning games (which is a lot), it always seems to happen in the 10th. If we can get by that I feel better. It's a bit irrational, I admit, but there it is.

Kason Gabbard pitched really well again, seemingly having no ill effects from the game he had to come out of early not too long ago. Kason went 6.2 innings, gave up five hits and one earned run. Walked three and struck out three. He deserved better than this. He left with the score tied, and I felt like he should have gotten the win, especially against Carlos Silva, who has historically (although not in recent vintage) been a pitcher that gets bombed a lot. The only real good moment was a towering majestic home run for Saltamacchia, his first in a Ranger uniform. Frank Catalanotto had three hits in this game, but none counted for anything. There were only three other hits in all total for the rest of the team, we were pretty much shut down.

As for the end of the game.. That's what I get for thinking Jamey Wright had figured it out. The Twins won the game in the 10th on a "walkoff wild pitch" by Wright, allowing the winning run in. That brings up a silly statistical issue I have. The wild pitch technically counts as an unearned run. Screw that. It was the pitcher's direct fault that the run scored by throwing it away. The rules need to be changed to make that an earned run. I don't have the exact rulebook text in front of me, but I believe it says something along the lines of a run is unearned when it scores due to no fault of the pitcher. Feh - tell me the wild pitch wasn't Jamey Wright's fault - that should be an earned run.

A quick note to a big Red Sox fan of mine... How's that Gagne trade workin' out for ya right now? ;)

I was all ready to write a lot about how John Rheincker had a great pitching effort. Went 7.1 innings, gave up just two earned runs, left with a tie, but still, feeling good.

Then came in Willie Eyre, which is in my mind never a good thing. Might be the nicest guy in the world, but I never think good things when he came in. Boy was that fulfilled tonight. Eyre seriously stunk up the joint, got the loss (deservedly so). He only threw 0.2 innings, but gave up three hits, one walk, and four earned runs.

I got so mad at the ending of that game, I don't feel like breaking it down.

Who would have thunk it? Certainly not me the way I was ragging on Padilla earlier on Wednesday. I don't think most Ranger fans were really frothing at the mouth at the chance of seeing #44 pitch again. I sat down last night to watch the game, and bam - bam - bam. Padilla struck out the side in the first inning. That was very unexpected. And then something else happened. I fell asleep on the sofa.

Next thing I knew, I woke up right before Michael Young's double in the sixth, so I missed most of Padilla's performance. But the first inning was quite good. In all, Padilla went five innings, giving up just four hits and EIGHT strikeouts - wow. There were 15 outs while he was the pitcher, and he struck out eight of them. That was a very nice number. He did give up one unearned run. This was quite the performance. I understand five innings and 80 pitches on first start back from the DL, I'm sure that's the reason he came out when he did.

CJ Wilson had his first shaky save - although not really his fault. There was a throwing error by Gerald Laird in the ninth, as well as a ball that just ate up Michael Young. Took a wicked hop, and went over his head, but knocked him on his backside at the same time - you don't often see that, no matter who the fielder is. Two runs did score in the ninth, only one earned. We were helped out by a double play to end the game.

Some nice defense as two Royals were thrown out at the plate, one by Nelson Cruz, one by Marlon Byrd.

Offensively we were led by a two run double by Michael Young, and a solo home run by Ian Kinsler - Kinsler's home run ended up being the difference, as it was the fourth and final run we got.

Nice win, wish I wasn't unconscious for most of it. :)

I have to admit, the Rangers game took a backseat this evening. Today was the release of "Madden 08", and once Samantha went to bed, that was what I was doing - playing football on my Xbox 360. I did check in from time to time, and it was nice to see this line for Kevin Millwood.

Seven innings, four hits, thee runs (only one earned), one walk, and nine strikeouts. A very nice line.

Benoit got into a little trouble with allowing two walks in his 0.2 innings, but CJ Wilson came in and shut things down nicely. This is the way it was supposed to work, except with different people at the back end of the bullpen.

I probably should have watched the game, but I was busy playing football. :)

Going to try a slightly different report..

Three doubles for David Murphy - good.
Kason Gabbard leaves the game early with an injury - BAD
Michael Young home run - exciting
Nice double play by Saltamacchia - cool
Seven different Rangers with RBI's - nice

Series win - the best part.

I was at this game. I will say this for it. It was a very fast moving game. Done in two hours fourteen minutes. The reason for that was Edwin Jackson. The Tampa Bay starter was frickin fantastic - throwing a complete game four hit shutout. It's odd as Jackson was something like 2-11 with an ERA of 6.50 coming into this game, and then he does that. Granted, he's one of those pitchers we've seen wear the Ranger uniform with a ton of promise, and no delivery on said promise. Every once in awhile those guys will uncork a real gem; it was a shame it was against us.

The reason I was at this game was the Rusty Greer ceremonies. And as has been mentioned elsewhere, Nelson Cruz did a great Greer impression with two all out dives in right field mimicking the former red haired left fielder who manned this park for many a year. It was a nice touch.

John Rheinecker took the hill for the Rangers, and didn't pitch bad. Six innings, three earned runs, six strikeouts, and one walk. He was beat out by Jackson, that's for sure - it's the only way to explain that. Jamey Wright and AJ Murray followed up, not allowing any more runs, but just the first one was enough the way Jackson was pitching. :)

This game was really powered by Frank Catalanotto's five RBI night. Three of them came on a home run that just barely cleared the wall in the right field corner, and the other two on a single. It was a productive night for Cat. Speaking of his nickname, "Little Cat", he got that (I think) because of Andres Galarraga being on our team at the time having the name "Cat", so Frank got little Cat. Does he really still need to be called that? :)

Michael Young contriubted as well with the other two Ranger RBI's. They both came on a third inning double by Mike, scoring Vazquez and Kinsler.

We had just seven hits, and scored seven runs. That's always efficient. :)

Pitching wise, Brandon McCarthy was pretty decent. He threw only 4.2 innings, his biggest problem was again pitch count. Didn't get out of the fifth inning, and he was at 102 pitches. That's not good. On the other hand, he didn't give up any earned runs, either. There were three unearned runs, but those were quite clearly a fielder's error, so if you take those out, the earned runs were good. Pitch count was most definitely not.

CJ Wilson got his fourth save, and when he comes out, you get that "gut feeling" that he's a closer. Just seems to have "it". We shall see what happens when Aki comes back.

No commentary from me. No time.

Kason Gabbard took the hill in this game, and looked pretty decent. He got in a bit of hot water in the third, but got his way out of it. Not so much in the fourth when he gave up the first run of the game on a hit to Donnie Murphy. Gabbard gave up a single to Piazza and then a home run to Mark Ellis in the sixth after setting down the previous four in a row, and 7 out of 8 before the Piazza single.

The bottom of the sixth was a big one for the Rangers. It started off with a Cruz walk, and then a rather interesting play on a screaming liner by Jason Botts. It forced Cruz to dive back to first, that was an odd looking play, we almost ended up with two runners at first. Then Cruz was doubled in by Saltamacchia. Gerald Laird then doubled in two runs, knocking out Chad Gaudin (who I dropped from about four fantasy teams I had him on before the game). After the pitching change, Ramon Vazquez bunted Laird over to third, which seemed a bit of an odd move in the middle of a big inning. Frank Catalanotto then doubled in Laird. Then a real puzzler, the A's intentionally walked Michael Young to get to Marlon Byrd. It ended up working, as Byrd grounded out to third, ending the inning, but it worked - we scored four runs.

Kason Gabbard came out of the game in the top of the seventh after a pretty decent line. Six innings, three earned runs (technically a quality start), five hits, three walks (too many), and four strikeouts. Way too many pitches, though - 107. Still, six innings is doable.

Wes Littleton came on, and was completely ineffective, allowing all three runners to get on base, leaving for Frank Francisco with the bases loaded. But Francisco navigated his way out of that mess, and did not allow anyone to score. I know how that feels, the Rangers have done that. Nice to have it happen for us, as opposed to against us. Francisco just mowed 'em down in the seventh. Cust flied out, Piazza struck out, and Mark Ellis grounded into a fielder's choice. Into the eighth, Dan Johnson lined out, and Marco Scutaro flied out. Those five outs in a row came on just 12 pitches. Donnie Murphy's at bat end that with a double, followed by an RBI single by Curt Suzuki, followed by a home run by Shannon Stewart making it 7-6, a close game again. Frustrating outing by Francisco, as he was totally dominant his first five batters, and then totally not the next few after that.

The Rangers did add one in the bottom of the 8th, and had a chance to bust it wide open, but just settled for the one.

That was it for the A's, though. CJ Wilson came in and pitched the rest of the game, not giving up any runs, and getting the save. Kason Gabbard got his first win as a Ranger, and his first in Texas.

Random comment: Jason Botts just looks gigantic at the plate. :)

I have to say, once we fell behind 6-0 in the first inning, I lost my desire to watch the game. I've had enough of that kind of crap inning as a Rangers fan, and the prospect of sitting through another game hoping and praying we'll catch up was not one I was looking forward to. It got worse once we got to the third, and went down 7-0. By this point, I was flipping channels, and started watching Baseball Tonight, and also watched more of the Nationals Giants game than the Rangers game. That kid the Nats ran out there (John Lannan) looked pretty good on the hill against Barry Bonds (and the rest of the Giants).

Anyway, the Rangers did pick up a three spot in the bottom of the third to make the game a little more palatable. Two scored on a Sosa Texas leaguer to left, and the other on a Marlon Byrd single.

As bad as the first inning was for Rheinecker, I have to give him some credit for battling, and staying out there for five innings. Really, other than the grand slam in the first, he wasn't THAT awful. Now there's no good way to say giving up six runs in an inning is a good thing, but innings 2-5 were pretty decent. Shine's off the shoe a bit regarding that honeymoon feeling when he was called up, though.

In the bottom of the eighth, we got the bats going again and got closer. We scored three. The first two were on a Jason Botts home run (which I'm sure had every Newberg fan and Jamey himself probably too excited for their own good), and a groundout by Kinsler, scoring Salty.

The bottom of the ninth was led off by Michael Young's first home run in three months (to tie it and go to extra innings), and then two innings later, Michael Young led off the inning by getting his first ejection of the season, followed quickly by the first ejection of Ron Washington too. Ron looked pretty darned mad. I know managers can get mad, but Ron seems like one of those "nice guys". Nice guys can get seriously mad when they do get mad. Makes me wish I could lip read, there was a really good closeup of the argument on TV.

Mike Wood (4IP), Joaquin Benoit (1IP), & CJ Wilson (2IP) were all great out of the pen, keeping the A's off the scoreboard. Then in the 13th, came in Willie Eyre. I had that feeling of doom. I'm not a real big fan of Eyre, and my feeling was upheld. Eyre gave up two runs in the top of the 13th that lost us the game. Shame, as it was a great feeling coming back from down 7-0 so early.

A few amusing things... Regarding Marlon Byrd, when did this thing start I saw on TV where everyone was "doing the Bird"? I don't have a problem with it, it's rather cool, but I can't recall seeing it before tonight. Also, I saw on TV that Saltamacchia had his own "Hank's Homies". Forget right now what they were called, but it was "Salty's Shakers" I think. That's nice to see so quickly.

Bonds is still at 755. I'll probably be flipping between channels again tonight to see if he hits 756. I know it'll be all over SportsCenter, Baseball Tonight, and every sports show and website from here until the end of time, but there's something about "seeing it live when it happens", that makes me want to flip channels. :)

I'm not going to say much about this game. I've been sick, and haven't felt like writing, I just wanted a marker page. :)

I wonder if Alex Rodriguez's 500th or Barry Bonds' 755th got our boys to forget about this mess any easier.

This was another game my TiVo blew it on (I need to check my settings), and when I turned it on about one hour after the game started, I figured they'd be into the fourth. They were just starting the second. And we were already losing 6-1. Oh well, time to head back to the Xbox for some more "The Bigs".

The Rangers site's story on this game has the headline "Eyre can't stop bleeding for Rangers in loss". They're right. From what I see from the recap, it was a mess. Look at this:

- R. Johnson singled to shortstop
- L. Overbay walked, R. Johnson to second
- A. Rios doubled to left, R. Johnson scored, L. Overbay to third
- V. Wells doubled to deep left, L. Overbay scored, A. Rios to third
- F. Thomas homered to deep left center, V. Wells and A. Rios scored
- T. Glaus walked
- A. Hill flied out to center
- G. Zaun singled to deep center, T. Glaus to third
- J. McDonald sacrificed to pitcher, T. Glaus scored, G. Zaun to second
- R. Johnson struck out swinging

All in the first inning. Bleargh. Eyre's overall line was just atrocious. 2.1 innings, six hits, seven earned runs, two walks, two strikeouts, and two home runs. And they said they pitched him because they thought he'd do better than Mike Wood, who didn't arrive until really late at night and was tired with short rest. I can't imagine it being a whole lot worse. Actually, I can, but I tell myself that so it's not as bad. AJ Murray gave up the other two runs in his 2.1 innings of work. Littleton & Francisco followed, and did stop the bleeding, but it was done.

Offensively we weren't too bad, with eleven hits (one double, one triple, one home run, eight singles). But with two home runs by Frank Thomas, and the early lead, this one was over immediately, really.

I missed most of this game due to family events. Building a block building with my little girl seemed more important than watching the Rangers game tonight. But still, I'm a Ranger fan, so I had to say something about the game after checking out the box score.

The Rangers scored early, putting three on the board in the first two innings. This was powered by a Nelson Cruz triple (scoring Cat), and an Ian Kinsler single (scoring Vazquez & Laird). Unfortunately, this was offset by another pedestrian opening by Kevin Millwood, who allowed three runs to the Blue Jays in the first inning (single, walk, single, double). Kevin's overall line wasn't too awful - those were the only runs he gave up. However, too few innings (four), too many hits (eight), and WAY WAY WAY too many pitches (96) combined to kick Kevin out after the fourth. We only used one other pitcher this evening (Jamey Wright), who also went four innings, and gave up three runs to Toronto in the sixth.

Jamey's appearance in relief will keep him from starting on Saturday. Instead, we're calling up Mike Wood from AAA to start in place of Kameron Loe who is going on the DL with some back pain (although it doesn't seem serious from reading about it). Nothing terribly bad here, but I have a "meh" feeling about it.

Offensively, we had one triple (Byrd), and eight singles scattered around the game. Halladay went 6, giving up four earned runs. Not exactly Cy Young caliber stuff, but it was enough to beat us this Friday evening.

Jake Westbrook got his second win of the season. On August 2nd. Against us. Figures. It was his 13th start of the season, and only his second win. He pitched like he was Roy Oswalt, which he is most definitely not. That's usually when pitchers do things like that. Westbrook was pretty much in control, going six innings, giving up 5 hits and one walk and five strikeouts. No runs, obviously. Pitch count was a bit high, 103, but it didn't matter. Cleveland's relievers went 3 innings, two hits, no runs. We were shut out.

The Rangers had seven hits in all (including two doubles (Young, Botts)), and that's usually enough to push across a run or two, but we couldn't do that. Was pretty much an ineffective offense today.

Kason Gabbard made his Rangers debut today, and wasn't that bad. He went 5.2 innings, gave up 3 earned runs on eight hits and one walk. Struck out four. It was cool to hear that outside the strikeouts, his outs were all on the ground except one fly ball. Shortly before Gabbard came out, Eric Nadel uttered the phrase "Jason Gabbard has been a ground ball machine today." That will be good in Arlington. Makes you wonder what we'll do when Vicente Pidente comes off the DL. Almost makes you wish we hadn't have signed him, eh? Still, Gabbard was pretty good, if not great today, so it's something good to build on, I would think.

And finally, I wanted to have a mini rant about the KRLD post game call in show. The first 3-4 callers to Mike Ogulnick are prime reasons why I don't like listening to call in shows. The guys who said "we've been in a rebuilding mode since 72" & "we're the AAA team for the rest of MLB" are exactly what I mean by short sighted, knee-jerk "fans". When you say silly things like that, it completely discounts everything else you say, and make someone who really knows baseball want to shut off the radio (which I did). I ranted about this the other day about the Teixeira trade, and I won't go into a full rant here, but dammit - where's Steve Busby when you need him? Ogulnick wants to be everyone's friend. Come on man, call some of these people morons like Busby used to!

First off, my TiVo did not record the game tonight. That was a bit of a bummer. I had spent the early evening playing some more of "The Bigs" on my Xbox 360, and then was going to check out the game, as I wanted to see Saltamacchia, and catch a glimpse of Gabbard, but to no avail. I did get to see Salt's RBI hit on Baseball Tonight as I was flipping back and forth between that and coverage of the Minnesota bridge collapse.

I did see that we won 9-6 in extra innings, which is a surprise, as we usually seem to lose 10 inning games. I did get to hear the first inning on the radio at work while I was waiting for my ride home to show up, she was delayed due to the big storms in the area then. Really felt like we were going to get out to an enormous lead in the first inning. Paul Byrd was all over the place, and allowed 4 of the first 5 batters on, which scored a run. Jarrod Saltamacchia came through in his first at bat as a Ranger, he singled in two runs in the first, making it 3-0 early.

However, John Rheinecker gave it all back and then some with a four spot in the bottom of the second behind a single, a double, and two home runs. Cleveland though decided to help out by gifting us a tie again in the top of the third on a Garko error.

Things stayed calm for a little while until the bottom of the fifth when Rheinecker was knocked out following a Garko single/RBI and a Travis Hafner double/RBI. That made Rhein's line 4.1 innings, 8 hits, 6 runs, 2 walks. Ugh. That was the bad Rheinecker. You know, I don't have any good reason to do it, but I wanted to say "Rhein's line" again. I amused myself typing that. :)

Our bullpen was outstanding again. Five relievers (Eyre, Littleton, Murray, Benoit, Wilson) combined to go 5.2 innings of shutout ball. Combined they allowed just three hits, NO WALKS, and seven strikeouts. Would have liked to have seen that - darn TiVo.

Frank Catalanotto (now one of the elder statesmen on this team) doubled in a couple of runs in the top of the 8th again, tying the game up, and sending it to extra innings where I don't like being - we always seem to lose. Especially if it's JUST ten innings. Give me 14 or 17 or something, then we win, but 10 is bad.

In the 10th, it seemed like Cleveland was a mess from looking at the play by play log. Vazquez single, Cat fielder's choice (no out), Kinsler reaches on throwing error (Vazquez scores), Young intentionally walked, Botts hit a sac fly (Cat scored), Byrd singled (Kinsler scored), Cruz struck out. It was enough.

But the bits that most Ranger fans wanted to know about...

Nelson Cruz: 2-5, 1 run scored
Jarrod Saltamacchia: 1-5, 2 RBI
Jason Botts: 0-5, 1 RBI (sac fly), 3K
Sammy Sosa: 9 innings bench time
Kason Gabbard: Pitches tomorrow

Was weird seeing Teixeira hit a home run in Atlanta on Baseball Tonight. The Atlanta fans were having a love fest, but I bet you anything they'll be wanting to run him out of town come October 2008.

After the disaster that was the last game in Kansas City, one wonders how many Ranger fans were more looking forward to the trade news of the day than the team actually playing a game and losing. Especially against Cleveland starter Fausto Carmona. Mr. Carmona has been lights out this year, going 13-5 (after this game), and just generally being an awesome young starting pitcher.

McCarthy has been unstable at best, and I don't think 2007 Rangers fans know what they're getting each time he goes out there. So it was some surprise to most I'd wager that Brandon pitched as well as he did. His overall line was 6.2 innings pitched, four hits, three walks, and one earned run. The earned run was a solo home run to Ryan Garko in the seventh. Josh Lewin had just made a point that McCarthy hadn't pitched this far in a game this season so far. Don't blame him, but McCarthy seemed to be running out of gas in the seventh, and couldn't seal the deal. Frank Francisco came in and put out that small fire. Heck, CJ Wilson, who got the save tonight was also lights out. 1.2 IP, 0H, 0R, 0BB, 2K. A great night for Rangers pitchers. McCarthy even got into things in the fourth on a wild pitch that he was able to get back to the plate on and tag out the runner trying to score - which at that point preserved his shutout.

Carmona didn't do too bad himself. He went 7 innings, giving up five hits and one walk. He allowed three runs (two earned on a call that should have been a hit all the way). He probably would have gotten the win most nights with that line, but tonight he was beat by Brandon McCarthy.

Nice to see Saltalamacchia turn up in the dugout during the game. The bit about him and Hank Blalock and their kids' names tattoos was fun to watch. Salt is probably playing tomorrow's game. That'll be worth looking out for.

Bottom line, an extremely well pitched game, on a day when we took inbound several good pitching prospects via trade. Makes you wonder just what the heck in the world we were doing in Kansas City?!?

The less said about this mess, the better.

Kevin Millwood had an awful game on the mound. His line was atrocious. He went 2.2 innings, giving up nine hits and one walk. All six runs the Royals got were off Millwood, and they were all earned. No good way to describe that.

Of course it did mean that our bullpen pitched pretty well. All six KC runs were scored in the first three innings. After that, our bullpen put up zeroes.

Offensively, it was all Nelson Cruz, making his first appearance since returning from AAA after the trade of Kenny Lofton. Cruz was the show, hitting two home runs, and driving in all five runs the Rangers scored. Was nice to see that. Hopefully the new batting stance we saw on TV during this game helps him out. I did like him a lot when we first aquired him about a year ago. But he definitely has fallen since then. Hope he puts it back together again.

But a tough loss. We did make some noise in the ninth inning, scoring two to get to 6-5, and I believe left the bases loaded when the game ended. Darn.

You know as I started watching this game, I thought "Oh, it's Jamey Wright, this won't be so bad". What a fool I was! I was duped into believing that the guy wearing #45 lately was a great pitcher. His recent performances had me believing that he was someone to trust. I should have known. This was the Jamey Wright we knew and loved before he signed here. The one that caused me to contemplate blinding myself with knitting needles when he made the 25 man roster. ;) OK, that's an exaggeration taht fooled nobody. But it wasn't something I was thrilled when when the Rangers did it. Tonight wasn't good. 6.2 innings pitched, ten hits, four walks, and five earned runs. Three of them came in the first on a home run to Butler. It was at that moment I sort of wrote the opening bit for this entry. We never recovered.

Brian Bannister tossed a gem against us. Seven shutout innings on four hits and two walks. Not much else to say, the kid was good.

The only offense we got was a Sammy Sosa home run into the grass in left off of Joaquim Soria in the 8th. That was it. Sosa also had a single, as did Mike Young, Mark Teixeira, & Brad Wilkerson - but that was it for our offense, aside from the couple of walks. We had nothing.

The old problem with being unable to win in Kansas City isn't still with us, is it?

It's been awhile since I've used this graphic, and even longer for a four game sweep. But it was needed, as the Rangers finished off the Seattle Mariners who have now dropped six in a row. I didn't see any of this game, because I had gotten a new computer, and had the game on via MLB.com's gameday.

Anyway, Brandon McCarthy had another "eh" outing. Five innings, three earned runs. Only one walk, which was good, but eight hits, which was not. Pitch count was too high again. 100 pitches in five innings. That's gotta be better. That (to me) seems to be McCarthy's biggest fault. Too high a pitch count. Other than that, he's good enough now to battle through. He just burns out too fast, due to nibbling/balls/walks/etc...

Our pen also fit the "eh". Eye/Francisco/Benoit went a combined four innings, giving up seven hits and three earned runs. Only one walk by them too (Eyre), which was a good thing.

Offensively we had five doubles this game by five different players. But the big shot was a two run home run by Ramon Vazquez in the bottom of the 8th.

Can't think of anything particularly earth shattering to say about this game except that it was quite nice to take a four game sweep. :)

Kameron Loe pitched the first inning like the Loe from the first part of this season. While he didn't give up any actual runs, he did pitch like he was in quicksand, throwing something like 25 or so pitches. That did NOT look promising. Couple that with a 30 pitch fifth inning, and one wonders how the heck he managed to throw into the seventh inning. 55 pitches in two means the other frames had some small pitch counts. :)

Loe actually was pretty decent until the fifth when the Mariners scored all their runs. The first one scored three of the four of the first five batters of the inning singled. It actually would have been worse had Gerald Laird not picked off Betancourt from second. Raul Ibanez was at the plate on a disputed call - The Rangers thought they had stuck him out to end the inning - they were walking off the field, and home plate umpire Jim Reynolds said that he had not, it was a foul. This of course bought a cascade of boos from the fans in the park. It got worse on the next pitch when Ibanez doubled to the alley in right center, scoring two more. Reynolds was the target of some booing that would have done Philadelphia fans proud. I was listening in the park, and they said on the radio that it did appear to bounce, but that was a bad feeling. At that moment, you thought that it would be the game breaker.

