Recently in 2008 Game Recaps Category

After the first two games in this series, Rangers fans (at least the ones still watching) got excited, we beat the two best pitchers the Angels had. Could we three peat that? No, the local team went out there and reminded you that they're the Texas Rangers and not the Anaheim Angels.

Joe Saunders pitched the way I thought Lackey & Santana would. Six innings, two hits, no runs, no walks, and nine strikeouts. The three innings tossed by the three Angels relievers were no different. No more runs, and just one hit in all that, too.

So yeah, we acted like the Texas Rangers in a shutout tossed against us. This put an exclamation point on the 2008 season, I would think.

OK, last night we beat John Lackey. Tonight we're up against Ervin Santana, another pitcher who we never seem to be able to beat. Couldn't pull that off twice, could we? Yes we could.

In another surprising turn of events, the Rangers beat the Angels 8-4 behind Scott "We're reducing your workload" Feldman. Scott had a pretty good outing. Went six, gave up just one earned run (two overall) on five hits, two strikeouts, and no walks. He too is probably a real candidate to start the 2009 season in the rotation. He was pretty efficient with pitchers too, just throwing 82 over his six innings. Probably pulled him so others could get some work at the tail end of the season. I mean, they [b][i]ARE[/i][/b] trying to reduce his workload, you know.

The other side of the coin brought a second straight bad performance by an Angel starter not known for them. Ervin Santana went 5.2 innings, giving up 10 hits and one walk for eight runs. Not even close to being good there. We didn't have a massive inning - in fact, our runs were scored over three frames. One in the third, three in the second, and four in the sixth.

The biggest point I suppose of the offense was the fact that we broke the major league doubles record. Hank Blalock did the deed, giving us the record, and then Chris Davis added one on later on. On top of that, the Rangers passed 900 runs scored for the season for just the fourth time in franchise history. If that wasn't good enough, Josh Hamilton regained the lead in RBI's in the American League, with two on Saturday night.

Whie Vicente Padilla has been a pretty decent pitcher this year, I don't think anyone expected him to beat John Lackey. This is a guy that normally beats us (at least it feels that way). So I think it was rather a big surprise when the Rangers unloaded on Lackey, especially after the way we were mowed down the last time we faced him. Look at this:

Lackey on Sep 21st:
6IP, 0ER, 2H, 3BB, 12K, 110P

Lackey on Sep 28th:
2.2IP, 10ER, 12H, 2BB, 1K, 73P

That's a major difference. I was quite surprised when we started unloading on John Lackey, you just don't do that. It was so bad that in the third or fourth innings, every single Angel position player was changed. Only one player remained, and he changed position, but the eight other defenders in the field were different players. That really felt like a game played in March, not in late September.

It was bad (for Anaheim). Every Rangers starter got in on the hit parade. We had 19 in all. Six doubles, one triple, two home runs, and a pile of singles. The Rangers scored one in the first, seven in the second, two in the third, two in the fourth, and that was actually it. All the scoring was in the first four innings. However, the six doubles were notable as they tied an all time major league record. They now have 373 doubles for the season, which ties the 1930 Cardinals, and the 1997 and 2004 Red Sox for the all time lead. Given we still have two games left, one would think breaking the record would not be a problem. :)

The Rangers staff was quite good today, but that pretty much got overlooked by Lackey's (lack of) performance. Combined, the Rangers pitchers went 9 innings, gave up just five hits, and one run on five walks, and ten strikeouts. It's the kind of performance that wins you a lot of games, but it's the kind of performance the Texas Rangers don't normally get a lot of.

The win did clinch second place for the Rangers in 2008, something that the Rangers have never actually done, since the alignment went to a four team AL West.

Why o Why could we not do this more often than not during the season?

In the final game of the season against Oakland, we got out the whipping sticks and trashed 'em, 14-4.

The Texas scoring got started with a big three run home run for Hank Blalock, who has homers now in like three or four games in a row. We pushed across two more runs in the fourth with several singles, but then the big can of whoop-ass came out. This would be the bottom of the sixth when we scored eight runs. This is another one of those innings where I'll just post the text from the play by play from the game.

