ST17: Rangers beat Royals Friday, 10-8

Josh Hamilton continues to tear it up in Arizona, by going 2-2, and reaching base for ten consecutive plate appearances. His average has now been raised to .607 for the spring. Quite insane. Even for spring numbers, which are generally out of whack anyway.

The Rangers had four guys with two hits (Hamilton, Shrek, Marlon Byrd, & Ben Broussard). Broussard had better get a move on, as you hardly hear his name in game reports. Ben & Ryan Roberts each had a double. Shrek had a triple, and nobody homered, so there were a lot of singles (twelve of them).

Kason Gabbard started, went three innings, and continued the "starter stink" I mentioned for the game report right before this one. Gabbard's line was 3 innings pitched, seven hits, seven earned runs, and four walks. Ugh. He's my leading candidate for the Mark Clark performance of the week.

Elizardo Ramirez followed, and threw two scoreless frames on three hits.

Robinson Tejeda threw a scoreless frame.

Jamey Wright finished up by throwing three innings, allowing four hits and one run. Not bad.

Our old friend Ron Mahay threw a scoreless frame for the Royals, too.

As for the Royals offensively, I'll just copy this out of the official mlb recap: "The Royals strung together seven hits and a walk before making three successive outs in their six-run fourth inning. They hit for the cycle -- Billy Butler homered, David DeJesus tripled, Mitch Maier and Tony Pena Jr. each doubled and Joey Gathright, Alberto Callaspo and Alex Gordon each singled. Butler's homer was his third in Cactus League action."

This makes the Rangers 9-6-2 in Cactus League action so far this year.