The Rangers did follow it right up with two more of their own, tying the game at three. But this game was powered by Travis Metcalf. Metcalf went 4 for 4 tonight, scoring one, and driving in one - but the one he drove in was the important one. In the bottom of the 8th, he doubled to left, scoring Gerald Laird. Metcalf had a triple earlier in the game, that was his major league first. The four hits was also a career best for him, as the radio guys said he never got more than two in a game before.

CJ Wilson relieved Loe, going 1.1 innings, giving up no hits, while striking out 3 of the four outs made on his ledger. He was followed by Eric Gagne again. Gagne did mostly the same thing as the first game. Allowed a single to lead off his frame, then not allowing much else. Gagne saved both ends of the doubleheader, as well as a pitching the night before - three appearances in 24 hours.

While Loe wasn't crisp, he hung in there and battled well. Our pen kept it good, and allowed us to come back and get the win. I was at the doubleheader sweeps in 2004 when we beat the Red Sox & the Pirates. I love doubleheaders anyway - but they're a heck of a lot better when your team wins both ends of 'em.

This picture was taken from the same location the picture I posted with game one was taken from - couldn't decide which to post, as I like both, so I posted one per game. :)

I always go to doubleheaders. I love them. Unless they're the "day night" doubleheaders, in which case, they're really NOT double headers. Just two games played on the same date. Anyway, the park was beautiful. All the rain has seriously helped out with the green around the place. I've been coming to the ballpark since it was opened, and this day just looked more beautiful on the outside. I got to the park around 3PM, which was plenty of time to get to my seat, so I decided to walk around a little and take some pictures. I was just looking for a new pic of the outside of the ballpark, and I think the couple I posted did the job.

As good as that feeling was, it was matched by the pitching performance by John Rheinecker this afternoon. Usually when we call up someone to pitch one of these doubleheader starts, they're sent right back down after stinking up the joint. Not this time. Rheinecker was brilliant. He went seven innings, and allowed NO EARNED RUNS. The one run the Mariners did get was on a rather goofy looking two base error by Michael Young in the first. Not often you see the shortstop make an error, and then the ball ends up next to the tarp over by the stands. But Rheinecker was great. Seven innings, six hits, one walk, four strikeouts, and as I mentioned just one run - none earned. One has to think that will keep him in the majors. It was seriously impressive to watch live at the park. It was followed up by Benoit's scoreless (and hitless) inning of work. Eric Gagne came in, and allowed one hit, and then struck out two, getting the save.

Offensively, we had seven hits total. Marlon Byrd tripled in the fourth, scoring Sosa to tie up the game. As I've said before, Byrd has been impressive, and this game just added on to that feeling. Michael Young had an RBI single in the fifth, scoring Travis Metcalf for what turned out to be the winning (and final) run of the game.

Marlon Byrd made a really great LONG running catch on a ball hit by Richie Sexon in this game. Really looked like the kind of play that Kenny Lofton would have done a decade ago when he was in his prime. Looked like the kind of play that could earn Byrd a serious look at the permanent CF job the rest of this season.

It was an absolutely beautiful afternoon. The temperature was 89 when the game started, which is very nice and very unusual for July 24th in Texas. Had a nice breeze, a nice quick game which was extremely well pitched on both sides, really. Couldn't have asked for a better couple of hours at the ballpark. It's games like THIS that make it worth driving out to Arlington from Garland. Although I expect the folks at USS Mariner might have a different take on this game. ;)

It was seriously nice to see a 2-1 win at home. The game was rather fast moving, concluding in two hours and twenty one minutes.

The picture I posted with this game was taken today around 3PM or so standing in the announcer's "booth" at the Dr Pepper youth ballpark. That spot is a great place to get a nice looking picture of The Ballpark in Arlington as you can see here.

If you look solely at the hits column in the box score, this would seem to be a rather evenly distributed offensive game. We had 13 hits in all, and of the 9 batters, only Adam Melhuse did not have any hits. Nobody had more than two of them. So you would think this was a pretty spread out offensive game, eh? Not really. Sammy Sosa had five of the eight RBI's. Brad Wilkerson had two more, and Michael Young had the remaining one.

Sosa had a double in the third, which drove in Young and Tex. Sosa came through again in the fifth with a big three run home run, driving in not only himself, but Young again and Kenny Lofton. Brad Wilkerson also homered in the same inning, driving in two (Byrd). So we're looking good, going up 8-3 after five innings. Then the fun began.

In the top of the sixth, Kevin Millwood went out, and gave up a single to Jose Lopez. After a popout to Betancourt, Kevin was pulled in favor of Ron Mahay. What was weird about this was Millwood's pitch count. He was pitching like he was Robinson Tejeda. Millwood tossed 115 pitches in his 5.1 innings of work - way too many. After getting Ichiro to strike out, Mahay allowed a double, giving the Mariners a fourth run. He got out of that, and then Frank Francisco followed up with two scoreless innings.

In comes Eric Gagne. Eric did a great John Wetteland impression, even in a non save situation. The first four batters reached against Gagne. The first three scored. Guillen singled, Beltre, doubled, and then Richie Sexon jacked a three run home run, making the score 8-7. And after that he gave up a single to Johjima. Uh-oh. However, that was the end of the scoring. In fact, the game ended quite bizarrely when Ben Broussard lined out to right field, doubling off Jose Lopez to end the game. Not often you see the old 9-3 double play to end a game.

Still, a win is a win, and you'll always take it.

Looking a lot like the pitcher that the Phillies gave up on and shipped to Texas, and NOT like the pitcher that the Phillies threw against Texas a few seasons ago, Robinson Tejeda took the hill on Sunday night in the finale of the series against the Indians. He was not particularly good. Robinson went five innings, giving up 5 hits and five walks. He also gave up five runs (3 earned), and struck out four. I know we're trying to stick with guys to let them learn, but he's had 46 major league starts in his career with Philadelphia & Texas. One would think he'd be a little more consistent by now.

Willie Eyre was nothing much to write home about, either. He went two innings, giving up five hits and a walk, and three earned runs. Blech. His ERA (4.33) isn't that horrendous, but I can't say I feel very confident when he takes the hill.

Offensively, we had just seven hits this game; three of them by Marlon Byrd. Byrd certainly seems to have played himself into the Rangers long term plans, assuming he can keep up most of his current pace. I don't think anyone expects him to bat around .370 all the time, but he hasn't embarrassed himself offensively or defensively. Odd that I started this story talking about a failing former Phillies player, and now talking about a failed Phillies player who is seemingly making it here.

Gerald Laird was hit in the hand with a pitch, and it didn't look pleasant on television. Hopefully it's not something bad which will require a DL stay. We all know what happened to Laird the last time he went on the DL. Barajas, eh?

Lost the series to the Indians 3-1. That wasn't fun.

I didn't see much of this game, because I was busy feeling sad for myself. My computer at home broke yesterday. It's a doorstop now. Because of that, I had to go buy a new one, and I wasn't in the mood to watch baseball - I was playing a new football game on my Xbox 360.

However, I did see the first inning, where the Rangers jumped all over Cliff Lee. We scored five in the bottom of the first on a bunch of hits that never seemed to stop coming. In all that frame were three singles and three doubles. And then we only got three more hits the entire rest of the game. One big one was a triple by Marlon Byrd in the bottom of the seventh (which I also saw when flipping by between games) that gave us a more comfortable lead after the Indians had crept back into the game during the last few frames.

Jamey Wright didn't give up a lot of runs in his performance (3 total, only 1 earned), but he had an obscene pitch count - was at 82 after just 3.1 innings. Way way WAY too much. Of course, his giving up six walks (!) might explain that.

Interesting that two players most folks expected to be out of here (Sosa, Gagne) both came out publicly saying that they wanted to stay here. Read there's talk of an extension for Gagne. I wouldn't be opposed to that, assuming he stayed healthy.

For eight innings, the Rangers were completely closed out of this game offensively. Cleveland pitcher Fausto Carmona tossed eight brilliant innings, giving up no runs on three hits with three walks and seven strikeouts. Was an outstanding performance. Not much else you can say about that.

Brandon McCarthy wasn't too bad either, although he was nowhere in the league that Carmona was. Brandon tossed 5.2 innings, giving up the three runs the Indians got (two came on a home run to Travis Hafner). He walked three, struck out four, but still had too high a pitch count (100 in his 5.2 IP). But not all that awful, either. Problem again was Carmona.

Our bullpen, a strength this season, was good again. Wilson, Benoit, & Feldman all tossed scoreless innings, allowing just three hits combined (and one walk). That was a good outing for the Rangers pen. Perhaps they had a good outing at the rectangular table before that. ;)

We did make some noise in the botom of the ninth against Cleveland closer Joe Borowski. We scored two unearned runs on a few miscues by Cleveland. It just "felt" like they were trying to hand us the game. However, we couldn't finish off the job, and left the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, after scoring two and then loading them up. Oh well.

Maybe it's time to send Kam Loe down to AAA for a couple of hours to recharge his batteries. In his second straight mostly "meh" start, Kam looked positively Chan Ho Park like. Loe went six innings, giving up six runs on six hits, while walking four. He threw 97 picthes, which wasn't really bad pitch count wise, but you can't find much good in those numbers. Heck, he even has three sixes in a row in his line score. ;) Seriously though, it was not a well pitched game for Kam.

CC Sabathia though was the first starter to get to 13 wins. He too went six, giving up three earned runs (four overall), and only had one walk.

Offensively, we had a decent amount of hits (12), but couldn't get enough together to score more than 5 runs. Brad Wilkerson had two hits (one was a double), Ramon Vazquez had three hits (one a double), and Gerald Laird went 2 for four (one was a home run).

The message I get from looking at this box score is mediocre (at best) starting pitching for the Rangers coupled with an inability to drive in runs (Ranger batters left 16 men on plate, although the team total was lower than that) leads to another loss. That would be our 54th loss of 2007; it came in game 96 of the season.

Kevin Millwood had one bad inning. The second. In that inning:

- N. Swisher walked
- M. Ellis singled to left, N. Swisher to second
- M. Kotsay reached on fielder's choice, N. Swisher to third, M. Ellis to second on pitcher K. Millwood's throwing error
- M. Scutaro singled to center, N. Swisher scored, M. Ellis to third, M. Kotsay to second
- B. Crosby walked, M. Ellis scored, M. Kotsay to third, M. Scutaro to second
- K. Suzuki struck out swinging
- T. Buck hit sacrifice fly to center, M. Kotsay scored
- S. Stewart singled to right, M. Scutaro scored, B. Crosby to third

Not a good inning. However, even if none of that happened, it wouldn't have mattered. Oakland pitchers Lenny DiNardo and Santiago Casilla were totally dominating. DiNardo started, and went seven innings, giving up just three hits. Casilla relieved, went two innings, gave up just one hit. That was it. No walks, no runs, no nothing. The Rangers had four hits total. Two of them were doubles (Metcalf, Wilkerson) and the others were singles (Hairston, Young).

Not much Millwood was going to do against that. Still, his line was't all that bad, really. Six innings, 3 hits, 4 runs (although only one was earned). Walked three, which isn't great, but not entirely horrible, either. So Millwood has continued his good pitching since his return, but he got screwed by his own throwing error.

It's definitely one of those "tip of the cap" moments.

The top of the lineup certainly came through for the Rangers this game. Kenny Lofton went 3 for 5 with a walk, and scored two runs. Michael Young went 5-5 with a walk, scored once, and drove in three runs. In fact, Lofton got a triple on the first pitch of the game, and then Young doubled him in on the second pitch of the game, so we led the game extremely quickly.

Sosa couldn't come through here - I believe he came up twice with the bases loaded and two outs. I wonder if we're going to be able to get anything for him at all. Sosa left eight runners onbase himself. Bleh. He did have a sac fly at one point, but leaving eight isn't exactly getting the job done.

Other than Young and Sosa, the other RBI's were by Laird, Vazquez, & Hairston. No home runs in this game, plus two doubles (both Young), and one triple. We had 12 singles - so it was a low powered attack, but it got the job done.

Robinson Tejeda was out of the game before the end of the fifth, going just 4.1. The usual problem. An obscene amount of walks (six). Four hits, 3 earned runs, two of which came on Jack Cust's fifth inning home run).

Ron Mahay got a save in this game - I wonder why we didn't use Gagne - perhaps needed a day off.

Speaking of Gagne, there's a lot of noise that he wants to stay here past 2007, I wonder if that's something we'd realistically consider.

Kind of busy at work today to write. But I have to admit to being surprised at the performance turned in by Jamey Wright. Very impressive.

This is another game I didn't get to see much of. The game had started by the time I got home from church due to a meeting regarding a new church we're building. By that time I flipped on the tube, and saw we were down 4-2, and I sighed, turned the TV off, and played some more of "The Bigs" on my Xbox 360. I benched Teixeira there, and he didn't complain about it. :)

McCarthy was OK in looking at his line. Six innings, six hits, 2 walks, 4 strikeouts, and 3 earned runs (four overall). The pen was good this day, throwing quite a lot of innings (5 overall with five relievers). They shut down the Angels, and allowed us to win the game.

We won on a home run by Mark Teixeira that just barely qualified as home run - it appeared to be aided by a fan in the replay I saw.

Still, a win is a win. Something we don't do much in Anaheim much anymore.

Well, there's a little dose of reality. I don't think anyone thought Kam Loe was as totally dominating a pitcher has he showed since his "return" as his numbers had shown. Nor did I think he was a horrendous as he was early in the season. I do think he was better than this, however.

I didn't get to see the game (as I have some family in from out of town now), but his line was 2.2IP, 3 earned runs (plus two more unearned ones), 5 hits, and worst of all 5 walks. Blech. That's 10 "bases" given out in 2.2IP. OK, maybe it wasn't that great, but I guess my first look missed the walks. If he does this again, we need to send him to AAA for a throwing session. :)

The pen wasn't that great either. Only CJ Wilson escaped unscathed. The other three (Eyre, Littleton, Francisco) all gave up something.

We had a chance to get John Lackey out early, he was horrendous in the first inning, throwing something like 42-45 pitches. That was the only part of the game I got to see. We did score three in the first, which was good, but I think we left the bases loaded, or with two on, and with a chance to score more and get Lackey out early. Let him off the hook. Kind of figured when we did that, we'd probably lose.

Kenny Lofton continues to play extremely well, going 3-5 with two doubles, and scoring twice. Heck, even Sammy Sosa got a triple in this game. Our offense wasn't too bad tonight, this one was our pitching letting us down. As common as that sounds to long time Ranger fans, the extremely recent vintage Rangers haven't been guilty of that.

This was a good old fashioned pitcher's duel.

Kevin Millwood tossed seven innings, giving up just one run on five hits and three walks. There were also two double plays turned by Rangers defense this day.

Kelvim Escobar went eight innings, giving up just one run on six hits and one walk. The Angels turned one double play.

And what did we do with that? Pissed it away on a walkoff loss in the bottom of the ninth to the Angels. At least Millwood has apparently overcome his slow start and has become seemingly the pitcher he was in his year in Cleveland.

Lofton continues to play well at the top of the lineup. I liked the guy a lot. But I can't see him having any value here past July other than mentor, which we probably don't really need. Hopefully he goes somewhere where he can win in 2007.

Also, does anyone believe for a minute the stuff that Mike Ogulnick has been pushing about Kevin Millwood being a player to be traded before the deadline? I can't see us doing that. Besides, doesn't he have a no trade?

This was a great win. This club is playing very well lately, and as I've said a few times already recently, it's a shame it wasn't like this out of the gate, I'm sure we wouldn't be talking about moving a bunch of our players.

Anyway, Kevin Millwood is pitching like Kenny Rogers did after he had that rib removed. Millwood had his fifth straight good outing, is pitching like he should be. Kevin went 6 innings today, giving up just one run on five hits. Few too many walks still (three), but the overall line was pretty good. Our relievers were quite good too. Pitched 3 innings of shutout ball on just two hits.

Offensively, this game belonged to Kenny Lofton. Kenny was on base all four times he was up. Two walks, and two hits. He walked to start off the game, and scored on a Marlon Byrd RBI. This tied the game at 1-1 in the first. That was it until the bottom of the sixth when Kenny jacked a Daniel Cabrera pitch a few rows back in right field. Kenny scored both runs we got today, and that's all we needed due to the pitching we got. Quite amazing, this recent stretch of good pitching.

It almost makes you not want to get Vicente Padilla back, eh? :)

Anyway, we go into the break with a 38-50 record. Not good. But, it could have been a heck of a lot worse had it not been for the recent hot streak. We're still 12 games under .500, but if we can continue the streak we're on, getting back to .500 shouldn't be a problem. Playoffs are I think out of the question realistically, but I don't think .500 is.

Also, the more I think about it, the more I'm irritated with the Teixeira quote about "fun conversations" with Baltimore. What a twonk.

This was sheer and total domination. Erik Bedard was two pitches away from a perfect game.

He gave up no walks, struck out FIFTEEN Rangers, and gave up just two hits. Both of them were immediately wiped out via double plays, so Bedard faced the minimum 27 batters through the complete game.

I was at the park, and I don't think I've ever witnessed with my own eyes a better pitched game by anyone. That was quite amazing - we had nothing the whole night.

Thing is Brandon McCarthy was not bad, either. Other than one mistake ball which was a solo home run, he was quite good. His overall line was 6 innings, 4 hits, 1 earned run, 2 walks. The O's scored another run on his ledger, but it was a throwing error by Gerald Laird. McCarthy's problem was pitch count. Too many pitches - he had to come out. But it's hard to fault a guy who gives up just one earned run in six innings.

If McCarthy pitches like this for the rest of the year, I'd say he'll end up with a bunch of wins. But man, you gotta give this one to Erik Bedard.

Given Mark Teixeira's "fun talks in a year and a half with Baltimore" quote that's been going around lately, I say send him to Baltimore for Bedard straight up. I'd do it right now.

This was a great game, except for the top of the ninth.

Kameron Loe continues his resurgence this summer by putting in a very strong performance. He went 6+ innings, giving up five hits and three walks, but most importantly - NO RUNS. He wasn't as dominating as the last few starts, but he got the job done. I was there in person, and it was great to watch this.

Loe was up against Baltimore pitcher Jeremy Guthrie, who is having a great season. He was bringing it, and aside from a small ball run we got in the third, he was pretty darn solid, retiring something like eight in a row at one point. He made a mistake to the currently hit Brad Wilkkkkerson in the sixth, a two run home run about 3 or 4 rows right above the wedgie down the right field line. Went right past me sitting in Sec 41 against the fence - it's a reason I like sitting there, you get great views of home runs (bad view of the scoreboard, but that's another discussion). So the Rangers were up 3-0.

After Loe gave up a leadoff double in the seventh, he was pulled - to a really nice standing ovation. CJ Wilson came in, and was surprisingly not good. Wilson walked two, loading the bases. Then came a play which I couldn't tell live at the park much about. Wilson uncorked a wild pitch, and it came back to Melhuse who tagged out Chris Gomez at the plate. That was the call. I was listening on the radio, and Eric and Vic said that it looked like they got the call wrong, and the recap I read on the wire inclued a quote from the home plate umpire saying he got the call wrong. But it went our way, and that seriously helped. Francisco came in and cleaned up that mess, and also pitched a scoreless 8th.

Then in came Gagne. For the first time since 2004, he blew a save, his first of the season, and it broke a personal streak of save conversions by him of 30. We couldn't score in the bottom of the ninth, although Brad Wilkerson almost ended it then. He hit a huge towering fly ball to right, up near the top of the foul pole, but it hooked foul at the last minute. Darnit. It looked good off the bat, and it definitely was foul by my eyes at the park, but wow were those few seconds exciting. :) Jack Benoit then came in and pitched a perfect 10th.

In the bottom of the tenth, Travis Metcalf singled, and was sac bunted over by Jerry Hairston. After a walk to Ramon Vazquez, Michael Young came up and hit the first pitch into left, scoring Metcalf for the win. It was nice to see that, and I was glad to see Gagne get picked up like that.

This is the way I believe everyone felt this team was supposed to be playing from the start of the season. I wonder if this is for naught, and the team is about to be split up. That would suck, as we're playing our best ball of the year right now.

Oh, and I really loved hearing Victor Rojas' call on the game winner on the replay. Couldn't hear it in the park on my headphone radio, as the place was too loud. Did get to hear it on the replay in my truck driving home, though. This reminds me that there was a possibility that Vic could have gone to Arizona this past off season to do their TV coverage. I am so glad that did not happen. I want Vic to stay here for a really long time. I love his passion in his game calling, and if Josh Lewin ever moves on, I'd love for Vic to go up to the TV side of things.

The Rangers offense was shut down on Thursday night by Anaheim's pitching. The Rangers had six hits in all. One triple, one double, and four singles. Nobody had more than one hit, and three starters (Sosa, Wilkkkkerson, & Relaford) had none. The two runs we got were on singles, one by Mike Young in the first, and the other by Marlon Byrd in the bottom of the ninth.

Wilkkkerson's recent hot streak actually filled me with confidence that he might be able to deliver in the bottom of the ninth, but that was a fleeting thought, he struck out - to end the game, no less. GASP!

Tejeda continues to be the enigma that both Texas & Philly know. Totally mediocre line. 5.1IP, 6H, 4ER, 3BB, 4K. Not going to win much that way. Ron Mahay came on and finished the game, going a total of 3.2IP, and giving up one earned run on four hits. That was decent enough, if not spectacular.

Kelvim Escobar got his 10th win of the season, going 7, giving up just three hits, and the one run to Mike Young's single in the first.

Kind of a flat game. Still, we took the series against a division foe, and that's always something to be positive about. We were 6-4 against good teams in this recent stretch (Detroit, Boston, Anaheim). I hope that sort of play continues, and isn't just a flash in the pan.

This was another one of those games that on paper, we had no hope. Jered Weaver against Jamey Wright. Ugh. I expected us to be down 7-1 after three innings or so. But that's not what happened. Not even close.

As much as I've been ragging on Jamey since spring training, I have to give him props. This was a pretty well pitched game I thought. Except for a stretch where he allowed four singles in a row (which accounted for the two runs in the fourth), he was pretty spot on. Even those four singles were all ground balls. He also had three double plays turned on the field, two of which he was involved in himself. Jamey Newberg said he had a hard time watching him this game; I didn't. He looked good to me. At least for tonight. You can't argue with his overall line. It was 6 innings, five hits, two earned runs, two walks, and two strikeouts. His pitch count was 76, so I'm a bit surprised he came out after just six innings.

But no matter, our bullpen was lights out. The three relievers we used (Wilson, Benoit, Gagne) all went one inning, and were all perfect. CJ Wilson struck out two of his three batters, Benoit struck out the side, and Gagne didn't strike out anyone, but only needed six pitches to get the save. I imagine that inning was a small taste of what Los Angeles (the real LA team, not the one we played tonight) was getting when Gagne was in his prime a few years ago. That was exciting.

Jered Weaver went five+ innings, and was just "OK". Kind of the line I'm used to seeing from Ranger pitchers. Five innings, 7 hits, 3 earned runs, 2 walks, 2 strikeouts. Not awful, certainly not great. Frank Catalanotto and Marlon Byrd both had three hits. Cat was 3-4, and Byrd was 3-3 with a walk. Man, if Byrd is this solid the rest of the season, you would have to think he'd leapfrog Nelson Cruz in the pecking order for the 2008 outfield. Man is he hot. Speaking of hot, recent vintage powerhouse Brad Wilkkkkerson went 1 for 4 tonight with a double off the wall, that looked like a home run off the bat, but didn't quite get out. He did strike out twice though. No shock there. Overall, we had 11 hits. Two doubles (Byrd, Wilkerson) and nine singles. Gerald Laird had an odd line, going 0-2 with two RBI's. They were both sac flies.

This is the kind of game you love to see the Rangers win. Well pitched, well played, a great game of baseball. As much as I love 14-2 wins, these 4-2 games where it's close with great pitching are what it's all about.

Man, if they only started this way. Now I'm not claiming it can happen, but if we did manage to come back from this enormous deficit and somehow get into the playoffs, Ron Washington would probably win manager of the year. One wonders if that would happen if Buck Showalter might get a small playoff cut - I mean it would be partially due to him being fired, eh? :)

This game can be summed up in two major points:

Kevin Millwood - Kevin was fantastic. By far his best outing of the season. He went eight innings, giving up just 2 earned runs on 5 hits, four strikeouts, and no walks. It was almost a buried performance given the #2 major point of this game, plus the strikeout barrage that Anaheim starter Ervin Santana threw at us. But Millwood was great. It's seriously hard to try and find fault with the line. You know that bit about sometimes performance gets buried in the stats? Not this time - his line was great. Can't argue with it. Kevin had a nice streak of 13 retired Angels in a row at one point.