Rangers 6th (Rangers 13, Athletics 2) -- H. Blalock hit by pitch. N. Cruz hits a home run to left-center field on a 0-0 pitch, H. Blalock scores. Pitcher Change: S. Casilla replaces D. Eveland. G. Laird walks. T. Metcalf doubles down the left-field line, G. Laird scores. With G. Duran batting, wild pitch by S. Casilla, T. Metcalf to 3rd. G. Duran singles to left field, T. Metcalf scores. M. Young doubles to right-center field, G. Duran to 3rd. Pitcher Change: J. Gray replaces S. Casilla. J. Hamilton doubles to left field, G. Duran scores; M. Young scores. M. Bradley doubles to left-center field, J. Hamilton scores. M. Byrd grounds out, B. Crosby to D. Barton, M. Bradley to 3rd. H. Blalock singles to left-center field, M. Bradley scores. N. Cruz flies out to T. Buck. G. Laird grounds out, D. Barton to J. Gray. (8 Runs, 7 Hits, 0 Errors, 1 LOB)

Seventeen hits, five doubles, three home runs (Blalock, Cruz, Metcalf), nine singles, that's a lot of offense. Mike Young went 4-4, and six guys had two hits each. Was a lot of bat swinging going on. Just check out the box score, it's all there!

On the pitching side, Matt Harrison made his final start of the year, and came away with his ninth win. This I think makes him a serious candidate for the 2009 opening day rotation. I don't see how you can not include him. Matt was pretty good, going six innings, giving up two earned runs on six hits, one walk, and seven strikeouts. He's turning out to be a great pickup. Not that we didn't expect it from what was said when we acquired him, but it is definitely nice to actually SEE one of these deals work for us, instead of for someone else.

This game was pretty much evenly matched for quite awhile. Was 1-1 after 2, 3-3 after two, and then a pile of zeroes. The A's put up a run in the seventh, and then we retook the lead, retook second place as well.

Dustin Nippert took the hill today, and was "meh". I've written how surprised I was with his pitching the second time around, and this looks like a downswing, although it is his last appearance of the season, so it will probably weigh heavy. Dustin went 6.1 innings, gave up six hits, four earned runs, on three walks and four strikeouts. Two of the six hits were home runs (Jack Cust, Joe Buck), so he was done in by the longball. Our pen (Wright, Madrigal, Francisco) was pretty good, going 2.2 innings, combining for zero hits, zero runs, and zero walks. That was an nice performance.

Offensively, the big shot was a two run home run by Hank Blalock, whose shot came in the bottom of the seventh, and gave us the lead we never relinquished. We had several guys with multiple hits. One had three (Bradley), and four guys had two (Young, Byrd, Blalock, & Cruz). Three were doubles, and all the rest (save for Hank's HR) were singles. Of the starters, only Laird & Metcalf had no hits.

Was a pretty nice come from behind win to retake second place in the division.

The Rangers lost a good performance by Kevin Millwood in this one. Kevin went seven innings, allowed just two earned runs (one unearned). Few too many hits (eight), and just one walk. Six strikeouts. Pretty good performance. He's actually been pretty decent since his last stint on the DL. I don't think he's ever going to be the guy he was that one year in Cleveland while wearing Texas on his chest, but this end of year Millwood is a decent one. if only it could be harnessed all season, he'd be pretty darned good.

Hank Blalock continues to tear it up late this year, making people (myself included) if it actually might not be a bad idea to keep him in 2009. I know a lot has been said about we have other pieces we can use instead of Hank, but it now feels like he'll still be here in 2009 to me. Question is, first or third?

Hank led the offense with a 3-5 night, and two runs scored. However, the big blow was a home run in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game. Frank Catalanotto got a triple (!) in a pinch hit role, and both German Duran & Milton Bradley had two hits. All the rest of our hits were scattered, with nobody getting more than one. 11 in all, we had one double, one triple, one home run, and eight singles.

Oakland played the carousel, using seven pitchers in all. Texas used five.

There was a lot of seesaw action early on. Rangers up 1-0, A's up 2-1, Tied 2-2, A's up 3-2 after the top of the third. Stayed that way for quite a long time, when the Rangers finally tied the game in the bottom of the ninth. However, Luis Mendoza gave up the winning run to the A's in the top of the 11th, and we couldn't tie it again.

Oh well. This did knock us out of second place, bit of a bummer there, everyone appeared to have assumed we were a lock for second place.

When you're doing recaps for games a week after they happen, and you see the same score two days in a row, it always makes you think, "Now wait, that can't be right". Not near impossible, but the same score two days in a row to the same team usually doesn't happen. That's what happened here.

Despite our scoring three runs, this game was dominated by John Lackey. He didn't even allow a hit until the fifth inning, and in his six innings of work overall, he struck out 12 Rangers. Gave up three walks and two hits, and no runs at all. It was quite the dominating performance, one we've seen from him many times in Arlington. I was there in person when he made his major league debut a few years back, and recalled then thinking this guy is going to be some kind of spectacular. If there was a downside to his game, it was that he wasn't efficient. He threw six innings, but also tossed 110 pitches. That's been a major plus to the 2008 Rangers, they're acting like the late 90's Yankees, or the A's. Take a lot. This is a good thing, and as I recall one of the things Ron Washington said he wanted to instill in our hitters when he took over as manager. Glad to see it is taking hold.