Brad Wilkkkkerson - Say what you will (strikeout!) about Brad, but wow did he deliver tonight. He's become known as the strikeout king, hence my recent spelling of his name in my updates, but it was a night he won't forget. Brad had three home runs (after his first at bat was a strikeout). The first home run was a no doubter, and the second looked good, but went into the wedgie. That one was probably helped by it's location. The third one was two rows into right center. Was a six RBI game for Wilkkkkerson, who accounted for six of the 8 runs we got. One was an sac fly by Frank Catalanotto. Right now I can't recall where the eighth came from. But this was really about Brad. He was on fire, and couple it with his three home run game from yesterday, and he's gotten pretty hot here.

The other story (at least early on) was Ervin Santana. His line wasn't great (5.1IP, 7H, 2BB), but the biggest stat was his 11 strikeouts. He struck out five in a row at one point, and for the early part of the game it looked like we were dead in the water; we couldn't do anything. The fourth started off quite wierdly when Marlon Byrd reached first on a strikeout. After a hit and a sacrifice, Wilkerson turned the game around on the first of his three home runs. From that point on, Santana didn't seem like the same pitcher; he seemed rattled to me. Santana had to come out of the game in the sixth when his pitch count topped 110. Course he was no longer dominating at this point, though.

Vlad Guerrero couldn't be kept down, he got a single. What a shock he got a hit against us. Wilkerson was big driving force to the 8-3 win, followed closely by Millwood. A good win against a good team. That's always ALWAYS nice to see.

My fears of us becoming the Phillies South have been realized. We have the following players on our 40 man roster who were former Phillies:

Kevin Millwood
Vicente Padilla
Robinson Tejeda
Marlon Byrd
Desi Relaford

Desi Relaford. Wretch. Haven't we had enough from this pile of players: D'Angelo Jimenez, Esteban German, Manny Alexander, Doug Glanville, Donnie Sadler, Calvin Murray, Jason Romano, Kelly Dransfeldt, Scarborough Green, Randy Knorr, Rob Sasser, Mark Sagmoen, Craig Worthington, Jack Voigt.. Do I need to go on? Why is Relaford here? Gahhhh!

Anyway, about this game. Michael Young is the only one of our starting infield not to go on the disabled list with Ian Kinsler's landing there today. He's going to be out for awhile, which means he'll come back for September. Oh well. This season has been a serious bout of the disabled list. It feels like everyone has been on it at one point or another. Kinsler's landing on the DL paved the way for Brandon McCarthy to come back from the DL (early) to make tonight's start. He probably should have gotten his final rehab start. It's a shame as McCarthy was our most consistent starter when he went down. Hopefully it won't take long for him to regain his form, and to keep the blister from returning.

Boston starter Kason Gabbard (who??) made only one real mistake. It was a three run home run to Brad Wilkkkkkerson in the fifth. Other than that, the Sox staff was pretty decent. Gabbard did allow four walks in addition to the three hits he surrendered. The remaining sox relievers combined for two hits over 3.1IP. Not bad. In fact, other than the home run to Wil-K, there were two singles (Young, Laird), and two doubles (Byrd, Metcalf). Not a lot of offense on this night.

McCarthy was nowhere near as close. He gave up 6 hits and three walks in his 3.2IP. Willie Eyre, who doesn't have a bad overall ERA, but in my eyes never seems to pitch well, went 3.1IP, and gave up 3 three hits and FIVE walks. That's 8 walks in seven innings. Bleargh! At least Jack Benoit came in and struck out the side in the eighth. That's something I suppose.

We get out of Boston with a series split. We also took 2 out of 3 in Detroit, so that's a 4-3 roadtrip against teams that are division leaders, and not weak division leaders either. They were decent teams. We're not ready for the playoffs or anything as bizarre as that, but a 4-3 road trip against these teams is something I think any Rangers fan will take.

Kameron Loe:
6IP, 6H, 2BB, 1ER, 1K

Julian Tavarez:
5.2IP, 7H, 3BB, 2R/1ER, 2K

Not too different of lines between the two starting pitchers. Very similar, in fact. However, Loe seemed to be dealing this game. He continues his post AAA meeting very well. He came back and has been great since. There's a lot of other lines to talk about this game, but to be honest, I just want to focus on how well Kam Loe has been doing lately.

Oh, this game was the mathematical half way point of the season. 81 in the books, 81 to go. At this point, we are 34-47 (.420), and are 16.5 games back. Now I don't expect to get back into the race, just pointing out where we are at the halfway point. We can continue playing well, and get more than one or two games over .500, and I think most folks would be happy. Playoffs, while not mathematically gone, might as well be. We did pass the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Kansas City Royals for worst record in the AL. Only the Nats & Reds in the other league have worse records than us.

This was another one of those matchups that by just the starting pitchers, we lost. Robinson "Mr. mostly bad" Tejeda vs Josh "Mr 20 wins" Beckett. No had no business winning this game, yet we did. Although it was really not due to Tejeda. Usually when I write about these expected blowouts against us that we win, it's down to the starter say giving up one run over 7.2IP on 3 hits. That kind of thing.

That was not the case here. Tejeda stunk up the joint again, going four innings, giving up four earned runs on five hits and SIX walks. Ugh. In fact, the first two batters of the game walked for Boston. They both scored. In the second, Tejeda tried a different tactic. Instead of walking guys and smallballing the runs in, he gave up a triple and then a home run. He did hang around for another two innings after that, not giving up any more runs, but the damage was done. 101 pitches over four innings is horrible. Had to get him out. Our pen was good again, going five innings (over four pitchers), and allowing no runs on three hits and one walk.

The Rangers offense came alive in the fourth. Three straight singles brought home Sammy Sosa, and then a Brad Wilkkkkkkkerson double scored two more. Two more singles gave us our forth, tying the four runs that Tejeda gave up earlier.

This was followed in the fifth inning by career home run number 602 for Sammy Sosa. That gave us the lead, and the win, as there was no more scoring after that.

Nice to see a comeback win against the team with the best record in the league, and also on the road like that.

Well, Jamey Wright didn't do too horrendously bad this game. I'm no fan of his, but this wasn't a stinker. Nothing to write home about (5IP, 6H, 3BB, 2ER), but nothing awesome. Thing is, though he pitched well enough to win. He did not.

He was matched up against Tim Wakefield. As I've said many times before, Wakefield either will totally shut you down, or you'll score 10 runs off him in the first; there appears to be no middle ground. Tonight was one of the former. Wakefield went 6.2 innings, giving up 7 hits and four walks, but just one earned run. He was however victimized by Kenny Lofton, who was everything you want from a leadoff hitter, going 4-4 and a walk. Unfortunately, none of it counted for anything, as Kenny never scored.

Both bullpens threw three guys out there, but the Boston pen was just slightly better, giving up just one hit in their combined 2.1 innings of work. Texas' pen allowed two hits in their three innings of work. Both sides had a combined one walk each. Boston struck out more guys though, k'ing 4 in all, and Texas k'd two. Not bad on either side, really. Although Boston won in the "number of letters in the surname" department. Their three guys had a combined 24 letters in their surnames; Texas only had 21. Yeah, OK, I'm tired (it's 1:15AM as I write this), and those are the kinds of things you think of when trying to do summaries instead of sleeping.

A loss is never something you want, but 2-1 losses mean you are pitching well, and I'll take my chances giving up just two runs every game.

For the first four innings, this was a pretty decently pitched game. I was able to listen at work, and things were going well. Then karma stepped in and messed with that. I had to get up from my desk and go do work elsewhere in the office. When I came back, the Rangers were down 3-0. They did get one back, but then gave the Tigers two more. This wasn't our game.

Kevin Millwood pitched "OK". I was going to give him higher grades than that even though he technically had a quality start. But when you walk six guys in six innings (in addition to five hits), I'm not sure how you can really call that a great outing, or even a quality start for that matter. He did strike out six which was good, but man. Six walks.

Scott Feldman followed him up and walked three more. That's nine walks in 7.1 innings. No way are you winning the game with that many free passes. Feldman actually only gave up one hit, but his two earned runs came on a Gary Sheffield home run, which immediately followed a pitch from Feldman that went behind Sheffield. Ron Mahay came on and stopped teh bleeding, but it was too late.

Kenny Rogers went against us, making his first home start of 2007. Hands up those of you who thought the two year contract Detroit gave Kenny would have worked out well, and that Kenny would be in line to probably get a similar style contract provided he pitches well the rest of the way out here? Is that a long enough runon sentence? Kenny went six innings, giving up just one run on four hits and a walk. Pretty nice outing. We did get a run against reliever Chad Durbin too, but just two runs was not cutting it this game. I again point out the 9 walks the Rangers gave up.

In all the Rangers had seven hits, but no player had more than one. We had three doubles (Kinsler, Lofton, Hairston), and the rest were singles. Not a bunch going on against Detroit this day.

We get out of there taking the series 2-1. Obviously we don't know what would have happened had we played all four, but I'll take a series win against the defending AL Champions any day. Especially when they're still in first place, and that kind of win means something.

Wednesday's game was rained out in Detroit. It's going to be made up as a day-night doubleheader in Detroit on September 11th. Probably good for me at least today, as I was busy at my desk at work and likely would not have been able to listen to it.

I don't have much time to write about this, in fact, not much at all.

I will say this, if Marlon Byrd continues to play out the rest of 2007 the way he's playing now, I wonder if he'll play himself into a contract and a starting position in 08?

Here's another game like the Wright/Oswalt game from a few days ago. Who really thought the Rangers and Kameron Loe would be beating the Tigers and Jeremy Bonderman. Bonderman had a 17 game winning streak in his own starts. The cards were stacked against our little team from Texas.

But Kameron Loe pitched like the guy we expected him to be, not the one who was wearing #43 the first couple of months of the season. Kam went seven innings, giving up just two earned runs on seven hits and two walks. One of the runs he gave up was right about when he came out of the game, so he kept the Tigers in check pretty much the entire game. Aki went a scoreless eighth, and we were going to have Gagne, except we removed the save opportunity, so Frank Francisco came out for the ninth. He was a bit shaky, and did give up an unearned run, but got the job done in the end.

Our offense was almost all singles. We had 12 hits in all. 10 of them were singles. One was a double by Wilkerson in the seventh, and the other was a home run by Jerry Hairston in the ninth. Marlon Byrd continues to look good, going 2-5 with 3RBI. Overall a nicely balanced offense.

We've been playing great lately, and this is a real test. If we can take the series in Detroit and Boston (the best of the AL now), then we might have really turned things around. I'm not foolish enough to believe playoffs at all, but it'll be much better than dragging out a lost season, that's for sure.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

There was a lot to talk about this game, but all I wanted to say was that above. We scored four in the bottom of the 8th to tie the game. We gave up two runs in the top of the 9th, and the retied the game in the bottom of the ninth with some really cool clutch hitting. But then we gave up three runs in the top of the 10th, and blew it.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

Well, I can't say I was thrilled at seeing Jamey Wright back in the starting rotation. But I cannot argue with the results. He went 3.2 innings before allowing his first hit, and only allowed three overall in his 5.2 innings of work. He allowed two earned runs, the only runs the Astros got all game. He did walk six though, which is not very good, but managed to get around it.

Who would have guessed that when they saw Jamey Wright vs Roy Oswalt in the game previews? I mean honestly - who thought we were winning this? But it worked. I'm almost stunned.

Oswalt was beat up by his usual standards against the Rangers. While technically a quality start, Oswalt usually is much more stingier with the Rangers. He went 6.1 innings, giving up 8 hits and 4 walks, while striking out 2. Was a positively pedestrian performance by him.

The Houston bullpen gave up a bunch - In the 1.2 ip the three relivers went, they each gave up at least one run (total of 4). The Texas bullpen was darn near perfect. Of the four Texas relievers (Francisco, Wilson, Otsuka, Gagne), only one gave up any hits or walks. That was Francisco, who gave up one walk, and one hit, but NO runs. In fact, the other three WERE perfect. Was a nice performance by our bullpen.

Tomorrow we go for the sweep.

I was at this game. Ever since Interleague play started, I wanted the Astros to play here. And some years ago a regular series was added (although at the expense of a move to the AL Central - THANKS HICKS). I enjoy Interleague anyway, and I usually make at least one of the games each year. I like the Astros too, but I don't follow them as closely as I do the Rangers, but I know enough to say I'm a casual fan of the Astros, so its' a cool thing when they play. I don't think it's the "rivalry" that other natural rivals (Cubs/ChiSox, Yanks/Mets) are, but I don't want it to go away, either.

I parked my backside in my seat, which was right up against the foul pole in right field - I was right up against the fence. Heck, you could see me on TV in the coverage of the Wilkerson & Sosa home runs in the fifth inning. :) I kind of like sitting there, it's a cool spot, even if the bottom most part of the Jumbotron is not visible. Chatted with some guys I didn't know - had a lot of fun with them.

The game itself started off with the Rangers behind, after a solo home run to Lance Berkman. No shame there, he hits a lot of them. We did however, pick it right up in the bottom of the first when Ian Kinsler doubled down the line, and Mike Young singled him home. We got another in the second when Lofton doubled down the right field line - it was cool because I could look over the rail and look straight down and see the play below me. Luke Scott had some troubles with the ball, and I thought that a younger Lofton would have had a triple easy on that when Scott slightly misplayed it. Still, it gave us the lead.

Houston took the lead back in the fifth when Biggio got hit #2,993, and was doubled home by Houston phenom Hunter Pence (who I have on several fantasy teams). Also saw a "Welcome home Hunter" sign in the outfield, that was nice. Pence himself scored when he was singled home by Lance Berkman which gave the Astros the lead again.

And then the floodgates opened. The Rangers put up an 8 spot in the bottom of the fifth. We sent 13 men to the plate that inning. The inning went like this: single, home run, home run, walk, strikeout, home run, double, single, walk, walk, single, fly out, strike out. The home run by Sosa was another thing that happened right below me. I had a fantastic view of the ball skipping on top of the wall in front of the wedgie and bouncing up into the seats. I missed #600 the other night, but did see #601. :) Then Marlon Byrd destroyed another ball way up into the bleachers in left center. Nice to see back to back jacks. Wilkkkkkkkkkerson also had a home run that passed me in right and went about 10 rows up in the seats, not too far away from where Raffy hit #500 if I remember that correctly. It was a great inning. In fact, Sosa had two hits and four RBI's in this inning.

I have to say, while I've been screaming for Botts (as have most fans), Sosa's production is hard to argue with. I've seen a few people suggest that he might stay here all season, and possibly beyond. While his average is not great (242 I think), he's on a pace for 120RBI in a season, and I think around 25 home runs or so. If people had said that's what Sosa would have after 2007 was over when we signed him, we'd all be jumping up and down happy. There's no doubt he's blocking Botts, but if Sosa ends up with a decent average and sustains the power numbers, it might be hard to argue against keeping him. Steroids talk be damned, as I sit here writing, I have to say the 600 thing was fun to see. Yeah, it seems to contradict my previous statements about Botts & Sosa, but this is how I feel right now.

Millwood had a decent outing. Not stellar, he went six innings on 102 pitches, giving up three earned runs. It earned him his fourth win of the year, and lowered his ERA to 7.31 - yikes. Far cry from the year he lead the league in ERA with Cleveland. Jack Benoit & Frank Francisco followed up with three innings of perfect relief. The coolest part about the Ranger pitching staff this night is that they gave up NO walks at all. That's quite unusual. Zero walks. Houston on the other hand, gave up 9 walks. Including Houston reliever Stephen Randolph who gave up four walks in two innings (with 5ER).

All in all, it was quite a fun night to be out at the ballpark.

I'm actually writing this at 5:30PM the day after the game, when I realized I forgot to write something, so I'm not going to have a lot to say. Just a few random remarks.

I think the thing that most people will want to remember is Frank Catalanotto's walk off hit. As bad as this season has gone, we need a few like this. It was great.

Kenny Lofton's evading of being caught in a rundown was quite impressive. You knew that once he escaped that, something good was coming from it. :)

We've now won 5 out of the last 7 games. That's pretty impressive given how horrible we have started. Now I hold no illusions on the outcome of the season overall, but it's nice to have a GOOD stat to point to.

Padilla still doesn't look good. Blech.

Couple of more home runs - one from Victor Diaz and one from Adam Melhuse. Melhuse is probably a good acquisition for backup catcher. Probably better than what we had before, anyway.

Nice to see Ron Washington nominated to the All-Star game coaching staff. Guess that means there will be two Ranger uniforms in San Francisco in July, as our players haven't really earned it; we'll get the minimum one.

Sosa didn't play. I wonder how much he celebrated the night before. :)

It was really hard not to write about Sosa in the headline. :)

First. DARNIT! I missed it by one night. I was there last night. Oh well. :)

Second, I figure I couldn't go too long after the title without writing about "600". There's the picture. I particularly like Gerald Laird holding up six fingers as Sammy approaches home plate. That was a cool gesture. I also really liked the clip they showed of Lou Piniella acknowledging Sammy Sosa from the Cubs dugout. That was cool. I normally love Rangers broadcast choices, but they showed Sammy's family just a few too many times, I would have loved to have seen more player and fan reactions. OK, Sammy's family is crying, and they are happy. We got it after the fourth or fifth cutaway to them. I did also get a kick out of the ball ending up in the bullpen, where there wasn't 600 security guards, and some fan holding it hostage for $500,000 or something like that. Akinori Otsuka got the ball, and seemed to be really happy about it from the TV coverage we saw.

There will be a lot written about the 600th home run, asterisks, steroids, and all that, but I have to say, I didn't quite get the "tingle" I got when McGuire got 62, but as much as I've called for Botts, this was a very cool moment. I enjoyed this a bunch. A few quotes in the press this past week about Sosa playing more than just this year, and even talking about 5 more (but that was probably a joke). I'm not sure what to make of Sosa in 08, (or even past the All-Star game), but this was a very fun moment to watch. When I said "There it goes, 600" - my wife came in from the other room to see it. Gotta love TiVo. :)

Then Frank Catalanotto followed up Sosa's home run with a shot of his own. That was pretty well enjoyable. :)

Mike Young went 3-4, raising his average to .289. Catalanotto was 2-4 with the aforementioned jack. Other than that, we had just four more hits as a team. In all, we didn't dominate the Cubs, and seven runs seems like a lot given how much (aka little) we put together offensively. Of course, we were helped by four walks by Chicago starter Jason Marquis. Actually, the Cubs had more hits than we did, but ours obviously counted more than theirs did.

And then there was Kameron Loe. Coming off by far the best pitching performance by a Ranger this season, he followed up with this. While his overall line is not as dominating (6.2IP, 3ER, 6H, 1BB, 4K), he looked just as crisp to my unprofessional eyes. In fact, two of his three earned runs came on the last pitch he threw, a two run home run to catcher Koyie Hill. In fact, the other run was a home run to Alfonso Soriano that (so we're told, I couldn't see it) grazed the left field foul pole. So Loe, while not as lights out as he was in Pittsburgh, certainly put in a great performance. Was very good, and that storyline will probably get lost

That's OK. I'm sure Kameron Loe will have more wins in his career going forward than Sammy Sosa will have home runs, so this night really belonged to Sammy Sosa. I think Kameron Loe probably will really enjoy both things tonight.

Random Comment: Remember about 10 years ago when Ted Kennedy honored Sosa & McGwire with something, only he botched both names? He called Sammy "Sammy Sooser". I wish I could find a clip of that now.

I was at this game tonight, and boy was it humid. Made me feel like I was back home in Philly, or in a game at Baltimore. It was really bad. Of course, I was out there to see Sosa hit his 600th. I actually bought the ticket back in March, so it wasn't a "600 only" thing. There were a lot of Cubs fans, and they were pretty well behaved, unlike Yankees fans, or Red Sox fans (since they won the Series). I spent most of the game talking to a Cubs fan who was sitting behind me about old teams, baseball books - it was nice.

Robinson Tejeda started off the game not too bad - had 29 pitches through two innings, and had the lead 1-0, on a first inning home run by Ian Kinsler. He then gave up the lead, although not completely of his own doing after two unearned runs that scored after Gerald Laird botched Alfonso Soriano's bunt attempt. OK. We're down 2-1. No problem. Brad Wilkkkkkkkerson hit a home run into the upper deck in the home run porch, and tied it at two.

Tejeda gave it back in the fourth - one of which was a bases loaded walk. At this point, Tejeda looked out of gas, or out of control or just out of it, as he had nothing. He was just all over the place. Didn't look good at all, except for the first inning or so. He did go back out for the fifth, which was a suprise, and did get out of that inning without scoring a run, but it was QUITE shaky.

In the bottom of the fifth, Ian Kinsler homered for the second time in the game, this time a two run shot, which made the score 4-4 again. That was, however, the last scoring the Rangers did. In fact, it was the last baserunner at all, because the Cubs bullpen was PERFECT. They didn't allow anything at all. It was quite a surprise. After the second Kinsler home run, it broke down like this:

Cubs bring in Chris Marmol who struck out the side (Young, Sosa, Byrd). Marmol comes back out for the sixth, Diaz struck out (fourth in a row for Marmol), Laird flied out, and Wilkkkkkkerson fouled out. Marmol again for the 7th, and Metcalf flied out, Lofton grounded out, & Kinsler struck out. Bobby Howry came in, got Young to fly out, Sosa to fly out, and Byrd to strike out. Ryan Dempster came in and closed it out, getting Catalanotto to strike out, Laird to strike out, and Wilkkkkkkerson to strike out. Gah. In all we struck out 13 times this game. over half of them were from the 5th inning on. Gotta tip your hat to the Cubs bullpen. Not much we can do when they're perfect against you.

Ron Mahay looked quite good out of the bullpen. Didn't realize he's been here 5 years, and is only beat by two players for seniority here (Mike Young & Joaquin Benoit). There was a lot of talk on the radio post game show about him being showcased. I know we need help, but our bullpen is good again. With CJ Wilson we have two decent/good left handers, I'd hate to give 'em up again.

Sosa 600 watch: Three strikeouts and a flyout. No home run. After the first three strikeouts, I actually found myself wishing if he didn't get the home run that he'd strike out so I could use my golden sombrero image I used for Victor Diaz a few games back. :)

One thing that pissed me off after the game, and really made me angry is that someone had dumped about half a dozen empty beer cans in the back of my pickup truck - plus two giant empty glass bottles (of beer). I didn't realize it until I got home what was in there (I could hear rattling while I was driving home), but I've never had that happen to me at the Ballpark before. Are we turning into f'in bums where we use any old receptable (like my truck) for a trashcan? What the heck is up with that?

I won't have time to write about these two games. I was planning on doing it today (Monday), but my company released information about a new product, so that took up almost all of my time today, so I decided to just sacrifice those two updates. :)

I'm sure the world won't collapse with me not doing those two updates.

The Rangers did something they haven't done in ages. Win two games in a row on the road. It also had a few other things we aren't doing often. Those are scoring first, coming back from behind to win, and a bunt hit by a Rangers pitcher. It was a game of "oh yeah, I remember when we did that".

Sammy Sosa got it started early with a single to right, scoring Michael Young. That run was backed up by a solo home run ball by Ramon Vazquez in the second, putting us up 2. Cincinnati got one back off of a pair of doubles in the second, and then on a couple more hits in he third. That tied it up. OK, 2-2 is doable. I can live with that, unlike the 7-1 deficits we've been having almost immediately lately. Padilla then gave up a tater in the fourth, as well as a couple of more hits for a two spot, putting us down two. Two is manageable, but I'm tired of us having to come from behind. Padilla is really earning his paycheck here.

The top of the fifth is when Padilla's bunt hit made an appearance. Was kind of funny to watch him lumber out of the box. Fortunately he was helped out when Cincinnati's pitcher and catcher tripped over each other, allowing Padilla to be safe. He might have beat it out anyway - it wasn't the greatest bunt ever, but it was a good one, but the trip up certainly helped. Padilla scored two batters later in a rather ungraceful maneuver going around third. Michael Young walked to load the bases, and then Slammin' slammed one over the right field wall to pick up four runs. It was nice, and it was his 599th. Course, I'm going to be going to the game on Tuesday, so it will be interesting to see if he keeps #600 for that game. As much as a I have ragged on him the last week, 600 is an impressive number, and it would be kind of cool to see it. Anyway, since it was the fifth, Victor Rojas was announcing this, and while I didn't hear it (I was watching this on TV), I'm sure Victor did his usual grand slam call by sounding like his lungs were being forcibly ejected from his mouth onto his microphone. :)

The Reds followed up with a two spot in the bottom of the fifth on one of the more impressive looking home runs I've seen - an absolute monster of a blast from Adam Dunn - it looked like it was going to completely clear the seats in right field - a task that would have put the ball well over 500 ft. I didn't even mind that it was such a bomb of a blast.

Anyway, that was it - no more scoring after the fifth. Our pen was solid - five guys (Benoit, Wilson, Francisco, Otsuka, Gagne) did not allow any runs (and only two hits as wel) in their four frames on the hill. Can't say the same for Padilla, who gave up 6 runs on 12 hits in his 5 innings. Blech. He got a win, but did not pitch like he deserved it. He needs to start hitting people again to at least make it interesting to watch him.

But you have to give congrats to Sosa for this game. 2 for 4 with 5 RBI and a home run (a slam). That was probably the reason we won this one. :)

Brandon McCarthy had appeared to turn the corner, and was pitching better (if not awesome). Or at least it seemed that way. Then he got sidelined by the infamous blister injury. Our best pitcher of VERY immediate vintage goes down on the DL, and we bring back Kameron Loe. I don't think anyone (except maybe Kam himself) thought that this was going to be a good thing. Kameron, like much of the 2007 Rangers, has been a disappointment. I think most people figured he'd show up again much later in the season, not this quickly.

So back up to the majors comes Kameron to the land of Pieroghies, and the extremely tasty Primanti Brothers sandwich (my wife's from Pittsburgh, I know it well). Kameron was more than up to the challenge for his return. As was theorized on TV last night, he might have been helped by the fact that he was leading 1-0 when he went out to pitch first. A lead in the first is not something Ranger pitchers have enjoyed much at all this year. That happened due to a lead off home run by Jerry Hairston Jr. Hairston doesn't hit a lot of those, so they're nice to see when they crop up. Loe was cruising along, not allowing much of anything - just five hits and three walks in all. He was helped out by two double plays. In fact, Loe was the first Ranger starter to go eight innings in a game, and we're at game 66. That's not good. I personally would have liked to have let him try to get the complete game shutout, but it was probably good to get him out with 8 and a shutout before he could blow the shutout in the ninth.

Kameron even chipped in with a single, and a run scored! :)

Congragulations to Travis Metcalf who got his first major league hit in this game, a home run to left field. It appeared security was talking to the guy who got the ball, so I hope Travis got it back.

Gerald Laird also had a big home run, a three run shot in the seventh - in fact, 5 of our 6 runs were on home run balls.

I spotted Jamey Wright in the dugout in Pittsburgh on TV last night. There's been a lot of talk that he will be activated and pitch a few starts for us. I'm not thrilled with that, but I'm even less thrilled that he'd have to be activated from the 60 day DL. Unless they also then DFA Sosa, and bring up Jason Botts, while moving a pitcher back to AAA - who knows, could be what the Rangers are waiting for, other than Sosa's 600th.

One more remark about Loe. The quote he had about AAA pitching coach Andy Hawkins fixing his mechanics after just one start was quite disturbing. The quote went something like "Andy saw a problem with my mechanics about my delivery position - I corrected it, and it's all good again" (I'm seriously paraphrasing there). Uh, why did Mark Connor not see that for as many starts as Kam made in the majors before he was sent down. The other remark by Kevin Millwood about not knowing what he's doing wrong is also not good to hear.

I wonder how long before we start hearing about getting rid of Connor instead of Washington (which is a bunch of crap).

BTW, the picture of the Primanti Brothers sandwich that is in the linked Wikipedia page above was one I took some years ago when I was up there visiting. The thing is EXTREMELY good. If you're up there, go to the original location in the Strip District. It's awesome!

I'm running out of ways to describe how inept this team looks. But hey, Frank Catalanotto went 2-3 and raised his average to .188 - HERE WE COME!

Makes you wish for the days of the inaugural Texas Rangers team in 1972. Our starting rotation then was:

Dick Bosman
Rich Hand
Pete Broberg
Bill Gogolewski
Don Stanhouse
Mike Paul

If you look up their records, the best win/loss record was either Dick Bosman at 8-10. But the WORST ERA of any of them was Pete Broberg at 4.29. That's about a point and a half better than the lowest starting ERA of the 2007 edition of the Rangers (McCarthy at 5.90).

But remember, Pete Broberg was our pitching hope for the future!

I can't think of any reason to write about the actual game on Wednesday evening at all.

Someone in the local DFW media (I can't remember who - TV guy, newspaper, blogger) said "Well, the schedule is looking easy for the next two weeks". That was a stupid thing to say. This is the 2007 Texas Rangers. Nothing is easy. Unless we could play ourselves, in which case we'd have the best record in baseball.

I've been to a few games at PNC Park - it really is as gorgeous as it looks on TV. Too bad the team has been historically bad the last 10-15 years or so. If you're ever in the area, you really should try to go. The place is really REALLY nice. Honestly.

Anyway, our troubles in this game can be boiled down to Kevin Millwood's bad pitching, and our own bad luck. We hit into I believe five double plays, including one in the ninth, when we appeared to have some momentum building towards a comeback. We also got screwed in one inning when Sammy Sosa made a major blunder on the basepaths. He should have scored, and we would have had second and third with no out. After that move, we had bases loaded and no outs, and couldn't score. That was not a brilliant maneuver. Sosa did have a decent night with the stick though, going 2-3 with a double and a couple of RBI's.

But Kevin Millwood went 4.1 innings, giving up 5ER (6 in all) on 8 hits and two walks. Not good. His season ERA is 7.82. Wow. I mean YIKES! We've always had the running gag that our pitching is horrible, but even Mark Clark wasn't this bad.

We did have some action late, though. We got a run in the 8th, and then two in the ninth when it seemed we were going to double our way to a win. Kinsler had a double, then Brad Wilkerson had another, driving in Kinsler. Adam Melhuse stepped up, and hit a ball off the wall which should have been a double, but it was hit so hard, he was held to a single. It's too bad as the next batter was Ramon Vazquez, who hit a ball off the bat that looked like a double, but it went right into the glove of Pittsburgh's first baseman, and Melhuse was a dead duck. That was a deflater play - whatever momentum we had hitting around the Pittsburgh relievers in the ninth was gone.

We lost. Again.

When is Botts coming up again?

Oh, and all this talk around town the last few days about Washington being run out of town. Come on folks - give it a rest. This is not Jerry Jones' team. You don't run people out of town after half a season. They have to be given a chance to do something - one year is not enough. Even two isn't - to me you need three. I hope we don't run Daniels & Washington out of town - that kind of knee jerk crap is what Jerry Jones would do. If we do that, I give up. There will be no pleasing Ranger fans. You have to stay the course. Go watch Cowboys games if you want to run these guys out of town now. That opinion is a disgrace.

Aw crap. We had another really great comeback in the bottom of the ninth for the second night in a row. That was a great feeling. The downside is we went into extra innings, which always seems to me to be a loss, we usually lose them in the 10th. If we survive the 10th, we have a shot, but again, the extra innings bug bit us, and we lost the game on a 12th inning home run by Geoff Jenkins.

So... CRAP!

Wow. I mean, wow. First off, nothing before the 9th inning mattered, except Brandon McCarthy pitched pretty well. Baby steps, I know.

Then the ninth. Francisco Cordero came in, got two outs, and then we were down to our last strike. Wilkerson got on. Then the fun began. We were down to our last strike in three or four straight batters, they all got on somehow. As Josh & Tom were pointing out, Cordero probably had a bunch of negative things in his mind in this park and all that - because he has been totally unhittable this season, being very Gagne in his prime like. Until tonight, Cordero had only given up one run all season, and had not blown a save. Well, tonight Cordero blew a save, and gave up FOUR runs for the Ranger win in the bottom of the ninth. It was quite amazing. I admittedly knew the score beforehand, but I had to watch that even though I knew how it ended. It was still pretty darn cool to watch.

And on the night where Teixeira went to the DL. Speaking of moves, I found it odd that today's roster moves had two position players coming onto the 25 (Wilkerson, Metcalf) and the two roster subtractions were a fielder (Tex), and a pitcher (Loe). This tells me that another roster move is due in a day or so when we bring up who will take Loe's spot on the roster.

We also acquired Adam Melhuse from Oakland for cash - that will probably work better than Chris Stewart as a backup, plus there's big connection to Ron Washington too. I'll just wrap it up with these two pictures:

After doing some yard work tonight (I hate mowing the lawn when it gets hot out in the summer), I decided to sit down and score the Brewers game. I had forgotten they were going to be in town when I bought tickets, so I'm not going this weekend. I couldn't just pick up and go due to other commitments (family stuff tonight, a dinner at my church with our bishop tomorrow, and company coming over Sunday), so going was out. But I could score the game, as I did want to see the Brewers, so that's what I did. Lately with them playing so badly, I've been less inclined to want to actually sit and watch a whole game from start to finish. I get bored, start skipping forward on the TiVo, generally I can watch a full game in about 45 minutes that way. But this time I watched all of it.

Early on, Robinson Tejeda was electric. He had struck out five in the first three innings, I believe, and other than a home run ball near the wedgie to Prince Fielder, he was cruising early. He looked like what I'm sure Philadelphia was seeing - a good young pitcher with great stuff.

The Rangers got some offense early. We picked up a two spot in the bottom of the second, when Capuano was incredibly wild, walking three in the inning, including one with the bases juiced. We would have had more had it not been for a cannon shot from Bill Hall to gun out Kenny Lofton at home. The fourth was our big offensive inning. Ian Kinsler led off with his first home run in a month, a shot off the top of the left field foul pole. After a couple of more singles sandwiched around a fielder's choice that Kenny Lofton beat out to stay out of a DP, Mark Teixeira doubled down the line in right to score both Lofton & Young. Sosa followed up with another double, scoring Tex. A nice inning there by the guys who were supposed to be doing this same thing all season long. We picked up another next inning on a sac fly by Jerry Hairston.

Meanwhile Tejeda was cruising. Going into the seventh, his pitch count was low, he was winning 7-1 - it was everything our pitching was not. And then the reality set in. Tejeda's wheels fell off hard in the seventh, giving up a 5 spot fueled by two home runs (Hart & Braun), and he was out. CJ Wilson came in and k'ed Prince Fielder to end that mess. OK, we're still up, but it's not the same game it was before.

We picked up a couple more runs in the bottom of the 8th to make our lead a little wider, but the back end of this game was Aki in the 8th, and Gagne in the 9th. Both Aki & Gagne were perfect, not allowing anything in either of their frames. Gagne started off with two K's, making the batters look silly. I can just imagine what Los Angeles (the real LA team, not that fake one in our division) felt when he had like 10,000 saves in a row a few years back.

The annoying thing about this is that other than the 5 spot in the seventh, this was the way the Rangers of 2007 were supposed to be all the time. Good offense, Aki in the 8th, Gagne in the ninth. That's what I mean by we won, despite ourselves. Minor concern that Teixeira came out of the game, hopefully that's not anything. Course, if he is hurt and is out for awhile, that probably kills all trade talk about him.

Finally, this image is awarded to Victor Diaz who struck out four times (all swinging, too), earning the Golden Sombrero. Josh & Tom were saying that it was just a sombrero for four, and a golden sombrero for five, but that didn't seem right to me. I looked it up a bit, and found out I was right. Four is the golden sombrero.

It's a good thing I'm not Evan Grant. Why? He has to write about these bad games and teams. I can just say "They suck", and be done with it. He has to be more erudite than that. Of course, he gets paid for this, I do not. I guess that's compensation enough, eh Evan? :) I am just at a loss. The pitching is far worse than anyone could have ever imagined. I did think that after the last few years, I shoudln't be THIS disappointed, but like most Ranger fans I was pretty high on the spring training team, Ron Washington, etc, etc, etc.. I'll still be a fan, but MAN are they not good.

Loe gave up nine runs in 2.2 innings. That's an ERA of what, about 6,000? Eric Gagne pitched an inning and didn't give up anything. Given the usual demand for pitchers, he's probably our best bargaining chip next month. Hopefully he holds it together health wise until after he's traded. Mark Teixeira had a home run in the bottom of the ninth, when it didn't matter. I'm still up in the air on what will happen with him. Last week I figured he was a total goner, and then that quote by Mike Young came out saying "If he goes... that's not what I re-signed here for", makes me wonder. I say if Arod opts out of his contract, you immediately give Tex what he wants, throw all that lost Arod money at Tex ontop of what you were going to offer him anyway.

Speaking of bad teams, let me take a moment to point out a very funny book about some very bad Texas Rangers teams of the early 70's. The book is called "Seasons in Hell", and was written by Mike Shropshire. Here's some text about it. If you've never read this, I strongly suggest you do - it's extremely good. Especially if you're a Rangers fan:

Assigned to cover the Texas Rangers for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in early 1973, gonzo sportswriter Mike Shropshire looked forward to the perks and padded expense account that went along with the job. He never dreamed he'd have to earn every penny--following arguably the worst team in baseball history. Full of wild games and wilder nights, and the exploits of some of the most extreme characters ever to play the game, this book is Shropshire's irreverent, behind-the-scenes look at the hell a truly pitiful team can raise between games and innings.

Joe's Remarks: I wasn't quite sure what to think of this one either. I bought it because of the tagline on the front about it being funny. I admit to not knowing a whole lot about the very early years of the Rangers (I didn't move here until 1992, and didn't really follow 'em until 1995), and the thought about reading a book all about them didn't thrill me.

However, I quickly found out that this was a hysterically funny book. Mike Shrophsire has a very funny wit, and isn't afraid to let it fly when talking about the Rangers of this era. His recollection of events is awesome, and makes for very funny reading. If you're a fan of the Rangers, or even if you're not, GET THIS! It's a very great read, although I don't recommend it for very small kids, as there's more than just one or two cuss words in there. Still, for adults, it's well worth it.

You know, my TiVo recorded this game, and I was home when it started. I was more interested in playing a new release of Pac-Man on my Xbox 360. Played that for awhile. Worked on a problem on another website of mine. Helped put my daughter to bed. Then played some Uno on Xbox 360.

Decided I didn't want to start watching the Rangers game from the beginning, so I just went to live TV on my TiVo, and saw the score after the top of the 6th. I turned the TV right back off, and immediately thought of this quote from Homer Simpson (reference). I think it about sums this one up.

Yeah, Moe, that team sure did suck last night. They just plain sucked! I've seen teams suck before, but they were the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked.

The Rangers suck. I don't know any other way to put it now.

I don't have time to write a ton here as I got too busy at work today.

But it was interesting being up 5-0 after the first five batters, and then 6-0 after the first seven batters. It was quite an interesting sight to see Detroit's starting pitcher be pulled after six batters. That was a surprise.

I was also surprised at our ability to hang on like we did - we did add a seventh run late, but that was a long time "hang-on", there. :)

I missed almost all of this game, because I was busy with church activities, and when I did sit down to watch the game, I promptly fell asleep on the sofa. Twice. So I missed most of this, but from what little I did see, it was... aw hell, we stunk up the joint again.

It looked OK early, but that was in the first couple of innings when it was 1-1. I fell asleep, and when I woke up, we were losing 6-4. It had the same kind of feel that Saturday's game had. Got behind, caught right up, didn't feel too bad. Only down two.

Then in the sixth, not only did the wheels fall off, but the wheels rolled off into the lake next to the road, an alligator ate them, and were never heard from ever again. We gave up another four runs in the bottom of the sixth, and while we picked up two more in the top of the eighth, it didn't feel like we had anything in us.

EXCEPT for Victor Diaz. I almost titled this entry "The Mariners beat Victor Diaz on Sunday", but decided not to. I did see Diaz' three run home run (that's right, fell asleep right after that), along the way to five RBI in all. Diaz is batting 297 now with 7 home runs and 16 RBI in limited duty. I wonder if he'll get a longer look now, especially since Nelson Cruz seems to have gone into the hopper. While I don't think anyone is clamoring for the return of Kevin Mench or Laynce Nix, I bet most people still think trading Coco was a mistake. Oh well, at least Carlos Lee is doing well in Houston - D'oh!

The best news about tomorrow's day off is that we can't lose the game. Not that it would matter - a quick glance at the standings as I write this shows we again have the worst record in major league baseball. We're #30! We're #30!

Since we're leaving Seattle, I thought this might be a good time to show this video clip which Ranger TV fans should recognize. I think you may have seen it. :)

Through five and a half, this was a pretty good pitcher's duel between Miguel Batista & Kameron Loe. OK, perhaps it's not Steve Carlton vs Nolan Ryan good, but you couldn't argue with a 2-0 score after five and a half innings. Things were going good in that regard.

Then the wheels fell off for Kameron Loe. As is the custom with the 2007 Rangers, the wheels normally fall off immediately, but this time it wasn't until the sixth inning, when Loe gave up a 3 spot to go along with the two the Mariners already had. To be honest, I didn't think he was as bad as his line looks, but as the old adage goes, "numbers don't lie". Oh well. Of course, eight hits and four walks in 5.2 IP isn't that great either, so what the heck do I know?

Offensively, we got a pair of hits (single, double) from Ian Kinsler, and another pair of hits from Ramon Vazquez (singles). We had three more hits that were scattered (singles from Catalanotto & Byrd), one of which was a home run from Mark Teixeira, who has seriously helped his value in a trade, if we choose to go that route (which I really hope we do not).

The Rangers themselves matched the three spot the Mariners got in the bottom of the sixth with a three spot of their own in the seventh, so the game didn't seem lost, it was 5-3 after 7.5 innings, so it felt like we were in striking distance.

In fact, we did pick up another run in the ninth. We lost (familiar), but showed some spark late (not familiar). Not sure what that means, though.

Late in the game, Josh Lewin made a reference to the image here, saying "we'll be back with the kitchen sink, as this game has seem everything". Well, about the only thing the game didn't see was a fight. There was a lot in this game. I have to admit that TiVo has changed my baseball viewing habits an awful lot. It's rare I sit there and watch the entire game, every pitch from front to back. I just get too impatient - especially if we're losing, and start skipping forward. However, after writing the article on scoring a game yesterday, I decided to sit down and score this one, which means watch every pitch. That was helped by the fact that I used a break in the rain the last week to do some lawnmowing, and my body was a little sore from that.

This game had a lot of consistent scoring by the Rangers. We scored at least one run in six of the nine innings played. We worked a lot of counts full all night - the six Mariner pitchers threw just over 200 pitches between them, which works out to be about 22 per inning, which is a lot. And that leads to one of the most bizarre stats of the night. The Rangers tied the franchise record for most men left on base in a nine inning game, with 17. That's 17 men on base in nine innings. I don't recall how many times we left the bases loaded, but with 17, there had to have been a few. All of our starters except Matt Kata had at least one hit. Three of 'em (Laird, Young, Lofton) had two hits, and two of 'em (Diaz, Byrd) had three. Five of our 16 hits were doubles, and we had no triples or home runs, so it was mostly singles ball. Which is fine. Things were pretty much spread out too, no single player had a game that towered over another, although Marlon Byrd had a good night with three (very hardly hit) hits and an RBI. A lot of this was helped by the wildness of the Mariner pitchers. There was a stretch there where it didn't seem like there was any strike zone at all - everything seemed to be called a ball for awhile. That wasn't a function of a bad umpire, but pitchers who couldn't locate - at all.

Defensively the best moment was the home run robbing catch by Kenny Lofton in the seventh that was the SportsCenter moment. Lofton stole a home run from over the wall against Adrian Beltre, and got the ball back to first (through Michael Young) to double off Keni Johjima. The look on Beltre's face on TV was quite priceless. I'm also SERIOUSLY surprised there were no pictures of Lofton's catch online. You'd think that would be something that would have been picked up, but I did not see any pictures of it. Darnit.

Scary moment when Mark Teixeira was walking off the field - he looked rather out of it to this very non medical person, and I knew it wasn't looking good. You saw him getting attention from Jamie Reed in the dugout, and the big red welt on the side of his face looked bad - where he got hit in the side of the face by a ball sliding into home plate. Later on they said it was a "mild concussion", and he hopefully doesn't miss any time, but you never want to see something like that.

Our bullpen wasn't too bad overall. Only Jack Benoit gave up any runs, and his was only one run. But in a back and forth game like this was, that can be a lot. Millwood gave up seven runs (only 4 earned) on 10 hits in five innings. That looks ugly, and those numbers are NOT good, but he seemed better than that. I know several of those runs would have not scored if for a couple of blunders (if not actual errors) by Ian Kinsler. Both plays lead to innings being continued, and then to further runs. One was a mental error on Kinsler when a ball that looked like a double play ball was hit to him and he calmly threw to first, obviously thinking there were two outs. That inning continued, and they scored a few more. As I sit here, I can't recall the details of the other play, but I remember at the time thinking - "Oh boy, there's another".

Gagne got the save, which alone was an unusual thing to say this season. If there's ever a guy who is primed to be out of town before Jul 31st, it's him. A guy like that has no place on this bad of a team, so he'll likely get traded to a contender. I wonder if the Dodgers would want him back? :)

Quite odd to get our 20th win of the season on June 1st. Wow.

Hands up those of you who thought it was over in the first inning.

Hands up those of you who really thought it was over after the third, being down 7-0.

Hands up those of you who wouldn't mind seeing Jose Canseco pitch again instead of Vicente Padilla.

Hands up those of you who thought "OK, this wasn't so bad" when we got the 5 spot in the fourth to come back 7-5.

Hands up those of you who were even still watching when we got the 5 spot.

Hands up those of you who turned off the TV when Catalanotto didn't get the job done, leaving the bases loaded.

Hands up those of you think Sosa is gone right after he hits #600?

Hands up those of you who think we have any chance left this year? I'm waiting...

Hands up those of you who think that Paris Hilton's impending jail term is more interesting right now than the 2007 Texas Rangers?

The last hit the Rangers got in this game was a single by Frank Catalanotto to lead off the fourth inning. After that, the Rangers were done. We didn't get anything after that. That's the story of this one.

I'll probably add something later, but I'm at work at the moment.

Who would have thunk it? After the bad stretch we've been in since, well.. opening day really, (although I was going to say the six game losing streak), who would have thought we could pull out a 4-0 win like that?

Tonight I ran into a problem with my computer at home - I had a hardware failure, and had to spend the night figuring out why a data drive failed, and my USB mouse/keyboard were no longer working. Figuring that out took longer than I was expecting, but while doing that, I had the game on the mlb gameday audio on my laptop.

So I was listening to the game while I was getting annoyed at my hardware problems. But this was probably good, as there wasn't a lot of action in this one in terms of offense. The A's had a total of 9 hits, but weren't able to put a run across the board. All the A's hits were singles, according to the box score. The Rangers had less hits (six), but were able to get a fourspot in the top of the sixth, which was the only scoring for the entire game for both teams. The funny thing is that only one of the four runs was earned, and listening to Eric & Victor on this one they say that the other one was sort of "unearned" because we shouldn't have been put in the position to get them - one of those "mental error" type of things. The game winning hit was a two run single by Sammy Sosa, who finally came through with the bases loaded after a few failed attempts recently. The big "hit" of the night was Marlon Byrd, who got three hits himself (and the other RBI besides Sosa's 2), and the entire rest of the team only got three. So he had a good night.

Mike Wood started this game in a spot start function. He did pitch five scoreless innings on just five hits, but also gave up five walks. Too many walks. Obviously, the rest of our pen got some scoreless innings in, with a shutout, but it seemed odd that Gagne got a save in a 4-0 score. I did miss the bottom of the ninth due to my needing to down my net connection at the time, so it must have been one of those deals where it's a save based on the guy on deck.

Still, it's nice to see a win, but we need way too many of these for it to matter much, I suppose.

They had a chance in the 8th. Bases loaded. Sosa pinch hit and stuck out again. Gerald Laird fouled out. That's about it in a nutshell. Had a chance; blew it. You know, this picture from tonight's game kind of sums it up in an odd kind of way.

But, on the positive side, seeing this picture below online with the title "Jays send reeling Yankees into the AL cellar" kind of cheered me up - even just a little.

OK, I lied. I freakin' loved that headline and picture. But they've got a long way to go to join our little team from Arlington below the Kansas City line (forget the Mendoza line, we're so far down, we're below the Kansas City line).

That's right, with this loss, nobody sucks worse than us - we officially have the worst record in major league baseball! 18-33, .353 (KC and Cincinnati are both 19-33, .365)

BONUS FACT: The Yankees are 13.5 games out in their division, we're only 12.5.