We had six hits in all. Two by Teagarden (one a double), two by Blalock (one a double), and just one hit each by Marlon Byrd (double), and Milton Bradley. That's it. The fact we managed to score three runs at all was a testament to efficiency. That and Mark Bulger's lack of command in relief, leading to the three runs all coming in the bottom of the ninth, making things a bit exciting there.

But this really was John Lackey's game. Simple as that.

Oh yeah, Scott Feldman is out of gas. They better start limiting his pitches.

Vicente Padilla got into the seventh, but really didn't pitch that well. His official line was 6 innings pitched, seven hits, five earned runs, and three walks. Not terribly great. Also gave up a two run home run to Garret Anderson. On top of that, he did throw two wild pitches.

Offensively we had five more doubles (and five singles). Hank Blalock led the way, going 4-4 with an RBI and a run scored. He's been on fire lately.

There really isn't a whole lot to write about this game. Fairly "meh" game.

Whenever I see a score like this, I am reminded of a game I've spoken of a few times over the years on this site. The Phillies / Cubs game from the late 70's where the Phils beat the Cubs 23-22. You'd think 13 runs would be enough to win the game. Not this time.

First off, I had tickets to this game, but could not go. I've been hurt lately, I had an X-Ray and now an MRI on my knee, so the walk from parking to my seat and all that would have been too much pain. So I stayed home. Rangers lost, but I certainly would have seen an entertaining game, had I been able to go.

We were down 7-0 going into the bottom of the third, and then we unloaded with a nine spot in the bottom of the third. Not long after that, the Angels put up a five spot, followed by a three run bottom of the fifth, so there was little pitching in the first five innings, as the score at that point was 13-12 Anaheim, and we hadn't gotten to the sixth yet!

In the final four innings, the Angels outscored Texas 2-1 in the final four frames. I'm not even going into details as to pitchers and batters. It was just scoring all over the place. If you want that level of detail, hit the MLB Recap link at the top of this story. :)

I don't have time to write a full commentary, but even if I did, I wouldn't have wanted to.

No time to write about this still, but a huge win in the bottom of the ninth sounds great. Wish I would have seen it. :(

No time to write commentary for this game.

No time to write commentary for this game.

No time to write commentary for this game.

Nolan Ryan's recent edict was that pitchers in our entire organization need to pitch longer into games. He must have loved this one. Matt Harrison pitched a complete game shutout. His line was specacular. Nine innings pitched, five hits, four walks, and ZERO runs allowed. The kind of line that would make any team president happy, but one with the pedigree of Nolan's? Oh yeah, he was loving that. It also was a historic win, too, as Matt Harrison is now a record holder for a lefthand rookie pitcher with eight wins.

Offensively Hank Blalock had another home run, and looked like he had a second (would have been a slam), but it didn't quite get out. Chris Davis hit a few balls around the yard hard, too. Taylor Teagarden also continued to shine offensively with another home run. Extra base hits were the order of the night, as we had six of them (out of 10 hits). Three doubles (Hamilton, Davis, Laird), one triple (Davis), and two home runs (Blalock, Davis).

But the night belonged to Matt Harrison. Nights like this will go a long way towards 2009. However, one always wonders about these kinds of things. I've seen a ton of pitchers have great Septembers, but by the time spring training comes around, they seem to have forgotten all of this. Hopefully it sticks around.

Dustin Nippert continues to prove me wrong. As I've said before, I really was in the "WTF" group of fans when he was brought on board late in spring. He stunk up the joint early, but lately has been quite good. His outing this Thursday won't win any awards, but you can't argue with the two most important stats, IMO, those being the win and the runs allowed (one). He was effectively wild, going five innings on 104 pitches, four hits, four walks, and as was said, just one run allowed.

That was the only run the Rangers allowed in all. Our pen shut down the Mariners for four innings, a nice job by Jamey Wright, Bill White, & Frank Francisco. All of them allowed no runs, but no hits either, which was very high on the coolness scale. But what was better was that none of them gave up any walks, either!

Offensively, the Rangers had 14 hits in all. Four doubles, one home run, and nine singles. On the negative side, Joaquin Arias was picked off first by a very nice pickoff move by Dallas Braden. Josh Hamilton was 3-4, Arias & Blalock were 2-5, and all the other hits were scattered. No Rangers batter (starter or sub) was hitless. That's the kind of thing that's nice to see.