Additionally in place of part of the game, I watched a new episode of Doctor Who tonight with my wife. That was probably more entertaining right now.

It shows you were fans are with this team that I didn't even watch this game. I had it on my TiVo, but I didn't even watch a frame. After spending some time at church today, I came home, and decided I was going to play Uno on Xbox Live, and then some Super Paper Mario on my Nintendo Wii. I then took a nap. All of those were more enticing than watching the Rangers this day.

I missed another frustrating ending. In looking at the box score, Kameron Loe actually pitched well enough to get the win, but our supposed "lock 'em down" back end of the bullpen (Otsuka & Gagne) faltered pretty big this game.

We tried to come back, scoring some runs in the bottom of the ninth, but it wasn't enough. This was game 50, and our THIRTY SECOND loss of the season so far. It's the first time I looked at the standings in awhile, and was quite surprised to see we were 18-32, with a winning percentage of .360. EVEN THE KANSAS CITY FREAKIN' ROYALS HAVE A BETTER RECORD THAN THAT! That's some serious shame right there.

Only one team in all of baseball has a worse record, that was the Cincinnati Reds at 18-33, and that's only one game away.

Anyone up for a game of Uno on Xbox Live?

The Rangers were doing fairly well on Saturday, up until the sixth inning. We actually took the lead first, going up 1-0 on a double by Sosa, and a single by Marlon Byrd who was called up for this game. Boston took the lead, 2-1 in the top of the fourth, partially helped by a fielding error by Mike Young.

We retook the lead in the bottom of the fifth, with a three spot powered by a Gerald Laird double. The scoring was topped off with a sac fly by Kenny Lofton. But as I saw on one national report, the "wheels fell off" for Vicente Padilla in the sixth. In fact, it was so weird, I'll just cut/paste the play by play for that inning.

- K. Youkilis singled to center
- D. Ortiz flied out to deep center
- M. Ramirez tripled to deep right, K. Youkilis scored
- M. Ramirez scored on wild pitch
- J.D. Drew walked
- M. Lowell singled to left, J.D. Drew to second
- J. Benoit relieved J. Benoit
- C. Crisp singled to center, J.D. Drew scored, M. Lowell to third, C. Crisp to second advancing on throw
- D. Mirabelli walked
- A. Cora hit sacrifice fly to center, M. Lowell scored, C. Crisp to third
- J. Lugo walked, D. Mirabelli to second
- K. Youkilis walked, C. Crisp scored, D. Mirabelli to third, J. Lugo to second
- D. Ortiz grounded out to first

Obviously Joaquin Benoit didn't relieve himself (no pun intended) there. The triple by Manny Ramirez is apparently not a typo, but you get the point. Was an ugly inning for both Vicente & Joaquin. Blech. That cost us the game. CJ Wilson & Aki followed up with scoreless relief, but we couldn't get any more scoring.

The game wasn't as "flat" as we've been for a lot of the season, but just another loss to stick on the pile. Sigh.

The "home team" version of the official mlb.com recap for this game had the title "Rangers' pain continues". That's certainly true. This game was mostly painful, except for the bottom of the fourth.

First off, it was against the Red Sox. Now if you go back and read my game recaps for the last several years, I used to enjoy going to Red Sox games. In fact, they were my favorite opponent to see come into town. The games were always good, I liked a lot of the other players. That's not the case anymore, and it's pretty much the same reason I don't like going to Yankees games here. Stands are full of jerk visiting fans. Now I know I'm generalizing, and they're not all that way, but since the Sox won a few years ago, they have become the Yankees. Both in spending habits of the team, and of their fans, who are quite proud (especially when filled with liquid libido) to inform you of such. And as to the general suckiness of your team, you yourself, and your grandmother. It's turned me off of going to Sox games. I went to opening day, because, well, it was opening day. But I would have enjoyed that better if it was someone else. Even the Kansas City Royals or the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Only satisfaction is that the jerk Sox fans out there last night got wet. On the other hand, one of the best moments I was ever at was that "SWEEP" the Homies started a few years ago when the Sox were in town. Now that my rant is out of the way...

This game started off like most did, with the Rangers playing from behind early. This time it was a 4-0 deficit after the top of the second. One of the worst things you can do as a pitcher happened this frame - McCarthy walked the bases loaded to start the inning. After a sac fly, McCarthy walked someone again, reloading the bases (twice) on walks. A couple more singles and a sac fly, and it was 4-0 quickly. The game felt over, given the general lack of well, spunk this team has showed this season. In fact, I was so disgusted, I switched over to some Pro Bowling stuff I had on my TiVo, and watched that for a bit. :(

Brandon McCarthy came out after two - which after the four run frame, I initially thought was due to his pitching, but I read later it was due to a blister. Those aren't good, because they tend to flare up again the next start, I wonder if they'll be able to keep him off the DL.

The Rangers did have some life in them briefly in the fourth - and I had just tuned back over from my bowling footage right before the fun started, so at least I got to see the best part of the game. The Rangers got to Matsuzaka with a cycle for the inning. Tex started off the inning with a triple that Manny Ramirez misplayed a bit in left. It was followed by a double from Sammy Sosa, and then a chip shot home run by Frank Catalanotto - so Dice-K was rocked pretty quickly. After a couple of outs, Gerald Laird squibbed a single, and he was followed by May sensation Ramon Vazquez, who homered to right, and put the Rangers up 5-4. It was at this moment that the picture I took off the TV screen happened. We're having a great inning, and Josh & Tom are talking about the mushrooms that were growing at the park with all the rain we got. Now at the time it made me chuckle a bit; Vazquez' HR prompted Lewin to say "The Rally Mushrooms are alive in Arlington", but in retrospect it seemed a bit of an odd thing to say. I honestly can't make up my mind whether I liked the mushroom shtick or I did not. Mushrooms aside, we were back in the lead, and it felt like we could win.

The Sox bullpen had other ideas. Of the remaining five innings, we scored just one run. The Rangers bullpen decided they weren't going to pitch like that, and gave up six more runs in the fifth and sixth innings. A couple of singles and a double in the fifth gave the Sox the lead back, and then they stepped on our throats in the sixth with a walk, a triple, a couple of doubles and a single. It was 10-5 at that time, and I kind of tuned out. I finished watching my bowling footage, and then went and played some Uno on my Xbox 360. The final run we got we didn't even "get", it was a gift run on a wild pitch.

The most exciting talk at the moment seems to be what the Rangers would get for Mark Teixeira in a trade this July. Oh well.

I don't feel like writing about this loss. I'm close to "I don't care".

The Rangers lost to the Twins, 7-1.

Sammy Sosa had a solo home run, his career 598th, accounting for all our offense. Ian Kinsler & Mike Young both had two hits. Kinsler a single and a double, and Young a single and a triple. Nothing happened with them. That was it for our offense.

Johan Santana was pretty masterful outside the Sosa home run. He went 7, for a total of 21 outs. 13 of those outs were strikeouts. In seven innings. We then struck out five more times for a franchise record 18 strikeouts in a nine inning game. We struck out so many times, you'd think Brad Wilkerson was up there every at bat. :)

There really wasn't a lot to write about with this one.

Yeah, OK, you have to do math in my title for this entry. But if you're reading my website, then you probably will already know the score of the game before you came here anyway.

Where do I start in talking about this? I was at the game, and sat through a 28 minute rain delay that started during player introductions. It wasn't so bad since I was in the 200 level, and you're pretty well protected there, plus the food is better than the regular food stands I think. Even if it's not the place just looks better. :)

Padilla started off looking like the 1-63 record he had, tossing 31 pitches in the first inning, but surprisingly only allowing one run in the first. His overall line was pretty decent, going 5.2IP, giving up just two runs on 5 hits with two walks. He was one out away from a quality start, when his hand got grazed by a batted ball, and he was pulled from the game. Padilla did throw 99 pitches, so he was probably coming out of the game after the sixth anyway, but it would have been nice to see him get the "qs". Willie Eyre followed Padilla to the mound, and did give up two runs, but both of them were unearned. Frank Francisco & Aki both pitched scoreless innings to finish up things. Overall, it was good pitching. 9 innings, just two earned runs, and no home runs.

Can't say the same for the other side. Carlos Silva stunk up the joint going 4.1 innings, giving up 7 earned runs on 9 hits and one walk. As bad as that was, the guy who followed him used even less deodorant, as he stunk up the place even worse! DePaula went just one inning, and gave up 7 runs of his own (6 earned) and two home runs. One was a grand slam to

Fortunately, the grand slam came when Victor Rojas was doing play by play, so we got to hear Vic's grand slam call, which really does sound like he's about to jump out of his booth and flail around while on fire or something. Either that, or scream so hard, his lungs will come out of his mouth. Vic gets very excited about his home run calls. :)

We had a few other home runs, too. Frank Catalanotto had solo shot in the second in his first at bat off the DL. Nelson Cruz also had a solo shot. Sammy Sosa almost had one, and had it been July or August, he would have. Sosa did have two doubles. Lofton, Cruz, & Laird also had doubles. Like last night, with 14 runs on the board, there's plenty of offensive stats to share. Every starter had at least one hit, but nobody had more than two, so it was well scattered. Somewhat amusing that the three subs (Diaz, Kata, & Mahar) all were hitless, so the 15 hits we did get were all starters.

I did sit through the entire game, as I have only been to three games so far this year, which is very unusual for me. By the time the game was over, I had moved around to the area right under the radio booth, and said Hi to Vic. As I was listening to the game on the radio, it was quite weird to watch him talk, and see the voice come through my radio just a split second later. They're not truly live, although it's much better than the 7 second or so delay they had last year. The delay seems like one second, although Vic said at the start of the season it was two.

Speaking of Vic, I know he reads my site, so here's a link for ya big guy :)

Eighteen hits. Fourteen runs. Six walks. Three doubles. Six home runs. There was offense all over the place for the Rangers this game. Kind of reminds me a game a couple years ago where we scored a boatload of runs in the final game down in Houston. If I remember right, Hank Blalock had a grand slam and a three run home run in that game.

Mark Teixeira had two home runs in this game, which is nice, he looks like he's getting on track, which might help increase his trade value should we choose to go that route. Victor Diaz also had two home runs, both of them to right field, which was nice to see.

We had several guys with great days. Mark Teixeira was 4-6 with 2 home runs, 3 RBI's. Victor Diaz was 4-5 with two home runs and 3 RBI's. Gerald Laird was 3-4 with a walk, and Ramon Vazquez was 3-3 with 5 RBI's. Nice bunches of offense there, plus there was enough to go around. Of the starters, only Brandon McCarthy had no hits, but he's a pitcher. :)

Speaking of McCarthy, he had a good outing. He went 6, giving up just four hits and one run. This is probably the guy we traded for. Not the launching pad who was wearing #20 on his back in April. Brandon also struck out two, and walked two. His ERA is finally under 6, and I think has made what three, maybe four good starts in a row? That's good to see.

Hopefully this kind of stuff can translate and stick on the road, as we need a LOT more road wins to get back to respectability.

I was hoping Sammy Sosa would have gotten a couple of home runs in Houston, so he would come back home with 599. I'm going to the game Monday night, so I was hoping he'd go into the game needing just one, as I doubt he's hitting three of 'em on Monday night when I'll be there to witness it. :)

John Koronka came up on Saturday for a spot start, and wasn't terribly good, going 5 innings, giving up 6 hits, 3 walks, and 3 earned runs. Not exactly horrible, but not a great line, either. Wandy Rodriguez was already here, and threw a good game against the Rangers, going 6 innings, 4 hits, two walks, and just one earned run.

Once again, that's the story of the game, our offense couldn't get anything going. In all, we had just six hits. Two were by Ian Kinsler, who seems to have come out of his uber slump a bit. The other hits were scattered amongst four other players (Young; a double, Cruz, Laird, Mahar). Cruz' single was responsible for the lone Rangers run.

I also have to admit to not having the patience to watch entire games all the way through now considering how generally crappy the team is. I don't think I watched more than a few minutes of this, I just skipped forward on my TiVo to see the end score.

Well, after the team left Orlando with just about every Rangers fan in existence feeling about as bad as you can probably feel, they headed to Houston to begin the first of six annual games against the Astros; Interleague play is back. I like Interleague play. Victor Rojas does not. It's a good thing then that mlb thinks (they actually may) make more money during these games, that means it's a lock that it won't go anywhere.

Before the game started, we got the news that Hank Blalock is going to have to undergo that same "remove a rib" surgery that Kenny Rogers did a season or so ago. This will sideline him for quite awhile, they say 10-12 weeks or so, but realistically, it's the season, I would think. Couple that with the fact that they put him straight on the 60 day DL, you figure it out. They don't expect him back any time soon. So the parade of new callups continues. I have more roster pages to make. :)

Robinson Tejeda turned in a good outing. He took a no hitter into the sixth inning, which was busted up by Craig Biggio - no shame in that. Odd though that you take a no hitter into the sixth, don't survive the inning, and only give up one run (which was actually given up by Scott Feldman). Just seemed odd that he would be brought out then. But Tejeda got the win, going to 4-3, with a season ERA of 4.53. Not awesome, but not as godawful as some of the other ERA's we have on our staff. Frankie Francisco followed Feldman and gave up two runs (on top of Feldman's run), and made the game feel closer than it really was. For the first time in ages, this FELT like a game we should win. Which is amusing, giving how hapzardly the lineup was put together (or so it felt).

Offensively, we were led by Ramon Vazquez, the callup from a day or so ago. In what I believe is his first action as Ranger, he went 3-4 with a home run. Actually, now that I look at the stats, he had one RBI, and one run. The solo home run. So his 3-4 wasn't really THAT productive, but 3-4 always looks good in the box score. Nelson Cruz and Sammy Sosa both had two RBI's, as did a few others (Vazquez, Lofton, & Young). The five spot in the third was the backbone of this game for us. Was nice to see that up there. And on the road no less, which I think brings our road win total this year to two. ;)

Also, Eric Gagne got a save. It was only his second opportunity all season, and this was Game 42. Bleargh.

With all the injuries, we're about to see some strange lineups going forward. I wonder if all those changes will have any impact on our bottom line.

OK, NOW I give up. When's opening day 2008?

Yeah, I know they have some good players, but they're the freakin' Devil Rays!

We should be 3-0 against 'em in Orlando.

We suck.

I had to time shift the game due to some family duties, but I really wanted to see this game. For some reason I felt something good was going to come out of Brandon McCarthy. Not that I was thinking no hitter, or something like that, but I just had a feeling he was going to do well. So I broke out my Palm, and decided to score the game. I was also curious to see how it would come off on TV. It actually kind of reminded me for some reason of the park that the Corpus Christi Hooks play in. As the game started, it felt like I was watching a minor league game. The camera angles were off - it took me a couple of innings to get a feel for what would be called a ball and a strike because they weren't the usual camera angles I'm used to seeing. Apparently I'm not the only person who thought that, Richard Durrett wrote about that over on the DMN Baseball blog, too.

McCarthy had a decent line overall, but seemed a bit shaky in the second and third innings where he gave up the three runs the Rays got. Walks didn't help - they never do. In all, Brandon went 6 innings, giving up 3ER on 6H & 3BB. He did strike out seven though, which was a good thing - and no home runs, either. Since I was scoring, I was paying attention to pitch count, and it did seem a tad high (110 over 6 innings). Still, after the horror that were some of his early starts, this was a decent outing.

Benoit seems to have solidified himself as an important part of our bullpen after several shaky years there of not even knowing if he'd be on the team - this is good, it's nice to have a consistent link backwards like that with Jack. I admit I was one of the people calling for his head a few years ago, but I really like the fact a homegrown guy has gotten through it and found a place where he can be productive.

Our late inning pitching dodged a bullet once, but couldn't dodge the same one twice. When you have to intentionally load the bases for a force out at home, it's never good. We got out of that in the bottom of the ninth with Otsuka on the mound, but we had to do it a second time with Feldman on the mount in the bottom of the 10th, and that one didn't work. Actually, Feldman's would have been harder, as it was bases loaded, nobody out. So we lost that game. Unfortunately, it seems to be a common occurrence on the road - what are we, something like 5-100 as the visiting team this year already?

Offensively, we had only 7 hits, and they were scattered. Only person with more than one was Hank Blalock - who also had a solo home run in the game. Brad Wilkerson had a double, but had to come out of the game with.. wait for it... a gimpy hamstring. We actually had more extra base (3 2B, 1HR) hits than singles, which doesn't usually happen. Outside of Hammer's home run, the other two runs we got were on sac flies.

And speaking of hamstrings, Tampa Bay lost Rocco Baldelli to that, we lost Brad Wilkerson. Seems there's a boatload of hamstring injuries around baseball this year. That wouldn't be from guys who aren't taking steroids, would it? ;) Nah, I don't really mean that, but there are an awful lot of them. Seems odd.

The only thing I can think of to write about this is..

Sigh.

A phrase that I know some people would rather go away certainly applied on Sunday afternoon. It was Mother's day, so it was fitting to break out the old tired phrase, "Chicks dig the longball!" There were eight of them in all.

The Rangers got 'em from Ian Kinsler (his team leading 10th, a two run shot in the 3rd), Hank Blalock (his third, a solo shot in the fourth), Brad Wilkerson (his fifth, a two run shot in the 6th), and the best one, a walkoff solo shot by Nelson Cruz in the bottom of the ninth. The Angels had four as well, and surprisingly, none by #27. Two of their four were by Gary Matthews, both two run shots. Their others were by Shea Hillenbrand, & Mike Napoli.

Now, in all both teams combined for 22 hits, of which eight were home runs. The teams combined for 3 doubles, so that's 11 extra base hits, and 11 singles. In the overall scheme of things, it wasn't dominated by home runs, but darnit, when there's that many of them, it just seems so much sexier to say "the game was dominated by home runs!". In a way it was, 12 of the 13 runs came off of home runs, so it is right I suppose, but there were 14 hits that weren't home runs. Ah well, I guess I'm just being too pedantic again.

Mike Wood was our starter, and he didn't have a great line at all. Went four, gave up 7 hits and 1 walk (plus 3 of the 4 Angels HR's). CJ Wilson gave up another run (solo HR), but Benoit, Otsuka, & Gagne followed up and stopped the home run barrage. Millwood comes off the DL tomorrow, I would expect Wood would get sent back down.

I remember being at the park some years ago when the Rangers had 7 or 8 home runs themselves, it's quite entertaining to watch that many of them. Bet the folks roasting at the Ballpark Sunday afternoon enjoyed it. Especially the longballs.

Chick dig 'em, you know.

This was a game I only peeked in on - as it was a day when I was watching Samantha (mommy was at work), I only got to see a few pieces. I did get to see the lone really good bit, which was Texeira's home run, and I saw Kam Loe take his frustrations out on a water cooler in the dugout. Overall, it was the typical loss to the Angels. :(

Bartolo Colon returned from the DL to pitch against us. He wasn't that dominating - in fact his line was pretty pedestrian for him against the Rangers. He went 6IP, 5H, 3ER, 2BB, 6K. Decent stuff, but not totally dominating. The three Angel relievers didn't allow any runs, so they kept things in check - as they usually do.

On our side, Kam Loe was not terribly good the first two innings. He gave up all 5 of his earned runs there, but after that, settled down, and didn't allow any more runs until he exited the game after the seventh inning. That sounds very Chan Ho Park like. On the positive side, Loe didn't allow any home runs.

We did have three more errors, one of which led to an unearned run given up by Otsuka in the 8th. Is it me, or do we have way too many of those in 2007? Seems higher than usual, but I haven't had the time to do the research to look that up.

I was at this game, only my second attended game of the season so far, which is some sort of record for me, I think. I'm just starting to get weary of the drive back and forth between Garland and Arlington. Anyway...

There was little to talk about for the longest part of this game. John Lackey allowed a first inning single to Mark Teixeira, and then did not allow another hit until the seventh inning. He retired I believe it was 16 in a row at one point. Lackey was outstanding. I knew he'd be when I was there to witness his debut a couple of years back here at the Ballpark. Lackey didn't give up anything until the bottom of the ninth when he seemed hittable. Lofton led off with a single, Michael Young doubled, scoring Lofton in an odd looking play when Lofton ran through a stop sign, and SHOULD have been out by 15 feet. After Tex grounded out, Slammin' got his 596th career home run, and that was it for Lackey. In fact, the home run to Slammin' seemed like Lackey had been irritated at the way a play went in the inning, and seemed more a victim of his own emotions there than his skill at this juncture in the game. But that was all we got. Made things interesting a bit in the bottom of the ninth, but this was really John Lackey's game. He utterly dominated us for eight innings.

Funny thing is Vicente Padilla wasn't bad at all, either. He went 7 innings, allowing 3ER (4R total), and was not terribly crisp, but had some nice defense behind him - for the most part. I say that, because Ian Kinsler "bucknered" a ball in the fifth, allowing two runs to score. Now scoring rules only allowed one to be an unearned run, but IMO, both should have been. Fortunately, Padilla was helped out by four double plays in the inning, a couple of which he was involved in himself! Ron Mahay was roughed up a little in the ninth, but it didn't really matter the way Lackey was pitching.

One amazing thing about this game is that Vlad Guerrero had NO hits. He did walk twice (once intentionally), but to see Guerrero with 0H in the box score is quite a feat!

Speaking of Sammy Sosa, did anyone else notice mlb.com set up a "Road to 600" section just for him? I'm not sure when they did this, but I first noticed it when putting together this writeup.

As is the custom with day games during the week, it's spotty if I can get to listen to the game, and even if I can, I can't always pay attention, depending on the level of actual work I have to do at the office. This was no different. I listened to the early stuff, and it was a pretty well pitched game early on. It was 1-1 through four innings, and then I had to go run an errand out of the office. That was fine. I was driving, so I could flip on the radio, and I caught most of the Rangers three run top of the fifth. That contained the rather entertaining rundown that Gerald Laird scored on. Surprised to hear that on the radio. Was much more entertaining to watch on the news highlights later.

So I'm running my errand, and I come back to work, and now they go up 7-1, which was very nice to see. I decide to do some other work in the office that takes me away from my desk for about 15 minutes or so, and I come back to my desk, and see it's 14-2, which prompts a "Excuse me? Why did that have to happen NOW while I was away from my desk?" :)

Anyway, with a score of 14-2, you know there was offense all over the place. We actually had 3 of our starting 9 go ofers (Kinsler, Kata, & Cruz). Mark Teixeira went 4-5 with three doubles, raising his season average to .283. Sosa was 3-4, Blalock was 2-4, and Laird was 3-5 (going back over top of the Mendoza line). The biggest single offensive moment was Victor Diaz who pinch hit for Blalock in the 8th. Diaz then got one of the rare pinch hit grand slams in Rangers history, and the Rangers first slam of the 2007 season. Was pretty much the final nail in the coffin of this game. I missed it due to work, but it was nice to see THAT on the highlights. :)

Brandon McCarthy got the win (third of the season), and is seemingly turning the corner in terms of horrific performances, although his pitch count left a bit to be desired (104 in 5.1IP). He only gave up one earned run, a solo shot to Melky Cabrera, and had just five hits. Frank Francisco gave up the other run the Yankees got, and they were followed up by Willie Eyre & Eric Gagne, who was seeing his first action since coming off the DL a couple of days ago. Chien Ming Wang didn't pitch well, which is odd, giving how well he's done - I don't expect him to have too many more of these performances for the Yankees; which is good, as we're done with 'em for 2007 already.

Oh, and I noticed that ESPN didn't like the game, because Baseball Tonight didn't have their collective heads up Steinbrenner's ass by leading off with the Yankees like they normally do. Jamey Newberg said it well a couple of days ago with this:

I hate the ESPN mentality that that every other team, with the exception of Boston, is sentenced to playing the role of the Washington Generals. That baseball needs the Yankees to be great. No, it doesn't.

Don't back down from that, Jamey!

Oh, and as to why I don't cover Yankee wins over the Rangers? Well, first off the Yankees suck, and secondly they get enough coverage, I don't want to give 'em any more. ESPN can I'm sure find a little extra to give 'em for the coverage I am not. I just don't feel like writing about Yankees wins. I used to, but got tired of thinking of 500 word essays to give the Yankees the electronic middle finger, so I just don't bother now.

As per my policy, I do not write about losses to the Yankees.

Next game, please.

As per my policy, I do not write about losses to the Yankees.

Next game, please.