Nice to get the series win, but I would have preferred the sweep - it is just the Mariners, after all.

The fact that Kevin Millwood lasted five innings in this game was the big surprise. Eleven hits, two walks, seven runs allowed (five earned), 103 pitches. He wasn't good. Meh.

Offensively, we jacked four home runs, but it was't enough. Millwood gave up too many. The home runs were by Nelson Cruz, Taylor Teagarden, Hank Blalock, & Chris Davis. Like to see all of those names (especially me who picked up Teagarden as a catcher in a couple of fantasy leagues). Taylor also had a double, but again, it wasn't enough. Interestingly enough, batting slots 2-3-4 had no hits the whole game, and the leadoff slot had just one.

Kind of interesting to see the Mariners throw out seven pitchers, that's a lot for one game.

Felix Hernandez certainly isn't looking like the great/awesome/whatever pitcher he has been touted the last few times he's played the Rangers. I don't have a list of all his games in front of me, but against us, he seems to not do as well. This game was no different. The Rangers got to him for the tune of six earned runs on six hits and four walks. Not very good at all. Certainly not "King like" to me at all.

Hernandez' downfall was of course due to the Rangers offense, which was led by Marlon Byrd & Taylor Teagarden. Each of them got three hits each (of the total 10 hits we got). Each of them had a double, as did Josh Hamilton. All the other hits we got were singles. Byrd was 3-4 with 3 RBI's, and Teagarden was 3-5 with 3 RBI's of his own. These guys were the game for us.

Another notable was Nelson Cruz going 1-3, but with two walks. Has Cruz really figured it out?

We ran a bit, with four steals in the game (Byrd, Hamilton, Young, Arias). Was nice to tweak Hernandez, mostly because his nickname irritates the heck out of me.

Well, the luster came off McCarthy's return, as he was blown out by the Red Sox. 5.1 innings, seven hits, three walks, and six earned runs. Not that I think anyone was expecting Cy Young here, but you got a gut feeling (or I did) that he figured it out and was going to be really awesome every start the rest of the year. Oh well, I guess that's just me being naive. That's the vibe you got when he was finally activated to pitch in the majors this year.

Paul Byrd kept the Rangers off the board, going six shutout innings on just three hits and three walks. Not much else to add to that.

Offensively, we had just six hits. One a Teagarden double, the rest all singles. None by Michael Young, either who took an ofer. He still needs 35 hits in 18 games. Not impossible, but unlikely; time appears to be running out on him for another 200 hits in 2008.

With a knuckeballer, you usually get shut down totally, or you light him up like several Christmas trees. In this game, we got both from Tim Wakefield. He started the game for the Sox, and through the first inning and two thirds, he was spectacular. Then after getting two outs in the second, not only did the bottom fall out, but the wheels came off too, and any other platitude you'd want to stick in there. He was horrendously bad there. In the last out there, he gave up four hits, four walks, and seven earned runs. The carnage was pretty bad. It set the tone for the game.

In addition to the seven spot in the second, we also had two in the third, one in the fifth, three more in the sixth, and a pair in the bottom of the 8th. There were runs all over the place. Nine of our sixteen hits were of the extra base vareity. I'll cheat and paste from the box score regarding extra bases...

2B: Laird 2 (21, Wakefield, Timlin), Davis, C (18, Smith, C), Catalanotto (23, Pauley), Cruz (2, Pauley).
3B: Boggs (4, Timlin), Hamilton (5, Timlin).
HR: Cruz 2 (3, 3rd inning off Smith, C, 1 on, 1 out; 5th inning off Timlin, 0 on, 2 out).

Matt Harrison threw for the Rangers, and did well enough. Not stellar, but not great either. Six innings, seven hits, one walk, and four earned runs. "OK", but not awful.

Was nice to see Nelson Cruz pop a couple of home runs. Makes you wonder if he really has figured it out for real, and will no longer be a AAAA player. If he has, it will make our outfield situation much more interesting next year, as it seems we will have an abundance of qualified candidates for the job next year. I suspect some worthy people will be sitting in AAA for being blocked.

After the last several outings, we wondered how well Millwood would do against the Red Sox, or at least I did. After three innings, he was down 1-0 on a solo home run to Mike Lowell, who just came off the DL this game. Nice for him to get back in the saddle that fast. However, going into the fourth, Joaquin Arias dropped a ball that was a routine grounder to second, and that opened the floodgates.

The Sox pushed across four runs in the fourth inning. Technically only one was unearned, but the fact that Millwood had to keep going seemed to rattle him - at least to me, this "guy on the couch at home".