Thanks to everyone who sent in a message of condolence for the passing of my stepfather. Was kind of you. Usually when I have a break like that, I have some sort of large update for all the games I missed. This is said post. I decided to tackle this when my little girl was having some issues sleeping tonight, and I got woken up enough that I couldn't go back to sleep. Decided to write some baseball during 5:00AM dead time. :) In all, I missed 10 games since my last regular update. I probably could have gotten started with the Blue Jays series over the weekend - in fact, I had a ticket to the bobblehead game on Friday, but I was so tired from the recent trip, that I did not feel like driving the 70 miles round trip to the ballpark from my house. I missed getting the bobblehead, though. :)

G22: Rangers beat Blue Jays, 5-3 (Apr 27)
This was an uncomplicated win. The Rangers hit three home runs in the third inning (Wilkerson, Texeira, & Sosa), which accounted for all five of their runs. Mark Teixeira's was his FIRST of the season, and it came in the 22nd game. That's not good. We all panicked when he only had 9HR at the All Star break last year. At this rate, he'll get half of that! :( Robinson Tejeda wasn't bad, but not great. He gave up 3ER in 5.1IP. He struck out 7 in that time, which is good. Tejeda seems to be a fairly serviceable player for us this year. Mike Young had a bad day on the bases, he was picked off, and was also caught stealing. [ Game Recap on MLB.com ]

G23: Rangers beat Blue Jays, 9-8 (Apr 28)
In a game that saw twelve different pitchers used (5 for Tex, 7 for Tor), the Rangers outlasted the Blue Jays, and finally won an extra inning game - something we never seem to be able to do. Each team had 12 hits, and the Rangers added on a special bonus, two errors. Gerald Laird went 3-5, raising (snicker) his average to .177. He did lead the team with three RBI, though, and had a home run. Millwood wasn't great, giving up 5 runs in 5.2IP. Willie Eyre also gave up 2ER in 1.2IP. Otsuka had a blown save - it wasn't great in the pitching department. Mark Teixeira also had another home run; that's two in two days - plus he had two doubles. Hopefully that's a good sign. [ Game Recap on MLB.com ]

G24: Rangers lose to Blue Jays, 7-3 (Apr 29)
Tomo Ohka. We lost to Tomo Ohka. That alone should be enough for this recap. McCarthy continued to stink up the joint, giving up 5ER in 3IP, with four walks sprinkled on top for extra flavor. Willie Eyre bounced back from his last outing to go three innings of scoreless relief. Ian Kinsler added his 9th home run. Somehow I doubt he'll hit his current pace of 54HR, but that would be nice to see. ;) Mike Young is still around the Mendoza line, which is scary as we've had about a full month of play now. I just can't get by.. "We lost to Tomo Ohka". That's like saying we lost to Mark Clark. [ Game Recap on MLB.com ]

G25: Rangers lose to Blue Jays, 6-1 (Apr 30)
Vicente Padilla continues to pitch like a guy who has his contract, not one who is pitching for one. He's now 0-4, with a 5.66 ERA. This is the Padilla the Phillies were eager to get rid of, I'm sure. Roy Halladay on the other hand, pitched like someone who has that kind of reputation should. Complete game win; 1ER on 5 hits with no walks, and 8 strikeouts. That's pitching. Sammy Sosa was the only player who had any kind of offense here, going 2-4 with a double and an RBI. Halladay was this game. [ Game Recap on MLB.com ]

G26: Rangers lose to Yankees, 10-1 (May 1)
As per my own self induced policy I started a couple of years ago, I do not write about losses to the Yankees. [ Game Recap on MLB.com ]

Rain out (May 2)
This game was a rain out - I was traveling home from the funeral services back home, and didn't think it was raining that hard. [ Game Recap on MLB.com ]

G27: Rangers lose, 4-3 (May 3 DH Game 1)
As per my own self induced policy I started a couple of years ago, I do not write about losses to the Yankees. [ Game Recap on MLB.com ]

G28: Rangers lose, 5-2 (May 3 DH Game 2)
As per my own self induced policy I started a couple of years ago, I do not write about losses to the Yankees. I did have a great time at a Black Sabbath Heaven & Hell concert this night, though. [ Game Recap on MLB.com ]

G29: Rangers beat Blue Jays, 7-1 May 4)
This is more like it. That's the Tomo Ohka we know, the one that gives up a boatload of runs and hits, not the one who gave me nightmares a few nights ago in Toronto. Brandon McCarthy stemmed the tide a bit, and got a nice win, going 6 innings, giving up just one run on 2 hits. He still had too many walks, but it didn't seem to hurt him here. I also got a kick out of Sal Fasano jacking the home run that was Toronto's only run. Philly fans have a great imagination when it comes to "fan groups" at their home games (The Padilla Flotilla comes to mind), but the one they had for Fasano made me laugh (Sal's Pals, who dressed up in the huge mustaches that Fasano has). Don't know why, I always liked this guy. Anyway, we had two home runs from Hank Blalock and Kenny Lofton. Tex also had a double, and the rest of our hits were all singles. Blalock had the best night, going 3-4 with 3RBI, and 2 runs scored himself. This was the game I had a ticket for, but was just so tired after the trip, and the Black Sabbath concert the night before that I just couldn't go. If anyone has an extra bobblehead that they gave away from this game, please email me. Thanks. [ Game Recap on MLB.com ]

G30: Rangers beat Blue Jays, 11-4 (May 5)
This was a match up of 0-4 (Padilla) vs 4-0 (Halladay). On paper, we lost this one immediately. But Padilla pitched very well (7IP, 1ER, 6H, 3K, 1BB), and Halladay did NOT (5.1IP, 9ER, 12H, 2BB, 3K). It was quite the reversal of what I think just about everyone thought would happen. We had 15 hits in all, and it was nicely distributed. Of our starters, only Sosa was hitless. In all, we had four doubles (Young, Wilkerson, Kata, & Tex). Mike Young also had a home run in this game, and we had ten other singles. The big one was the third inning when we had something like 5 or 6 consecutive hits against Halladay - it was quite surprising to see him like that. Mike Young went 3-5, and it only raised his average to .225. He needs about two straight weeks of 3-5 games to get back to where he needs to be. Matt Kata went 3-3 as well. [ Game Recap on MLB.com ]

G31: Rangers beat Blue Jays, 3-2 (May 6)
Wow. The first usage of the sweep graphic this season! I missed most of this game due to church related events, but I did see enough. All three of our runs were on solo home runs. The first one was by Kenny Lofton in the fifth, the second was by Mark Teixeira in the sixth, and the game winner was by Michael Young in the bottom of the eighth. That was all we needed. Victor Diaz (who was batting cleanup - WTF) also had a double, but outside of the home runs, no other offense mattered, really. Kameron Loe pitched well enough for the win, but didn't get it, as Benoit blew the save. Loe went 6.2IP, and gave up just the one run and had six strikeouts. That's the guy who was so great in spring training, but seemed to lose it completely like most of the rest of the team once we came out of the gate. Still, the win is a win, and a sweep at home is very nice. [ Game Recap on MLB.com ]

We're now 13-18, and still in last place, but it doesn't feel that awful. The Angels are in first place at 17-15, which is not that big a deal. When first place is only two games over .500 and you're just 3.5 games back, "last place" doesn't seem so bad. Still, we have a lot of work to do, but I don't feel as panicky as I did a week ago. Sweeps usually have something to do with that. :)

Hopefully I can now stay current with games going forward. I don't want to have to take another week and a half break for the same reason I took this one.

Sigh. It's a bit early in the season to be disenfranchised, and I really am not, but the road losses are getting rather annoying. We're something 2-150 on the road this season so far. This franchise seems rather lethargic.

Everyone raise their hand when they thought that Sammy Sosa would be our most consistent offensive performer (in a power department) come April 25th. Sosa was the only real good thing to write about for Thursday's game. He got his historic 44th different ballpark home run with two of them at Jacobs Field. I think I heard on the radio the only other current ballparks he hasn't hit home runs in are RFK Stadium & New Busch. Unless it ends up being Rangers/Nats in the world series this year, he's not getting one at RFK. :) Sosa also needs four more multi home run games to pass Babe Ruth for that record. Course, Barry Bonds is on that list too, one above Sosa at the moment.

We head to Toronto, where we'll probably win one. Maybe. Sigh. At least it was nice seeing this image on ESPN's site. That was fun. :)

You know there were a lot of great little moments in this game to talk about (Padilla's first, Young's RBI late, etc). There actually was a lot positive that happened. But the only thing I can think of about this game to say is...

SSSssssssshit!

I was driving around listening to the pre-game in my truck, figuring that either the game would be cancelled before it started, or it would be one of those ones they play in the rain, as it wasn't raining very hard at the time.

It was officially cancelled right before first pitch time. Eric Nadel said that it would be made up as a doubleheader some time in July, which is the next time the Mariners are back here. That will likely be a day I go to, as I always go to doubleheaders. Gotta love the free extra game. They haven't announced which date yet.

We're off to Cleveland. I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot about Sosa again, as it's the only active MLB park he hasn't hit a home run in. I'm sure we'll also hear about all the games postponed already up there due to snow and other bad weather.

Odd quotes in the press by Kevin Millwood saying it was his best pitched game of the season. He may have felt like that, but the numbers don't lie. 6 innings pitched, 5 earned runs, 2 walks. Did get five strikeouts, as well as ten hits. That doesn't seem like his best game of the year to me. Although, it didn't seem as bad as the line went. It felt like he was pitching better, but you can't argue with the results.

Mahay, Feldman, & CJ Wilson did pitch well out of the pen. Not sure which of these guys was the closer today, as Gagne was put back on the DL (shocker), and Wash said in the pre-game that Aki was unavailable this game. Our three relievers went three innings, giving up just two hits and no walks combined. Not many strikeouts, but an out is an out.

Cha Seung Baek, who seems to be a second coming of Bartolo Colon vs the Rangers, was actually not as a good against us as he normally was. Baek went 4.1, giving up 4ER on 10H and 2BB. However, their pen was better than ours was. Using just two guys (Morrow & Putz), the M's pen gave up just one hit and two walks with no runs over 4.2 innings (longer than Baek went by a little). Morrow looked particularly impressive. We were probably lucky we got the four runs we did.

Seattle's offense was led by Ichiro who just needed a home run for the cycle. He was what he was supposed to be. I wonder where he'll be after this year; I can't imagine him sticking with Seattle. Unfortunately, he'll probably end up a Yankee playing with Matsui when Abreu's contract isn't picked up.

Our offense was topped off by a home run by Hank Blalock into the wedgie in right, driving in two. We also had a triple by Calananotto, a double by Cruz, and six other scattered singles. However, the only person with more than one hit was Sammy Sosa. His .500 performance for this game now RAISES his batting average over the Mendoza line to .206. Blech. Actually, our hits were quite evenly spread out - everyone had one except Gerald Laird, whose season batting average has gone under .100 (.098). Is there a "Mendoza line" nickname for .100 batting averages? Wash has said many times that "whatever you hit is a bonus". I'm wondering if that's not the way to take it. Tell him "Dude, you need to get some hits".

Disheartening loss, as it's one we should have won. :(

I tuned in Sunday afternoon knowing I wouldn't be able to watch this whole game. I had to leave for a Sunday evening event at my church at about 4:30, so I figured, OK, I'll get 7 innings in or so. That's about what I got. When I left, the game was in in the bottom of the seventh, and when I got to where I was going, it was just starting the bottom of the 8th. We were losing 3-1. It was a typical 2007 Rangers game so far; decent pitching, no hitting to speak of. It's quite odd writing that. One of the guys who has regularly produced is Kenny Lofton, but the guys behind him (Cat, Young, Tex) aren't doing much of anything at all, and Ian Kinsler is our only serious offensive threat.

Anyway, Oakland starter Chad Gaudin pitched well. He went six, giving up just one run (an RBI single to Kinsler in the second after a triple by Blalock) on four hits. He looked pretty decent. Noticed someone picked him up after the game in one of the fantasy leagues I am commissioner for through this site. That usually happens after some opponent pitches really well against us. :)

On the flip side, we got the good Robinson Tejeda. Outside of one mistake pitch to Shannon Stewart that was bopped over the fence, Tejeda was pretty good himself. Including the home run, his line was 6.1IP, 3ER, NO walks, and six strikeouts on nine hits. Now it's not the kind of thing we saw the other day from Cole Hamels for the Phillies great, but this was a decent outing. It was a great outing if you took away the home run, so I'm satisfied with that. He was relieved by Willie Eyre, making his Rangers 07 debut, and Eyre was pretty good as well. Eyre finished the seventh, and pitched the 8th, allowing no runs and just one hit. He walked one, but it didn't hurt him.

Then the offense clicked in the bottom of the eighth. Lofton led off with a single, and Catalanotto wasn't the 2007 easy out, and he had a hustling double to right field. OK, now we're good. Second and third, nobody out. Feeling good. Michael Young, who normally would drive those guys in struck out. Mark Texiera worked a walk, OK. Bases loaded, one out. Not feeling AS good, but still feeling good. That brings up Sammy Sosa, who I'm sure everyone would have loved to have earned his nickname, "Slammin". He walked as well. OK, not a home run, but still gets a run in. That's good. That brought in Oakland's closer, Houston Street, who gave up an 0-2 single to Blalock, driving in Hairston (who pinch ran for Catalanotto) & Texiera, giving us the lead, and the eventual win. There was no more scoring, but that's the kind of inning we haven't had all season long, and the kind we need a lot more of going forward.

The ninth had some drama as Eric Gagne finally got to take the mound in Arlington in a save situation. He got Jason Kendall to ground out, but then Gagne hurt himself. He had to come out in the middle of the at bat to Mark Ellis; he was replaced by Akinori Otsuka, who did get the save. Can't say I'm surprised by the Gagne thing - he still seems way to fragile to have offered 6 million guaranteed to.

Still, a win is a win, and we took the series from division rival Oakland. We now face a short two game series at home against Seattle against Cha Sueng Beck, who probably will be a hard game, and Jarrod Washburn, who we don't seem to have a problem knocking around in Arlington. Good thing we're missing Felix Hernandez. :)

We go into the series 8-10, one game behind Oakland and the Angels who are tied for first. Given how lethargic and crappy we've been playing overall, this could be a heck of a lot worse.

Yeah, I know. 7-0 isn't a "close game" score. But for the longest time, this game was 1-0, and then 2-0 through 7 and a half innings. It wasn't till we put up a five spot in the bottom of the 8th that it became the score it was. This really had the feeling of a 1-0 or 2-0 score, which it was for the longest time.

Well, after I read the good news earlier in the day that Bruce Chen had been DFA'ed, I was excited about Kam Loe's start, as were most Ranger fans, I would imagine. I bet the guys up in the first row around Section 320 were excited to hang their Kam's Snake pit sign again. :) Kameron went 5.1 innings, giving up 3 hits and no runs while walking one, and striking out 5. He left in a bit of a jam, CJ Wilson walked Nick Swisher to load the bases, and it had the makings of an ugly inning. However, Wilson showed some really great pitches to Oakland, and struck out both Eric Chavez & Milton Bradley. After Bradley was struck out, there were several guys, including Kam in the dugout who had some really good reactions to the end of that inning. That was probably the best moment of the game from a defensive side for the night.

In fact, our pitching looked absolutely like the staff it was the night before. The three hits that Loe gave up were it. Wilson and the remainder of the bullpen (Benoit, Otsuka, Gagne) gave up no hits at all. In fact, between the four relievers, they gave up just 3 walks in all. That's it.

Offensively, it was nice to see Mark Teixeira get a double, but it didn't amount to anything. He did, however get an RBI single in the fourth. But he needs A LOT more than that. No home runs and just 3 RBI's for the season is starting to get a little troubling. I think we're past the cheery optimism that Josh Lewin is still showing. I'm a tad concerned. I'm nowhere near panic mind you, but I think sticking one's head in the sand and saying "it will get better" isn't enough anymore. It's been something like 75 at bats. That should be enough by now. It's making his 9 home runs by the All Star break look like an offensive explosion.

Beyond Tex, we had a few hits scattered here and there, but the next offense was in the bottom of the seventh on a sac fly by Nelson Cruz. But through 7.5, it really felt like a really good old school NL close game. Then we blew it open in the bottom of the eighth, taking away Eric Gagne's save opportunity. That was done when Matt Kata hit a three run home run to left, pretty much putting the game out of reach.

Gagne came in anyway, threw a scoreless inning, and sealed the win. Was nice to see that kind of game anyway, but especially after the fiasco that was Friday night's game. Great win.

A few other random thoughts from the game:

• Nelson Cruz looked like he avoided the tag to me
• I'm not sure whether to laugh or be mad by that shot of Eric Gagne faking being asleep in the pen waiting to come into the game.
• Why didn't Kinsler get an error in the 9th on his relay throw that got away? I know the runner didn't advance, but he would have been out otherwise.
• That shot of Eric Chavez giving Ron Washington a replacement gold glove for the one that got washed away in Hurricane Katrina was a seriously classy move. I loved hearing that story, and even stopped the pre-game stuff to show my wife who was doing something else at the time. The Rangers site has a story about that here.

I'm writing this before the game is even over. Right now it's in the top of the 7th, and we're losing 10-3. Bleargh! I'm betting we're not coming back on this one. :)

I bet the "Fire John Daniels" folks are gonna have a field day with this.

Edit: Got worse. They gave up a six spot in the 8th as well.

Edit 2: 16-4. That's just horrendous. Not a good way to start the homestand.

Edit 3: I forgot to mention I had tickets to this game. I didn't go. Didn't miss anything. Saved myself a lot of money missing this mess.

I'm not going to write much, as I spent most of last night and this morning with a fever again. I thought I was well, but I guess I'm not.

Was nice to see another Sosa home run. I have to say I'm enjoying those more than I thought I would.

But again, it's disturbing that we had only 5 hits. Three of them doubles, plus Sosa's home run, but man, we're not gonna win anything if we can't hit.

Still, it's not that bad, really. 6-9 only two games out isn't the worst hole to be in.

I was out this evening, and unfortunately, I had come home from my bowling league and saw the score by accident before I had watched any of the game, darnit. But I didn't miss any Rangers highlights; there weren't any!

The only baserunner we had all game was Sammy Sosa, who walked to lead off the fifth, but was picked off. Mark Buehrle faced 27. If it wasn't for Sosa, the game would have been perfect. The last time this happened was the final game of the 1984 season, when we had a no hitter thrown against us. Buehrle also struck out eight, throwing 106 pitches in all.

Gotta tip your hat to that. There's really nothing else to say.

UPDATE: The White Sox fan site "Sox Machine" has a rather interesting breakdown of the no hitter. Check it out, even if he incorrectly refers to soda as "pop". ;)

Seems like an odd headline to say that a game with a score of 8-1 was a close game. But this was an odd game.

Early on, it was a no hitter for both sides into the third inning, when the first hit of the game was a bloop double to right field by Gerald Laird with two outs. But it remained scoreless with an obscenely high percentage of flyouts and popouts (as opposed to groundouts).

We get into the bottom of the fourth with a combined no runs and one hit (Laird's double), and Jim Thome was at bat, and launched his bat into the stands, hitting a fan. After getting a new bat, Thome launched the right object into the stands (well, if you're a Sox fan), the ball. Over Kenny Lofton's head for a home run. That turned out to be the only run the Rangers surrendered, and if it's a solo home run to Jim Thome, that's not anything to be ashamed of. Odd that the Sox didn't score more, as Tejeda did help 'em a bit by giving up four walks, but none of them hurt.

After Ian Kinsler reached base on a fielder's choice in the fifth, Brad Wilkerson smacked a two run home run to right to give the Rangers a 2-1 lead. That was a bit of a surprise for a guy who has really lacked any kind of consistent power since he came to Texas. Plus with the way the game was going, you weren't expecting something like that. So it was nice to see. Turned out that was the game winning run, although you also wouldn't have expected that, either.

Things pretty much stayed calm until the top of the seventh when Sammy Sosa doubled to deep right field. There was an outside chance it could have gone out, but it didn't have that "Oh yeah, that's a home run" feel to it. Still, double works. Man in scoring position with one out in a 2-1 game. Good thing to have. Hank Blalock squirted a single through to right field, and given the score (I assume), Don Wakamatsu held Sosa at third. Then Ian Kinsler did have one of those "Oh yeah, that's a home run" swings. No doubter to left field which gave us a 5-1 lead, and keeps the Kinsler love fest going. While I have to admit I'm enjoying his early April stats (and I did like the clip they showed on TV which says that Kinsler has a better HR/At bat ratio right now than Arod), I have to admit to being mildly concerned that all his power is stuff being pulled to left field. I can't say I recall much of it if any going to right. But that's OK. I'll enjoy it, anyway. :)

In the 8th, the Sox allowed a double to Kenny Lofton, which was the third time Lofton led off an inning this game. Usually your "leadoff" hitter only really leads off in the first, sometimes they get another, but this is at least the second time I can remember already where our leadoff hitter actually leads off three times in a game this year. Anyway, Frank Catalanotto moved Lofton to third on a fly ball, and Michael Young struck out with a man on third and one out. That didn't feel good. Then Ozzie Guillen walked Mark Teixiera intentionally to get to Sammy Sosa. That was odd, as while Sosa isn't exactly setting the world on fire right now, he's warmer than Tex is, who is really pretty darned cold right now. Anyway, after going down 0-2, Sammy Sosa launched a home run to right center after doing a good sized bunny hop at the plate. I didn't think off the bat it was automatically out, but it ended up going a couple rows over the fence. I have to admit to smiling when that happened. I rarely do that for home runs - the last time I recall smiling on a home run was that walk off one that Rod Barajas had against the Yankees at the Ballpark two seasons ago. That one made me smile. This one did, too. Also really shut up the Chicago crowd, who had been riding Sosa most of the game. That put us up 8-1, and ended the scoring for the evening.

Two home run fun facts. The home run by Wilkerson was his 100th career home run, and the one by Thome was his 475th.

In all, the Rangers had 9 hits, six of them were extra base hits. Three doubles (Sosa, Lofton, Laird) and three home runs (Sosa, Kinsler, Wilkerson). The Sox had only four hits in all. Their only offense was the Thome home run, and the other three hits were by just two batters, so they had not much going on at all.

That brings me to what I thought for most of the game would be the main story, Robinson Tejeda. He was pretty darned good, going seven innings, giving up three hits and the one run. I didn't like the four walks, but as I said earlier, it didn't hurt us. I get the feeling that we'll see more of this Tejeda than the one we saw in Tampa Bay a few days back. It was also nice to see Sammy Sosa on the post game show not answer one of Tom Grieve's questions, and pointing out how well Tejeda pitched before he actually got around to answering Grieve's question.

So yeah, despite the score being 8-1, this really felt like a close game for the majority of the time it was being played, which itself was another nice surprise, only clocking in at 2:28.

Oh, and I wonder what happened to Brad Wilkerson that he had to be helped off the field to start the ninth?

Well, I was really sick this day. When I came home from church, I lied down on the sofa, and did not move for over five hours. I did turn on the game, but I was asleep for most of it, so I'm not going to write much, as I missed it all. Doing a commentary just on the box score when you lose 14-6 isn't much fun.

Brandon McCarthy was rather Chan Ho Park with his pitching. 6ER in 2IP. Ugh. Even Mark Clark wasn't that bad! (Yeah, I know, two Mark Clark references in two games) Course none of our pitching was really when you give up 14 runs.

Offensively, the real high point was Ian Kinsler's 9th inning home run which led (I'm sure) to his being named AL Player of the Week (link).

I did TiVo the thing, but I saw the score, and wasn't interested in watching any more. I just turned it off, and went back to sleep on my couch.

If I wasn't sure before, I was now. This is the Vicente Padilla that wore out his welcome in Philly. We got the random hit batter (which we used to talk about with Chan Ho Park, too). Padilla went 6, which was more than I thought he was gonna get. He gave up 6R (4ER) on 6 hits and three walks during that time. Didn't look at all like the guy who went 15-10 for us last year. He turned in another Mark Clark effort.

CJ Wilson didn't fare much better, going just one frame, giving up 2ER on a home run.

Seattle starter Miguel Batista was pretty good, given all the time off he had with the snowouts in Cleveland that the Mariners had to sit through.

Course, we gave up three errors, which is never good. Even Kansas City or Pittsburgh could beat us that way. Heck, the kids who play in the Jr Rangers ballpark next door could have probably beat the Rangers.

Let's see, we're in Seattle, so watching the game on TV means..

1) Remark about weather - check.
2) Clip of train running behind ballpark - check.
3) Josh & Tom "pretending" to not notice the clip is taped - check.
4) Shot of old guy with blue hat in the stands - check.
5) Demolition footage of the Kingdome - check.
6) Great pitching by the Rangers seals the win - check. Wait, WHAT?