Thing is, we were never really in this game anyway. Josh Beckett started, and like Lowell, was just coming off the DL. He allowed no runs in his five innings of work, striking out seven, and giving up just four walks. The guys who followed him were just as good. Manny Delcarmen pitched two innings, giving up nothing and striking out three. Justin Masterson followed with a scoreless frame (although he walked two). The Rangers finally got to a Sox pitcher, that being Hideki Okajima when he gave up two hits and a walk. That was a Nelson Cruz single which plated German Duran.

Bummer the Rangers lost. While the Sox are probably going to make the playoffs as the wild card, but it would have been nice for the Rangers to sweep the Red Sox and help 'em not make the playoffs. Be nice to have a playoffs without BOTH the Red Sox and Yankees.

When the Rangers aquired Dustin Nippert from the Diamondbacks at the tail end of spring training, most fans (myself included) were thinking WTF. This was not a name that made you think "Hey, let's bring him in, he's so much better than what we have". His April performances were pretty godawful (6ER in 0.2IP in the first, and 8ER in 2.1IP a few appearances later). He was banished after that, not to appear again for awhile. The guy we saw in this game was nothing like the guy we saw earlier in the year. If THIS was the guy the Rangers thought they were trading for, then hell yeah - that was a decent move.

Granted, it's just one game, but how can you not get excited about this? Seven innings pitched, ZERO runs scored, no walks, and seven hits and 99 pitches. It was quite the performance, and if this version of Dustin Nippert can be harnessed, this is a great pickup, if a bit delayed in results. OK, I'm a bit jazzed about this, but wow, it's hard not to be. Was a great pitching performance.

The one run was a sac fly by Milton Bradley, his 74th of the season overall. It came in the first inning - and it held up. That's the surprising thing. We don't get 1-0 wins at home very often.

The bigger surprise was the lack of fans in the stadium. OK, it was a weekday 1:05 game. I work - I have just about zero chance for coming out for those (except opening day). But the announced attendance was 12,882, and from several local reports, it was way less than that. My thoughts on why so many empty seats have been chronicled a lot, so I won't go into it here.

Still, 1-0 is exciting, even if hardly anybody witnessed it.

The Rangers offense woke up a bit, getting fifteen hits in all. Two of our starters (Byrd & Davis) had no hits, so the hits were scattered amongst seven guys. Laird, Bradley, & Hamilton had three hits each. There were no home runs, but four doubles and one triple came off Rangers' bats. Josh Hamilton's RBI jump seems to be in gear again, getting three of them tonight. He got out to a massively quick rate, but has slowed down a bunch lately. Still leading the majors, but not as many as quickly now.

But the more important bit for me from this game is the line of Brandon McCarthy. After "a chat" with Nolan Ryan about his pitching, McCarthy was activated, and has done well this season in his limited sample. Tonight, he went six innings, giving up just two earned runs on four hits and (more importantly), no walks. Still too many pitches (102 in six), but the overall numbers were pretty good. This is a guy who need to get it together, as we could use one of these trades for pitchers to go right, and not go bad. :(

Still, one would think we should have beaten the Mariners by more than that. We're not the greatest team around, but the Mariners are horrible. Would have been nice to have a 18-4 game again.

Young 200 hit watch: one hit

This game irritated me. We put up a five spot in the bottom of the fifth inning. It was all for naught, because after that, the Rangers did not score any more, but the Mariners did. Eight more times!

It's hard to win when your pitching staff gives up 20 hits. We got to the Mariners' starter (Carlos Silva) pretty well (4.2 IP, 10H, 4BB, 6ER). You had a good feeling with all of that. Didn't stick up, though. Bummer.

The best moment of the game though was the three run home run by Taylor Teagarden, who just arrived as a September callup. He wasn't even supposed to play in the game, but got in, and jacked a three run shot with his parents in Tom Hicks' box down front. Showing off Teagarden's medal from the Olympics, it was a great moment. But that was it. Game stunk after that.

The Rangers got out early with some power. Josh Hamilton finally got his 30th home run of the season in the first inning, giving the Rangers a 1-0 lead. In the second inning Marlon Byrd jacked a two run shot, putting us up 3-0. We never looked back. OK, we did, because it's the Angels, but we never lost the lead.

Kevin Millwood allowed two runs in the bottom of the second inning, but that was it for him. Kevin had another great outing, going 6.2 innings, allowing just the two runs on five hits, and no walks. Kevin also struck out seven in this game. It wasn't a complete game, but he's pitching as good as he ever has in a Rangers uniform.

Anyone else notice that Mike Scocscia (sp?) seems to be a manager who is constantly "confused" and seemingly gets mad if someone breathes the wrong way? You know - whenever something doesn't go the Angels way, Soocscia has that constipated look on his face in the dugout? Happens all the time.

Offensively, the Rangers had the two home runs, and also had three doubles. The other five hits were singles.

Young 200 hit watch: one hit.

Scott Feldman continues to prove that he's someone who probably deserves a serious look in 2009, and should be considered before some other (external) options. His game tonight was not one of his best, but at a point of his season where he is past a place where he was supposed to have been shut down (or moved to the pen), he continues to pitch fairly well. And that wasn't a runon sentence. He went six innings this night, gave up four earned runs on eight hits and one walk. The power wasn't there for the Angels, they had just two extra base hits this game, both doubles. But it was enough.

Jered Weaver pitched for the Angels, and pitched into the sixth, but left after the first two batters. He was let down by his reliever Jose Arredondo, who allowed two inherited runners to score, accounting for two of the three earned runs on Weaver's card.

Offensively, the Rangers managed just seven hits the whole game. Six of them were singles, and one was a double (Blalock).

Michael Young 200 watch: One hit.

Scores like 3-1 mean somebody pitched well. That's what happened here. Anaheim's starter was Ervin Santana, and he eight eight strong innings. He allowed just five hits and one walk. Just one run, too. It's hard to top that.

Dustin Nippert made the start in place of Vicente Padilla, and was "OK". Not bad, and not great. His overall line was 5.1 innings, with five hits and three earned runs. Thing is, most of that happend right at the end. He was great through five, keeping the Angels off the board totally. He just ran out of gas in the sixth, and the Angels got to him.

Still, 3-1 isn't the worst score you could lose by. Yeah, a loss is a loss, but 3-1 is less disheartening as say 17-3 would be.

The Rangers got off to a great start, a 4-0 lead to open the first inning in support of Brandon McCarthy. Unfortunately, that was our best moment offensively. We did pick up a single run in the fourth, but that was it for our offense.

We held the lead for quite awhile. Brandon McCarthy looked good again, and one HOPES that he has figured it out. HOPES being the key word there. Brandon threw 6 innings in all, giving up just one earned run (one unearned, too). Just one walk, and six hits. Not too shabby.

Thing is, our bullpen (mostly Jamey Wright) gave up a big ol' ugly five spot in the bottom of the 8th, which of course brought on Frankie Rodriguez. Bleh. We did look really good for most of the game, holding the Angels in check, and being powered by home runs from Milton Bradley & Crush Davis, but the bottom of the 8th kind of wiped out that good feeling.

HOLY CRAP! It's a game played on August 27th, and it's the first time all season I've been able to use that graphic. I've been using it on my site for years, but for the first time in 2008, it gets broken out. That's kind of sad, actually.

This was the second straight game with a pitcher's duel. Yesterday it was Millwood & Greinke. This game it was Matt Harrison & Brian Bannister. Harrison pitched into the 8th inning, and gave up two runs (just one earned). Bannister went into the 7th, and gave up three runs (two earned). Both pitched well. KC was done in again by an unearned run, which proved to be the difference maker.

This game was almost all Brandon Boggs (2-4, HR), Chris Davis (2-4, 2B), & Jarrod Saltamacchia (3-4, 2 2B). These guys had all our hits, except two.

The more amazing thing was a sweep - in Kansas City!

Even if I wasn't writing short entries for this week, there wouldn't be a ton to talk about with this one. It was the Kevin Millwood show. He dominated KC, giving up just one run in his 94 pitch complete game win. That makes two straight complete games for a Rangers pitcher - when the heck was the last time THAT happened?

Funny thing is that Zack Greinke pitched better than Millwood did because he allowed no earned runs. Neither did any other Royals' pitcher. The two runs the Rangers got were both unearned.

You feel bad for a pitcher when they give up no earned runs, and still lose the game. But not enough to not feel glad about the performance Millwood gave. Was spectacular. There's been some talk he might be traded to Boston before Sep 1, but I can't see that happening. If he stays, one gets the feeling we wouldn't see this Millwood in April, unfortunately. :(

Short commentary, I'm in catch up mode after a week of not doing updates..

The Rangers hit Kansas City, a town that despite how bad the Royals have been, it's a town where the Rangers have issues winning. This time, however was different. Nelson Cruz finally made it to the majors this year, and continued his torrid pace in the minors this year. Cruz went 3-5 with three RBI's, missing just the triple for the cycle. Was definitely his night.