Eric Gagne was activated off the DL today, and immediately got in the flow of things. Kevin Millwood started the game, and while he wasn't as crisp as I'd seen him in the past, he certainly got it done when he had to. It resulted in a great line for him, 6 innings pitched (only 82 pitches), 7 hits, and just one run. Benoit, Otsuka, & Gagne followed, and didn't allow any runs, which is the way you draw it up. Combined, we had 9IP, 2ER, 11H. More than enough to get the job done.

Speaking of getting the job done, Ian Kinsler continues his great spring. He went 2-3 with 2RBI, and a run scored, with another home run (his club leading 5th). Mike Young was 2-4, and Matt Kata was 3-4. We only had two more hits total outside of those above, so it wasn't a dominating offensive performance, but we had enough to get it done.

I didn't see Gagne, unfortunately, as I fell asleep watching the game; when you're sick you can't force yourself to stay up as late as you want. :)

EDIT: I was reminded that Benoit did give up a run, but that's what I get when trying to read box scores when I should be in bed sick. :)

EDIT 2: Thanks to commenter James for reminding me about the Kingdome footage being shown all the time too. Don't know how I forgot that.

I didn't write about this when the game happened, and as I sit here Friday afternoon, I don't have much time to write either. I'll just go with a few short remarks that would probably sum it up anyway.

At the time, I remember thinking "This must be the Tejeda that the Phillies decided they had enough of". He still looked good overall, had a bad inning, but that's what we saw a lot with when Chan Ho was here.

Michael Young broke out big time, with two home runs. That was good.

Kameron Loe was the best he's been since the season started.

Jack seems to have found a good home as a reliever, which is nice, as you always kind of want one of your own to stick around and do good. I've said some ugly things about him in the past on this site, but it's nice to see him figure it out.

We did only get five hits TOTAL all game, which (again) is not good.

Well, those who read my site know how I feel about Bruce Chen & Jamey Wright. They bookended the game last night, and both proved why the Rangers are the 9th and 6th different major league club respectively for each. I won't rag on them too much, will just let the lines do the talking:

Jamey Wright: 2.2IP, 5H, 5ER, 3BB, 1K, 1HR
Bruce Chen: 2.0IP, 3H, 3R(0ER), 0BB, 2K, 1HR

Neither was particularly stellar. Chen's runs weren't technically earned, but the way he pitched it looked like they should have been. Yeah, I know rules about earned runs are there, but to me he didn't look that stellar. Take away these two guys who I didn't want here in the first place, and it would have been the lopsided game it felt like. Jamey Wright was actually OK in the first two innings, and then fell apart. Sounds like the definition of a middle innings relief guy. Go a couple, then out. But he seriously stunk up the joint in the third, giving up a 5 spot. I know Tampa Bay can hit a little, but it was ugly in the third.

Fortunately, Jae Seo for the Devil Rays stunk up the joint worse than Jamey Wright did in the third. Seo went three innings, giving up TEN RUNS (only 5 earned, technically). There was a span there where it seemed like I could jump out of the stands and hit a ball to the Rangers bullpen. When you have double digit runs before the end of the third inning, it feels like a runaway, not the somewhat close score the final turned out to be.

Funny thing is with all of that offense, we had three of our starters with no hits in the game. One was Michael Young, who did walk twice, though. The top of the lineup got their act in gear tonight. Kenny Lofton led off the game with a home run that didn't look more than a bloop to right - it SERIOUSLY carried. In all, Lofton was 3-3 with a walk, scoring three times and getting three RBI's. So you couldn't ask for more from your leadoff guy. Frank Catalanotto followed him up with a 3-5 night, falling just a double short of a cycle. Tex was 2-5, Wilkerson was 2-3, so it was a good night for the offense in general. It is just Tampa Bay pitching, but I'll take the runs and a win where I can get them. Just wished this was against Anaheim or Boston; would have made it more impressive.

We wrap up the series Wednesday night with Robinson Tejeda going against James Shields. It's another of those "Uh-oh. A pitcher with next to no track record will probably kill us". It always seems to happen.

I think most people expected the Rangers to beat the Devil Rays at least two out of three, and after the first game, I'd say they're well on their way to that. They beat the Rays pretty handily. The offense showed up tonight, we had pretty decent pitching, and it looked like a fun time in the Rangers dugout.

This game started off relatively quiet. Oh sure, the Rays bunched a couple of hits together in the second for a couple runs, and the Rangers manufactured a couple of runs in the fourth thanks to a steal of second, but for the most part, it was a pretty well pitched game through five and a half innings.

Brandon McCarthy went six innings, giving up just two runs on 5 hits and two walks. A few too many, IMO, but the bottom line was not bad. Kameron Loe followed him, and has NOT looked like the same guy we saw in spring training. The scary part about that is that it will likely keep Jamey Wright in the starting rotation longer, which is something this Rangers fan is not looking forward to. Scott Feldman and our other scrapheap pitcher, Bruce Chen did toss scoreless innings to keep us in the win column.

The sixth though was a good inning for us, as we put up a six spot, and it seemed that no matter what the Rays were throwing we were hitting it. No home runs mind you, but a lot of hits, and that works, too. In fact, at one point, our output in the sixth was: single (w/steal), single, single, single, walk, single, double, walk. The coolest part of the inning was that Rangers backup catcher Chris Stewart started his first game, and also got his first major league hit, which also came in a (at that time) close game, and came with an RBI as well. This was the funny moment, because the umps pulled the ball out of the game, handed it to the Rangers coaches, who passed it from person to person where it landed up in the hands of Matt Kata, who faked throwing it into the stands. Ron Washington was watching that and threw up his hands as if to go "NO - DON'T DO THAT!". Kata pulled his hands down and busted out laughing. I caught it as it happened, before Josh & Tom talked about it on the TV replay. I don't think we would have seen anything like that under the Showalter regime. It's nice to see that kind of atmosphere in the dugout.

It is kind of weird to look in the box score and see our first three guys all with batting averages under the Mendoza line. This would be Lofton with .115, Catalanotto with .111, and Young with .194. Even Tex is only batting .261. The only two guys who seem to be fine out of the gate offensively are Hank Blalock & Nelson Cruz. That's good, as there's an article on the Rangers site this morning saying that Cruz will be playing a lot more. He's a great defender, and seems to be moving towards getting it together offensively, too.

Also, the guy the Rays have playing third made some great defensive plays, especially that really hard hit ball he grabbed when he was playing in against the bunt. That was one of the better lineout plays to third I'd ever seen, and I watched guys like Brooks Robinson & Mike Schmidt in my youth. Akinori Iwamura plays a great third. Not sure what he's going to be like offensively here, but if he is good, that will be a great pickup for Tampa Bay.

You know, as much as I don't much care for ESPN's Joe Morgan/Jon Miller combo anymore (need a new team in there) ESPN does have some seriously good camera angles. I watched most of this game, and saw some really cool angles both inside and out of the park that local Fox (FSN/FOX/etc) coverage gets. Not that I have anything against our local guys, but I wonder if a different director of Rangers games might bring a fresh look or something. The shot of Catalanotto running during his HR trot which was obviously taken from a cameraman running alongside him in foul ground was nice. I loved the shots of the outside of the park before the game started. Also, ESPN pitch tracker is better than the one the Rangers have started using (which doesn't bother me at all). Anyway..

Four of the five runs scored in the game overall were on the longball. We couldn't contain David Ortiz any longer, and he jacked not one, but two home runs against Vicente Padilla, who pitched better than he did in his last outing. All three Boston runs were off of Ortiz homers, which was a good thing, I suppose. Overall, Padilla had a great night, going seven innings, giving up 4 hits and three runs - almost all to Ortiz. He only walked one, and struck out four. Nice ratio there. That odd play he made in the sixth was briefly troubling, looking like he might have twisted his ankle. Shame we couldn't score more runs - but Curt Schilling overcame his first start of the year to pitch like the guy who normally inhabits the "38 - Schilling" uniform.

Schilling was better than Padilla, going seven, giving up just one run on four hits, and 6k's (1BB). Joel Piniero, a guy we used to beat up a lot when he was with Seattle, wasn't given the chance to get beat up, as he faced just three batters, two of which were walks. Our second run came in this inning, when Nelson Cruz got an RBI on a fielder's choice. Our other run was on a home run by Frank Catalanotto in the first inning, which was right to the left of the foul pole, and into the wedgie in right field.

Another game where we had a total of five hits for the whole game. Looked like we were breaking out of it on Saturday night, but we ran into a good pitcher in Curt Schilling on Sunday. The loss dropped us to 2-4 on the young season. Not bad, but never like to see twice as many losses as wins, even if it's just 1-2.

I was originally going to go to this game, but decided not to, as I didn't feel like sitting out in the cold. I didn't have tickets, so that wasn't a loss - I was going to use free ticket vouchers from last September anyway. I missed out on my free yearbook, and some offense, but I saved myself about $10 in gas going back and forth from Garland, as well as being instantly home when the game was over. Still, I would have liked to have seen the game for several reasons.

The first was the live dot race. I spoke with Chuck Morgan earlier in the afternoon to tell him that I really liked the live dot race, and he told me that they were planning on having the dots run over Jim Knox, which I was glad they showed on TV after it happened. I wrote about this for yesterdays' game, but I really liked the live dot race. It's quite entertaining. We just need Randall Simon to come out and whack one of them. Anyway, about the actual game...

We fell behind 2-0 after two innings, and it was feeling like another Kevin Millwood outing. Good pitching, but not completely dominating, and he'd give up just enough for us to lose. Fortunately, that was not the case. After Millwood gave up a couple of runs and we left the bases loaded with no joy in the bottom of the second, it was feeling quite ugly. At that point I was VERY glad I didn't go. However, we came up in the bottom of the third, and had our first real good offensive inning of the season. After Jerry Hairston got on base, Mike Young doubled to right field, at which point JD Drew gave me a great reason to break out my Nelson Muntz laugh. He blew it, and the ball got by him to the wedgie. This allowed Mike Young to fly around the bases, and he ran all the way home on a very close play (which to my eyes on the back side replay looked like he was barely tagged out), but I'll take the pseudo-inside the parker. That tied the game. It was quite an exciting play. After that, Tex singled, Sosa singled, and Brad Wilkerson walked, loading the bases. In the short sample so far, we've not done well with the bases loaded, as we've left it that way several times. Not this time, Nelson Cruz singled hard to left scoring two, giving us a 4-2 lead. The four spot was nice.

Boston got one back in the top of the sixth, after we wasted a golden opportunity to tack one on in the bottom of the fifth. Blalock led off with a triple to deep right, and we left him there. Darnit. However, our offense was back with another fourspot in the bottom of the sixth. Two of the runs scored on singles by Mark Teixeira & Nelson Cruz. However, the big moment was Sammy Sosa's first Rangers home run since #1 back in 1989. He got one into the first row of seats in left center field, and yeah, the hop was there. Victor Rojas loves his home run call. :)

Sosa's home run will be the talk of the stories, but Nelson Cruz had quite the night. He was 2-4 with 3 RBI's. In fact, of the 14 overall hits we had, two guys had none. Lofton & Laird. Everyone else had at least two, except Michael Young, who had just the one hit, but it was a VERY good one hit.

Yeah, would have been nice to have been out at the park, gotten my free yearbook (or 5, people ALWAYS leave them lying around), but from the looks of things on the TV, I would not have enjoyed all the cold out there. Even the doofuses who take their shirts off were acting cold.

Texas Rangers Home Opener 2007

You know, after an 0-3 start, and Robinson Tejeda starting the home opener, most Ranger fans were probably thinking that they'd be staring down the barrel of an 0-4 start (which the Astros ARE doing, BTW). It was cold out at the ballpark, and that was not a great thought as I entered the ballpark at around 10AM - the earliest I had ever gotten there for a home opener. Given the fiasco that I know parking was like on home openers, I decided to get there really early and have a look around at various changes.

The first thing I noticed was no Ameriquest. It was gone from the outside, and the stupid bell was gone, and Section 201 was back. I decided at some point this season, I was buying a ticket in Section 201 just because I could again. A lot of the advertisements that were Ameriquest were gone, replaced with other signage, and t was gone from most of the stuff in the media guide and the program (although not all of it probably due to printing deadlines). The Sonic ad in the bullpen was different, and I believe all of the billboards (except the daktronics board in the Coke sign) were updated or different, so it was nice not to have the same old signage.

There was also the announced ball girls, who were really not even noticable. Come to think of it, I don't think I saw them go after ANY balls - the Hooters Girls I saw in Clearwater at Phillies spring training did more than that, and they wanted to sit on their chairs the whole time. I grew up in Philly, and the Phillies have had ball girls for as long as I can remember, but they at least knew how to field their positions, and didn't run away from the balls. If you're gonna have 'em there, use 'em, or put the "real" ball boys back. That brings me to the other thing, the "Six Shooters". The "cheerleaders" so to speak. Now they're not real cheerleaders as such, they're basically there to toss T-shirts into the crowd, that kind of thing. For the most part I didn't care for them, but I'm not going to rant really, they're mostly ignorable. Except for one thing that really irritated me. When the military band was coming out onto the field, one of the stupid ball girls was still throwing shirts - RIGHT OVER them. Uh, hello - this is the military here, take your stupid T-shirt bit elsewhere. They didn't wait, or anything, just ignored them. That is not what should be happening. I know it's opening day, and you need to work out the kinks and all that, but yikes, show some respect. Also, the kid spelling Catalanotto on the jumbotron was death, give them something they can spell, like Young, or if he was still here, Nix.

But it wasn't all bad. The live dot race was a triumph. I loved that. That had better stay, because it was very enjoyable, especially when the green and blue dots knocked down the red one. This was a great idea Chuck, but I have just one question. How do I get to be a dot? I'd love to do that once, although my rather large frame probably wouldn't fit inside the dot costume. :)

Speaking of disrespect, what was with the Red Sox? During their player announcements, some weren't there, and then a whole gaggle of them ran out all at the same time being led by Manny Ramirez doing some goofy dance thing. This was DURING the Ranger introductions. That seemed pretty disrespectful to me.

But the game was awesome. It's the best home opener game I've ever seen. It was seriously well pitched. Check out these lines:

Robinson Tejeda: 7IP, 2H, 0R, 3BB, 77 pitches
Joaquin Benoit: 1IP, 0H, 0R, 1BB, 16 pitches
Akinori Otsuka: 1IP, 1H, 0R, 0BB, 9 pitches

Even the Sox had great pitching:

Tim Wakefield: 6IP, 3H, 2R, 1ER, 2BB, 96 pitches
Hideki Okajima: 1.1IP, 0H, 0R, 0BB, 20 pitches
Kyle Snyder: 0.2IP, 0H, 0R, 0BB, 12 pitches

It was a total of six hits for both teams combined. That was some outstanding pitching, and there was an awful lot of Red Sox batters swinging at the first or second pitches for outs. Combine that with the pitching lines, and it makes for a really quick game (two hours and fourteen minutes). Of the six hits, all were singles, except one, a double by Coco Crisp.

The Rangers also ran bunch, stealing twice on Wakefield on two straight attempts in the same inning. Sammy Sosa got a great ovation, and provided what turned out to be the game winning hit in the first inning, an excuse me bloop single to right, scoring Mike Young.

The game was over quick, but it was a good crisp (not Coco, that's supposed to be a weather joke) game, and was a great game for Ron Washington's first major league win. He said he was keeping the scorecard for his first ever game in Anaheim last Monday night; I bet he kept this, too.

I've been to a lot of games, and I have to say that the flyover by the two B1 bombers might have been the loudest flyover I've ever heard in my life!

Game just ended. As I'm at work, I don't have time to write a lot about it. I'll have something to say later this evening.

I will say this for now, though. At least we didn't have to see the stupid rally monkey!

Well, Vicente Padilla was not very good. Vladamir Guerrero was very good. That's a really condensed version of the game results. I watched most of the game, but got too tired, and had to bail out - I was starting to fall asleep.

Thing is as I look at the box score in the morning, I didn't realize just how ineffective our offense was. We had only four hits the whole game. We SHOULD have had one of those bizarre line scores where you had 6 or 7 runs and four hits. But we couldn't follow through. Loaded the bases again and did nothing. Still have no hits with runners in scoring position, although we did get a sacrifice fly. Game 1's loss didn't bother me too much, since it was you know, "game one". But this one was a bit worse.

Padilla was ineffective, although I really thought he was going to plunk Guerrero. Speaking of him, can we please WALK THE GUY? Why the heck are we pitching to him at all? He should be walked every single time he comes up to the plate. I mean why let him beat us over and over again anymore? Heck, even Buck Showalter walked Bonds with the bases loaded, I think we're at that point with Vlad. Just walk him, no matter what. Box score said we did do that once, but he should have been walked EVERY time.

Ian Kinsler had another home run, and it was a no doubter, looked really great off the bat. As was said on TV last night, if he keeps doing that, I wonder how long he'll stay down in the nine hole. He's better "protection" for Teixeira than Sosa is at the moment. :)

Kenny Lofton continues to be what he was brought here for. He looked good to me, and he had a nice swing I thought on his double to right field.

Two more errors for the Rangers, that's never good, and it's worse when you consider we have four errors in two games. Blech.

My wife really liked the Red Angels alternate uniform. I'm a bit indifferent towards them.

Well, the Rangers opening day had a lot of themes from the past. One was that our pitching wasn't up to the level that the opponent's was. Another was a lot of wasted opportunities, both in the form of too many men left on base, and no hits with runners in scoring position. In fact, that's the theme of this night. Twice we had two men on with nobody out and got nothing.

In fact, the only run we did get was a gift, as it came a couple of pitches after Anaheim catcher Mike Napoli dropped a foul ball, allowing Ian Kinsler to hit a home run. That was it. In fact, there was a very long stretch where we didn't get any hits at all, something like 4 innings towards the end of the game.

Kenny Lofton was as advertised, walking to start the game, and immediately stealing second. That was his 600th steal of his career, and he added another one later on in the game. He is already everything you want in a leadoff hitter, and surprisingly, he got to lead off in three of his at bats, which is unusual in itself.

Gary Matthews was all over this game, making quite a few plays. He had six putouts in the outfield alone, and he also did commit an error out there, which led to a bases loaded opportunity for us, which we did not cash in on. He made a couple of great catches in the outfield - if it wasn't for Gary, we probably would have more runs than we did.

Hank Blalock was our best offensive player, getting two of the only 5 hits overall we had. Tex & Lofton had singles, and there was the aforementioned home run by Kinsler to round it out. Not a lot of output - and we had John Lackey on the ropes early, we let him off the hook. He didn't deserve that win, but then we didn't step on his throat when he was down, either.

This was a surprisingly sloppy game, both sides committed two errors.

It was quite odd seeing Sammy Sosa in a Rangers uniform. I'd always seen that footage of him in a Rangers uni back in the 80's in Fenway Park, but to see it now is quite bizarre, to tell you the truth.

A game we probably should have won. But still, it was nice to sit there on the couch with a few beers, scoring the game. Yeah, we lost, but I enjoyed watching the Rangers again.

I also just noticed I never did an update for the final spring training game two nights ago against the Brewers. At this point, I don't think I'm going to bother. :)

Due to a lot of rain in the area today, the game that was to be played in Frisco tonight between the Rangers and the Brewers has been rained out. There will be no makeup game.

No word on the final 25 man day roster yet, as I understood things, it had to be submitted to the mlb offices some time today. Curious to see a list of all the official moves made. The Rangers announced they will announce the 25 man roster after Saturday night's game.

Well, here's one of my multi game catch up posts, which will cover all the games that happened while I was away in Florida for Phillies Spring Training.

ST21: Rangers beat Brewers 8-6 (Fri Mar 23)
The Rangers jumped out early in this game with a four spot in the first inning, but then the game played catch up and see saw in the middle innings. We went up 5-2, and let the Brewers back in the game with the old peckaway theory who tied it in the fifth. We went up for good again in the sixth, but did let the Brew Crew back in to make it close 8-6 for a final score. Eric Gagne pitched a scoreless first inning, and most of the damage was off a guy I really hope doesn't wear a major leauge Rangers uniform during the season, Bruce Chen. Chen had a really ugly line, which had 6 hits (3 home runs), 5ER, 2BB in 3.2IP. He also hit a batter. The only other run was Jesse Ingram in the ninth, who actually got the save in the game. Offensively, Sammy Sosa was back in action, hitting his fourth home run of the spring, which was a grand slam. If you take his spring homer rate and stretch it out over the regular season, he'd be in the neighbhorhood of 25 home runs. Certainly not vintage Sosa, but I'll take 25 home runs. Gerald Laird also picked off a runner. [ mlb.com game recap ]

ST22: A's beat Brandon McCarthy, 5-2 (Sat Mar 24)
I phrased it that way, since all 5 runs the A's scored were all off of Brandon McCarthy in his 2.1 innings on the mound. That gives McCarthy a spring ERA of 10.45. The remaining Ranger pitchers (Ron Mahay, Aki Otsuka, & Mike Wood) pitched 5.2 innings of shutout relief. Problem is we couldn't really score against the A's. We did have two runs, but they were unearned, so we really didn't "get" any. Blalock went 2-2 in this game with an RBI (the other was Sosa, likely a SF since he didn't have any hits). I still have faith in McCarthy to make the trade of Danks a good one, but it's hard to feel good about numbers like that. I was getting cooked by the sun in Sarasota at the Reds stadium when all this was happening. [ mlb.com game recap ]

ST23: Rangers beat White Sox 10-2 (Sun Mar 25)
Kameron Loe proved yet again he deserves a spot in the starting lineup higher than #5. The last week or so has been taken up with talk about Loe getting the #5 position over Jamey Wright, or some other retreads. In my opinion he's pitched well enough to be up higher than #5 anyway. Loe went six innings, giving up just two runs on 5 hits and walking none. A really nice performance. Former dominant White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle continues to stink up the joint this spring, giving up 4ER on 12 hits over six innings. The next guy the Sox brought in (something Russell) wasn't much better, giving up 6ER on 9H in 2.2IP. Jerry Hairston had a great day, going 3-6 with 3RBI and 2 runs scored. Chris Stewart and Ramon Vazquez were also 3-4 themselves, as was Adam Fox. Lots of offense here - although most of it by guys who won't be with the big club shortly. The performance likely isn't going to get Loe better than long man in the pen, and that's a shame. [ mlb.com game recap ]

ST24: Rangers score 10 again, beat Mariners, 10-6 (Mon Mar 26)
The Rangers rode three 3 spots (and a single) to a 10-6 win over the Mariners on Monday. It's always good to beat up on your division opponents like this. We had 17 hits and 10 runs. The barrage included three doubles, a triple, and one home run. Tex seems to be doing well at the end of spring, which is good - he had a double and a home run today. Kenny Lofton is picking it up as wel, going 3-4. Ian Kinsler & Brad Wilkerson also had multihit games. Our fifth starter (sigh; Jamey Wright) got hit hard today, giving up 2 home runs amongst six hits overall. Afterwards I saw the quote saying that the starting pitcher decision had already been made, and that this outing would not affect that. I wonder how hard he would have had to have been hit to make it a decision. Oh well. [ mlb.com game recap ]

ST25: Rangers utterly destroyed by Padres, 24-7 (Tue Mar 27)
The less said about this mess, the better. Cue the clip of Bart Simpson in the fetal position saying "Krusty is coming, Krusty is coming!" [ mlb.com game recap ]

ST26: Rangers roughed up again, 11-8 (Wed Mar 28)
There must have been something cool in Milwood's trashing by the Padres yesterday that Vicente Padilla enjoyed, as he decided to jump in the same fire in this game. Yuck. Not good at all. [ mlb.com game recap ]

ST27: Rangers lose again, but not as badly; 7-5 to Royals (Thu Mar 29)
The Rangers lost their third game in a row in the 2007 Arizona finale. The game was played against our roommates the Royals. Brandon McCarthy started this game, and while he wasn't awesome, it was significantly better than his last outing. McCarthy gave up 3ER on 5 hits - the damage was almost all the long ball, as he gave up two of them. Ezek Astacio also gave up a bunch of runs in his one inning of work (4, 3ER). Matt Kata also showed why he deserves to be on the 25 man roster, going 2-4 with a double and a triple. Of the Rangers' 8 hits overall, Kata was the only one with more than one. We did have two home runs in that, one by minor leauger Casey Benjamin, and another by Sammy Sosa; his fifth of the spring. A loss is a loss, but given the way we were torched the two days before this, it's much better. [ mlb.com game recap ]

The game that was scheduled for today between the Rangers and Angels was rained out. It's marked as cancelled, so it won't get made up I'm sure - spring games usually aren't.

I did see the partial box score earlier, the score was 1-0 at the point the game was postponed (at the end of the second inning). The 1 was a home run by Shea Hillenbrand off of Rangers pitcher Scott Feldman. Mike Wood started in place of Kameron Loe, who had some back issues. Wood pitched a scoreless first inning. Feldman pitched the second, and gave up the home run. In the two innings played, Anaheim had four hits (home run, double, two singles).

The Rangers got donut off of Hector Carrasco, who went two innings, giving up no hits or runs, no walks, and struck out three. Chris Bootcheck is in the box score, but with an IP of zero, so my guess was he was coming on for the third inning, which was never played.

This was a game that was notable in the wire stories about Sammy Sosa's "return" to a Cubs game, but in a Rangers uniform. Do any Rangers fans really care about that? I mean honestly. I certainly don't.

The biggest story of this game to Ranger fans is the regression of Jamey Wright in this game. As I'm sure you'll read or hear everywhere, this is the time of year where guys on the bubble can't afford to have games like that. Jamey's line was 8H, 4ER, 2BB, 2K in 3.1IP. Not good. He has pitched well during the spring, but as has been said, you're only as good as your last start. I've felt for awhile that Kameron Loe will be the fifth starter anyway - I'm also not thrilled with the other candidate (Bruce Chen). Loe hasn't pitched bad at all, but he'll probably win by default - I think (I hope, really) that Chen won't get it based on his past track record.

Rick Bauer appears to have crashed and burned - after doing well last year, I don't think he had a really good outing at all this spring, did he? Without looking it up, today's line (1.2IP, 6H, 3ER, 1BB) isn't the only one like that he's had, so he's probably off the club, and is also untradeable due to his performances, too.

Jack Benoit was told he had all but made the club - so I saw in an article a day or two ago. That's not a surprise, after almost being given up on when he was out of options, he seems to have developed into a rather good bullpen guy, surviving several managers here in Texas (Narron, Showalter, and now Washington). He had a good line today as well.

Gerald Laird has come on strong at the end of spring training. Today he hit two home runs - both off of Jason Marquis. Texas also had another home run, this one by Ramon Vazquez.

Chicago had two home runs as well, but the second one was the backbreaker. The second one was a grand slam by Daryle Ward in the bottom of the ninth to give the Cubs the win 11-7.

The Rangers had three home runs and four runs.
The Giants had two home runs and three runs.
That's pretty much the story of this game. :)

Robinson Tejeda went four innings, and from the box score had a decent outing. Bit too many hits for the number of innings he pitched, but no runs, which was the important thing. Both closers on our team gave up solo home runs, although the one off of Otsuka was Barry Bonds, and there's no shame in that. Frank Francisco who needs to turn it around in a hurry pitched two scoreless frames.

Nelson Cruz & Ian Kinsler accounted for four of the only seven hits we had the whole game. Cruz's two hits were both home runs, so that was a nice display of power. Kinsler's two were a double and a home run, so these two definitely were the offense today. Matt Kata provided the other RBI for the Rangers.

I'm just so excited the stupid bell will be gone from Section 201. w00t! :)

As good as the Rangers pitching was yesterday (9IP, 0ER), today's was a swing of the pendulum the other way (9IP, 8R, 4ER). Wasn't completely horrendous, but nothing worthy of praise, either.

Rangers: 3 doubles, 3 home runs, 10 singles, 4 walks
Rockies: 2 doubles, 1 triple, 2 home runs, 8 singles, 4 walks

So there's a pretty respectable amount of offense to go around there. I don't have time at the moment to break down all the hits, but when there's 20 runs and 29 hits, you can lose yourself in the box score anyway.

Bruce Chen continues to make a case to be this year's Pedro Astacio. If he makes the club, I'll be scared, despite his line.

In a headline I hope to repeat a lot in 2007, "Rangers beat Mariners". That hasn't been an issue the last couple of years (for anyone, really), but you always want to beat your division foes, even in spring training.

This was a very well pitched game from the Rangers standpoint. Unlike a lot of spring training games, we used only two pitchers. Kevin Millwood started, and went 4 innings. He gave up two hits and one unearned run with three walks. A pretty good outing. However, Kameron Loe followed him, and gave up even less. Loe went five innings, and gave up just a lone hit, and no runs with two walks. That's all there really is to report. Oh sure, I can quote more stats, but their lines to me are the most important thing of the day for Ranger pitchers.

Not a ton of offense either, just seven hits in all. The clear leader here was Brad Wilkerson, who went 2-4. He had two rbi's and scored twice. Hairston also went 2-4, but didn't score, and had just one RBI. Wilkerson's RBI's were also on a home run.

In a statement that seems odd to this Rangers fan, Marlon Byrd returned to the lineup and led the Rangers to victory Friday night. He singled in two runs in the sixth inning, giving us the lead, and the eventual win. As regular readers of my site know, I also follow the Phillies, and I remember Byrd from his time there. My sister in law is also a big Byrd fan, so she has been glad to hear that he's doing well here. As we creep closer to the end of camp, it is starting to feel like Byrd will be the fourth/fifth/whatever outfielder we carry.

Sammy Sosa, who is also on the team has now hit in 11 straight "A" game spring training games. Spring is spring - so we shall see if he Nevins us on this, or if he really has learned to hit again.

We used seven pitchers Friday night (in order; Jamey Wright, Willie Eyre, Frank Francisco, Akinori Otsuka, Joaquin Benoit, Scott Feldman, & Ron Mahay). Officially Otsuka got the win, and Mahay got the save. I have to admit to being concerned we still have not seen Eric Gagne in an "A" game this spring. For as much money as we gave him, I think he should be in these "A" games, not pitching against scrubs in the minor league games. Not liking that at all. Course, I didn't think we should have signed him in the first place; Aki was fine. Jamey Wright is also starting to look like a pretty strong candidate to make the roster. He went 3.1IP, giving up 2 runs, and his spring ERA is 2.16. If he does make the club, that's three guys who are not on the 40 who are expected to be added (Wright, Sosa, & Hairston).

Nice to see our old buddy Doug Brocail's name in the box score. Still liked him when he was here, even if he wasn't the best pitcher we had.

It was another scattered offensive night for us. The box score says we had no extra base hits at all, everything was a single (10 of them). And again, we had just one guy with more than one (spring catcher Chris Stewart). Also looking at the box score, I see Kenny Lofton's averge is under the Mendoza line. Even at Apr 16, that's not good for our anointed leadoff guy. :(

Simpsons fans should recognize that. That's about what I was thinking when I saw the linescore of this game after the fact. There's little positive that can be said about a game when there are numbers 9 and 10 in the linescore, and they're not in the columns that say R H E, but the ones that have numbers on top of them. U-G-L-Y!

The worst part about it is one of the guys who is expected to be with the club had the worst damage - Josh Rupe. 8ER in 2+ innings. Blech.

Course, there's offense all over the place with those gaudy numbers in the pitching lines. But it's just an ugly game, I think I'll say little about this, and let my Simpsons graphic do the talking. :)

Without looking it up, I believe this was the first extra innings game the Rangers have participated in this spring. Could be wrong, but that's what I'm thinking as I sit here to type this. Due to some upheaval at church and my responsibilities to that, I've been unable to even watch the last few games in a box score refresh. So looking backwards, I'm going to take a slightly different stance on "reporting" this game:

• No Michael Young or Mark Teixeira. That's not good.
  
• Jerry Hairston went 2-5 with 3 RBI. That's good.
  
• Gerald Laird, our #1 catcher was 0-3 again. That's not good.
  
• Brandon McCarthy gave up two home runs in four innings. That's not good.
  
• Bruce Chen gave up 1ER in 3.2IP. While that's technically good, I say it's not good. ;)
  
• Sammy Sosa did not play, so his name did not dominate the first 3-4 paragraphs of the various newswire stories for this game. That is good.
  
• Ian Kinsler & Ramon Vazquez had home runs. That is good.
  
• Pete Rose said he bet on Reds games all the time now. I don't care anymore. Just put him in the HOF, but keep him banned from baseball.
  

Hopefully Michael Young isn't out too long. The Rangers site is listing him as "indefinitely out" - which I always hate hearing. If this was the season, I'm sure he'd be on the DL.

The story of this game should have been the Rangers facing off against one of their former stud pitchers, John Danks. Not the four or 5 paragraphs of Sammy Sosa the AP News wire story talked about. Or what more Ranger fans were concerned about, that being the beaning of Michael Young - who required a hospital trip and a surgical procedure to fix some damage from being plunked with a pitch. Mark Teixeira is also out too, which is never good.

As for our pitching... Ron Mahay didn't give up any runs. That's about all I can say good about that.

John Danks gave up 2 runs (1ER) in his two innings of work. I would have liked to have SEEN that, but I couldn't - stupid no broadcasts in Spring Training! :) Gavin Floyd, who I know from Philadelphia as an underachiever really stunk up the joint. 9 hits, 2 walks, 6ER in 3.2IP. That's kind of what I remember from his Philly days. Unfortunately, another former Philly boy, Vicente Padilla wasn't that much better in the stink department this day. The best thing you could say is he didn't walk anyone.

Sammy Sosa was 2-3, and Marlon Byrd was 2-4. Hairston & Sosa doubled, all the rest of our hits were singles. Still, I'm more concerned about how long it will take Michael Young to bounce back from his injury.

The Rangers and Brewers played two games today. Only one counted in spring standings, but there was a lot of beanings, in both the "A" game, and the "B" game. In all, six guys got hit. With that many, unless you had ME pitching, you would think that the latter ones would have been retaliation. Just seemed like a lot. From reports, the one for Nelson Cruz was a bad one, as he was hit on the head, and didn't move for awhile. Was taken to the hospital, had Xrays, cat scans, etc... Never like to hear those words in a baseball game recap.

Ranger pitching was a tad unusual this game. Normally in the spring, I'm saying something like "it doesn't matter this guy gave up 27 earned runs in two innings, as he won't be with us in April anyway". This game turned that on it's head. We used a total of six pitchers. Three either will be, or have very good chances to be with us. Those are the three that gave up the runs. The other three, the ones who won't be here in April (or just are guys I've never heard of) are the ones who pitched shutout ball. Now to be fair, Kameron Loe was the starter and gave up two runs, but they were all unearned. Koronka gave up three as well, but only two were earned. CJ Wilson gave up two (both earned). That was a bit unusual.

Offensively it was another "scatter" game. We had twelve hits, and nobody had more than one. The park we played in must have been HUGE as Sammy Sosa got a triple. Kenny Lofton, Brad Wilkerson, and spring training catcher Kevin Richardson all had doubles for their hits. We also had home runs from Miguel Ojeda & Nate Gold. So the majority of our hits (8 of 12) were extra base hits - that's always nice to see.

Michael Young and Kenny Lofton both committed errors. And then there's the beanings I mentioned before.

Not much to say about this one. Great pitching on both sides. Only hiccup was Scott Feldman in the 8th, who gave up the two runs. Other than that, every other pitcher on both sides was unscored upon. Including three perfect innings by Jamey Wright.

Michael Young now has about 600 hits in the last 3 or 4 games, he's batting over 1.000 I think. :)

Isn't there supposed to be a rule in spring about fielding a representative team on road trips? Our starting lineup this game had just one regular in it, Gerald Laird. The other starters were mostly guys who likely won't be with us in April, with he possible exception of Jason Botts; maybe Marlon Byrd - but my point is that most of these guys aren't the real indiciative lineup.

And as you go down the box score, not many of the guys they were pulled for were destined to be with the big club, unless you get into pitchers - most of those guys would be. Which actually makes it feel worse, as we gave up a boatload of runs and hits (13,17 respectively). What's amusing to me is the text based box score that I copy during Spring Training doesn't even have the pitchers' lines listed. :) Ugly all over the place. 22 runs and 31 hits.

Blech.

Taking a short break from writing a recap due to illness in the family. This is a placeholder page.

I remember seeing the box score right after this game happened (I'm writing this 3 days later), and thinking "Well, there goes the honeymoon with McCarthy". I'm sure there's a cadre of Rangers fans that would only think trading John Danks was worth it if McCarthy had no bad outings all season, and won the Cy Young award. He had a bad spring outing, and I'm sure these people are all going "SEE!" :)

McCarthy did have a horrendous outing, giving up 5 hits, 1 walk, and 7 earned runs in two innings of work. On the flip side, a guy who I almost want to pitch like McCarthy did (Bruce Chen) had the line that people expected McCarthy to have, that being 3IP, 4H, 0ER. It scares me that Bruce Chen might win the fifth spot. I've followed him since his days in Philly, and he looks great joining another team, and then gets torched.

The Rangers runs came in bunches. Two 4 run innings, and one three. However, 7 of them were unearned. All four Neal Cotts gave up were unearned, as were the three that their reliever Wells gave up. So we had some help in winning this one. Lots of home runs in this game for both sides, but then again, with 20 runs, you figure to have some. 11 of our 15 hits were by four players (Kinsler 2, Byrd 3, Young 4, Sosa 2), the rest were scattered. Ian Kinsler has seemed decent all spring, actually. That's a good feeling.

Taking a short break from writing a recap due to illness in the family. This is a placeholder page.

After looking at this again a few days later, it would seem that Vicente Padilla did not have a good game. His line shows six hits, two walks and three earned runs in three innings. Oakland's starter (Dan Haren) did not fare that poorly, giving up just one run in his three innings of work. Frank Francisco, who has been reportedly not so great to start the spring tossed a shutout inning of work and got the win in the game, actually. AJ Murray struck out two of the three batters he faced, and Joaquin Benoit chipped in with a scoreless couple of innings of his own. German & Galarraga (the guys not likely to be with us come April) gave up the rest of the runs the Rangers allowed.

On the other side, we had three doubles and a triple. No home runs though, but enough singles to come through from behind and beat the A's 7-6. Catalanotto and Botts were both 2-2 today, Sosa & Kinsler were 2-3. No real "leader" on offense this game.

Another box score only game. No radio coverage with the Rangers, or with the opponent via MLB's Gameday Audio. So much so that the Official Rangers site had a "Live box score" link on their site; that was the only way to "watch" the game.

Anyway, early on, it seemed like a rout after yesterday's rout the other way. It was 9-1 after four innings. The big inning was of course the third where we put up a six spot. There were two home runs that inning, one from Gerald Laird, and Sammy Sosa's second of the spring. This was all off Arizona starter Livan Hernandez, who also gave up a couple of doubles to Mark Teixeira & Kenny Lofton in his 3.1 innings of work. In all, Hernandez was on the hook for 10 hits, and all 9 Ranger runs (7 earned). The remainder of the Arizona bullpen kept the Rangers off the board in the 4.2 innings they pitched.

That's significant, because the Rangers had one of their classic bullpen meltdowns late. The score was still 9-1 after six innings. Feeling good. Then after seven, they were up 9-5. OK, a four spot isn't good, but we still have a comfortable lead. OK, after 8 it was 9-6. A tad concerned, but still not really worried. Then in the ninth it jumped to 9-8 - OH CRAP! While spring training games don't give you a complete breakdown of what happened in what order, I can't imagine that was fun to watch. I know a win is a win, and there's all the platitudes of "these guys aren't going to be with the club come April" (Cruceta, Vargas, Wood), and all that... But it seems a heck of a lot worse looking when watching it only on a linescore refresh on a website.

This isn't helped by what I feel is way too many errors in the spring. Of the six official games we've played, only one was error free, and that was the 5-0 shutout of the Royals a couple of days ago. We've had a total of 8 errors so far in six games. When you have more errors than games played, things aren't good. Yeah, yeah - it's only game six, but I think you get my point.

G1: 2
G2: 1
G3: 0
G4: 1
G5: 2
G6: 2

On the positive side, John Koronka gave up nothing in his three innings of work. Kameron Loe gave up an unearned run in his three innings of work on 3 hits. Not bad for either of those guys. The wheels came off after that, but it was nice to see some zeros up there from guys who have a realistic shot of breaking camp with us.

I actually got a chance to listen to this game on the radio. It was at work, and I saw that the Mariners radio coverage had this game on, and I was able to listen to it through my subscription to MLB Gameday Audio, so that was cool. The Mariners broadcasters were much better than some of the other "away" guys I've listened to - sometimes even though I can listen to a game in spring training, I don't want to, because the announcers are horrendous!

Anyway, for most of this game, I was thinking that I was going to write a short piece on how much the Rangers hitters got donut. For the longest time, we had just one hit, and it took awhile to get that one. We went down 4-0 in the seventh, but managed to make a game out of it in the seventh, putting up a 3 spot. But it went downhill in the 9th, when we gave up a really ugly 6 spot, which was helped along by an error by Drew Meyer.

Our first blowout of the spring. Even though we were close in the 7th, it never felt like a game we should win from the start. This was the first win of the spring for the Mariners too - which is why the USS Mariner website was happy about it. :)

This was the first game of the spring on TV, but it wasn't quite the same. First off, the game was at 2PM, which meant that I wouldn't be able to watch it. Second, it was the Rockies feed. For a TV starved baseball fan, it's not bad, but it's not "our guys". In fact, when I got home from work, I tuned in the first inning or so, but stopped watching - I already knew what happened.

What did happen was a nice performance by Robinson Tejeda (who the Rockies' announcers kept calling him Tejada, as in Miguel). Robinson went two innings (which seems to be the limit for any pitcher these first half dozen games or so), and gave up just two hits and no runs. From what I saw on TV, he looked sharp, although the Rockies coverage kept cutting to interviews with their players (not surprising). We again got good pitching from the rest of our staff used today. In fact, the two runs that Colorado got were unearned (off of Frankie Francisco). Frankie gave up a hit and two walks in his lone frame of work. Nobody else gave up any runs, which is encouraging. Our pitchers used Monday were Tejada, Josh Rupe, Francisco, Joaquin Benoit, Wes Littleton, AJ Murray, & Steven Rice. All zeroes (except Francisco).

Offensively, we scored our runs in three innings (third, fourth, seventh). Jerry Hairston & Ian Kinsler led the way, both going 2 for 3 and an RBI. The offensive theme of doubles that existed in 2006 was evident in this game too, as Brad Wilkerson, Ian Kinsler, & even Desi Relaford got one. Jason Botts cracked a triple, and Miguel Ojeda (our likely backup catcher in 07) hit one over the fence, too. Kinsler however, had five RBI for the day, which was the most of anyone.

I scanned through the game and saw some of this via the Colorado coverage. It'd be nice to see our TV guys sooner in the spring than later.

Game 3 of the spring was one I didn't get to listen to at all. I was tied up almost all afternoon with church duties, which is good. I love the Lord and am happy to serve, but it does sometimes push other things aside, which for today was the Rangers game. Didn't hear any of it. So we're onto another recap based on reading a box score after the fact. :)

The biggest story (for me, not for national writers) was how well the Rangers pitching was. Obviously a shutout is always good, but looking down the respective stats in the box score, we gave up only three hits and walked just two. That's five baserunners for Kansas City for the entire game. Quite an accomplishment.

Brandon McCarthy was by all accounts the pitcher we thought he'd be when we sent away John Danks. He's gonna have to be for some of the Ranger fans to accept that trade going forward. In fact, if you go just by line scores, McCarthy, Scott Feldman, & Franklyn German all had the same line. Two innings pitched, one hit, no runs. However, something's not right there, as the Ranger box score for pitching only shows seven innings pitched, that's not right. Two innings are missing from the box score. :) Edit: Oh wait, in looking at another box score, it appears Bruce Chen also pitched, and he was better, going two innings, giving up no hits. :)

Offensively, the big headline was that Sammy Sosa got his first home run of the spring. Several wire stories were glad to point out that it was his first home run since August 4, 2005 when he was with Baltimore. That was Sammy's only hit of the day, but it got more attention than the other numbers for our team (Marlon Byrd 2-3, Joaquin Arias 2-2, Nate Gold 2-4, Ian Kinsler 1-1 with HR, 2 RBI). If Sosa makes the team (which my gut feeling is he will unless he totally tanks in March), then we'll be hearing a lot about Sosa's 1-5 instead of someone going 3-4 with 5 RBI's.

But I will look at this as a very well pitched game, not one about Sosa's home run. Makes me feel good about taking Brandon McCarthy on the two fantasy drafts I've participated in so far. :)

Game 2 of the spring was another one that I wasn't able to pay close attention to. If only there was TiVo for radio. :) Saturday was watch the baby day (who is a toddler now), so I couldn't really pay attention. I did have the game on the radio, but didn't pay much attention to it, because one is always watching the toddler run around the house. One funny thing about that, I don't think she understood that I had a radio on, because she would hear Eric & Vic talk, but it wasn't in a place where either of our usual stereos at home is, so she's not used to voices coming from the kitchen table like that. She would walk over there a few times, give the radio a funny look, and then walk away. :)

After checking out the recaps and box scores online, it appeared to be a rather back and forth kind of game. I've seen worse than this in terms of lead changes, but it was a game that both teams lost the lead. Rangers starter Vicente Padilla was decent in his two innings. Just gave up two hits and one run - a solo home run to Mark Teahen. Oddly enough, of the six other pitchers the Rangers used, the one with the worst line was Rick Bauer, who gave up four hits and two earned runs in his one inning. Bauer was the winning pitcher, too! Line scores don't show you how well the pitchers pitched in terms of crispness, but nobody had a really bad line score at all - even Bauer. In total, Rangers pitching gave up 13 hits and 5 runs. More hits than you'd want to see, but with that many, you'd' expect more than 5 runs given up, so that wasn't bad. Ian Kinsler also committed an error in the field.

It's hard to put together a name who "leads the offense" during spring training - especially early on. That's because people don't stay in the game long enough generally to get 4-5 at bats to have a 4-5 day or so. Still, having said that, the closest would be Hank Blalock who went 2 for 3 with an RBI. The remaining 10 hits were scattered, not a player had more than one except Blalock. There were several doubles in this game (Hairston, Kinsler, Botts, & Lofton). The Rangers didn't hit any home runs, and we were one for two (Wilkerson was successful, Arias was not) in stolen base attempts. Kind of interesting that we see stolen base attempts in the stats, didn't see much of that at all with Showalter. Oh yeah, and Sammy Sosa got a single in his first at bat which was played via local TV on recaps. Have to show that, eh? :)

From what little I did hear on the radio, it was nice to have Eric & Victor back. I'll be glad when they're on every day in April. :)

The first official spring training game was against, who else. The Kansas City Royals. We have traditionally opened against them several times in a row since we've moved spring operations to Surprise, AZ. So the next couple of reports will probably have the same names in it. But that's the most exciting part about doing a recap for Friday's game. It's all we get. I enter the 9th season doing this website, and the one thing I've said many times in the past is I hate these games where all we get are the recap sheets. Can't hear 'em can't see 'em. Now that I've got my regular annual gripe about that out of the way...

I'm thoroughly embarrassed I missed all this earlier. I do websites for a side business, and was dealing with some server issues relating to one of them, and the fact we were starting games completely slipped my mind. Not that it would have made much difference due to it being a "box score only" game, but still - I should have said something. :)

The "A" game was a loss to the Royals by the score of 8-6. This game can be summed up in a couple of words - "John Koronka got bombed". In a performance worthy of Chan Ho Park or Mark Clark, John gave up a six spot in the fourth inning (after pitching a shutout third). That was essentially the game there from the Royals offensive standpoint. In fact, Alex Gonzalez for the Royals was the only guy to get more than a lone hit (two). The only other Ranger pitcher to give up a run was Wes Littleton (1). Willie Eyre also gave up one, but it was unearned. Kameron Loe, Edinson Volquez, & Jack Benoit all pitched shutout ball. Take out Koronka, and it was a decently pitched game.

Offensively, we had the same thing as KC did. Of our 10 hits, only one player had two (Catalanotto, two doubles), the rest were scattered. However, two of those were home runs, by Guillermo Quiroz & Victor Diaz.

Fresh off his contract, Mike Young committed one of the two errors the Rangers made this game (yeah, yeah - I know. But I still got a chuckle out of it).

There was also a B game earlier in the morning where Kevin Millwood made his spring debut, as did Sammy Sosa. You never get box scores for B games, so I can't find Millwood's line. Although of course, the press reported that Sammy Sosa went 0-3 with a walk and a couple of strikeouts. Couldn't pass up that info, eh? :)

Still, it's nice to get the juices flowing again - nice to be writing again.

Couldn't find a combined box score/recap at MLB's site, the line/box score is below. I'll only do that for games that I can't find a combined recap/box score link at mlb.com for during spring training.