Actually, given how many hits we had (19) you would have thought we would have scored more than nine runs. 19 hits usually means double digits in runs. Oh well, I'll take the win, since we usually don't get a ton of them in KC.

Scott Feldman got the win, going seven innings, giving up eight hits, but no walks. Two earned runs (three overall). Good win.

No time to comment. Starting to burn out on this repeat of April in August, as wel.

No time to comment. Starting to burn out on this repeat of April in August, as wel.

I did not see or hear any of this game. I was down at the Starplex watching Black Sabbath play (they currently go by the name Heaven & Hell, they're with Dio again). Due to this, I'll skip all commentary on the game, as I need to recover from the concert. :) I don't know if you know, but I do Black Sabbath's website too - you can see it here: http://www.black-sabbath.com. Doing that affords me the luxury of doing things like watching the gig from on stage. Here was my vantage point. :)

So yeah, I missed Hank Blalock's debut at first base. I was busy backstage with the band after the show, so by the time I finally got back home, I was in no shape to start watching a Texas Rangers game. :)

This game has two big things which would sum it up.

First was the pitching performance by Kevin Millwood. Kevin got a complete game victory, something rare in baseball these days. He looked good, scattering six hits over his nine innings. Only helped out the Tigers once (his lone walk), and struck out four. No Tiger had more than one hit, although four of the six hits were extra base jobs. I was there in person, and the performance by Millwood just seemed to blend into the background. I was't overwhelmed, nor was I bored. Of course, I was there with some friends, so my talking might have gotten in the way of my baseball perceptions.

However, the big story was the power. We had six home runs total. Only one of them was not a solo shot. That was Travis Metcalf's home run in the second - there was one runner for that one. However, we had five more solo shots, including two different back to back shots. The six home runs were by Travis Metcalf (two), Brandon Boggs, Michael Young, Josh Hamilton, & Milton Bradley. Nice fun night to be there, and actually is the first home game win I've been to this year.

A few other random notes..

The Rangers six shooters make me feel old. They sat down next to me at one point waiting for the time to go dance on the dugout. Wow, I'm probably double the age of every one of them. That was helped by the fact that I thought I was old enough to be all of their fathers from the looks of it. Plus I turned 43 today, which made it even more "fun".

The smoke from a Josh Hamilton home run hovered over the home plate area for quite awhile. Normally fireworks smoke blows away, but this one came to home plate, and just hovered there. I had major flashbacks to the original Star Trek episode Obsession where Capt Kirk is hell bent on destroying a cloud that was going around killing people.

The crowd wasn't terribly large, but it didn't seem to go anywhere, either. Guess six home runs will do that. :)

Driving out, I wasn't sure if the game was even going to be played. Came out from Garland where it was nice and sunny. Once I got past the big post office just west of Dallas, I ran into a major rain storm in Grand Prairie. It was nuts, I couldn't see two cars in front of me. Got to the ballpark, and it was nice and blue skies again. I know Texas weather can do things like that, but it was like three different types of weather.

Nice to have the Rangers back in town on August 20th. Since I was a little kid, I've had this tradition about going to a baseball game on my birthday. When they're not in town, I pick the next closest calendar date. But August 20th has been out of town for many years now.

Vicente Padilla started this game, and for the first six innings, looked like the good Padilla we've seen for the majority of 2008. Then the seventh inning showed up, which was the same place the Rangers fell apart last night, too.

Vicente Padilla & Warner Madrigal gave up a big time stinky pile of... in the seventh. The Tigers scored nine times. Was one of those stupid ugly moments, so I'll post the play by play..

Tigers 7th (Tigers 10, Rangers 3) -- C. Guillen walks. G. Sheffield singles to shallow center field, C. Guillen to 3rd. M. Joyce hits a home run to right field on a 1-2 pitch, C. Guillen scores; G. Sheffield scores. E. Renteria hits a home run to right-center field on a 2-1 pitch. Pitcher Change: W. Madrigal replaces V. Padilla. B. Inge strikes out swinging. C. Granderson walks. R. Santiago singles to center field, C. Granderson to 3rd. M. Ordonez singles to left field, C. Granderson scores; R. Santiago to 3rd. M. Cabrera grounds into a force out, M. Young to J. Arias, R. Santiago scores; M. Ordonez out at 2nd. C. Guillen singles to center field, M. Cabrera to 3rd. G. Sheffield walks, C. Guillen to 2nd. M. Joyce reaches on fielding error by J. Hamilton, M. Cabrera scores; C. Guillen scores; G. Sheffield scores; M. Joyce to 2nd. Pitcher Change: J. Rupe replaces W. Madrigal. E. Renteria lines out to J. Hamilton. (9 Runs, 6 Hits, 1 Errors, 1 LOB)

The only real good moment of the game was a three run home run by Chris Davis, who accounted for all the Rangers offense with that swing of the bat. We ran into our old (brief) friend Armando Galarraga. Take away Davis' home run, and Armando gave up no other runs, just those three, and looked pretty darned good.

I missed most of this game, fortunately I did not see the carnage in the 7th, but I did see Davis' home run.

Again. Meh.

The Rangers had 12 hits in all. Six of them were doubles. That's one of the few completely consistent stats we have this year. We're leading the universe in doubles. Wasn't enough.

Scott Feldman started, and technically thew a quality start (6IP, 5H, 3ER, 4BB), but it didn't feel like it. At least I don't remember it going that way as I write about the game three days later. Scott only had 94 pitches when he was taken out, but was apparently out of gas. His line shows six innings pitched, but he did give up three earned runs. Those were all in the seventh. That was the start of a couple of ugly innings, as the Rangers game up four spots in two consecutive innings. The second four were all unearned on the card of Jamey Wright. Those were due to a big ol' ugly error by Travis Metcalf leading to four unearned runs.

Offensively, there were the aforementioned six doubles, and the other six hits were all singles. The four we got in the bottom of the eighth was a morale booster, but the game just find of felt "gone" after we went down 8-3 in the top of the eighth.

Meh.

No time to write this one.

First off, I didn't see any of this game, so I can't tell you how Matt Harrison's pitches were looking. Didn't listen, either. I was out at a Grand Prairie AirHogs game. Was the first one of those I attended. Was a nice little place, but given that I didn't get home till about 11PM, I wasn't about to START watching the Rangers game, so I just checked out the score.

What's funny is on the ride out to the AirHogs game, I was discussing the Rangers pitching staff with the other guys in the car. I found myself preaching the line of "Well, you can't just throw any old kid out thre and expect them to go 13-4 with a 3.16 ERA. They're going to have 3-4 outings where their ERA is 18+, then one absolute gem. We got one of the gems tonight from Matt Harrison. Eight innings, three hits, NO WALKS, and eight strikeouts. Was a very spectacular outing. Which was needed, because our offense wasn't terribly special, although we led from the first pitch of the game, a big home run ball by Ian Kinsler.

Random note. If Michael Young wants another 200 hit season, he has to go on a tear. He needs 55 hits in the 38 remaining games. Not impossible mind you, but he needs more 3-4 games than 1-4's the way out. A lot of them.

To wrap it up.. Tom Hicks could learn a lesson from the AirHogs. FREE PARKING!

After our playoff hopes effectively died in Boston, we limped home, hoping that Kevin Millwood's return from the DL would make a change, coupled with being at home.

Nope.

They were just as bad as they were on the road. Well... It's not totally our fault. Matt Garza pitched a whale of a game. A complete game, 119 pitch, two hit shutout of Texas. It probably should have been just one hit, there was a play by the centerfielder that I thought should have been an error. At the minimum it was a rather rough call for the official scorer. Yeah, we have a few guys who can hit, but anyone knows you can be totally shut down by a pitching performance like that.

This makes two consecutive games we were shut out. 7-0 this game, and 10-0 in Boston. To add extra flavor that thought, the last home game before this one was a 3-0 loss to the Yankees, as well. :(

It feels like April again.

Anyone who has been watching my site for awhile has seen this graphic before. However, I think it's time to update it for the 2008 season. I would like to think this applies. While you're at it, take a listen to this wav file from the Simpsons. It too applies.

No time to write about this game, got too busy with other projects.

No time to write about this game, got too busy with other projects. I will add this picture, though.

No time to write about this game, got too busy with other projects.

Nope, I think the team still didn't find it's way to Baltimore, and the same imposters that were playing in their uniforms were out at Camden Yards getting mashed by the Orioles on Saturday night.

Unconfirmed rumors that the team was at the Aquarium in the Inner Harbor at game time could not be confirmed.

I'm not sure exactly what time the Rangers' charter plane took off from the Metroplex on Thursday night for their destination in Baltimore, but apparently, the Texas Rangers team wasn't on it. Oh, some guys were in Oriole Park wearing the Rangers' uniform, but the actual team did not appear to be there. Whoever was wearing the uniforms were lethargic, they didn't pitch well, and just generally looked like they were half asleep.

The guys wearing the Rangers' uniforms got just six hits against Jeremy Guthrie. Two were by the guy wearing #22. The lone run was from the imposter wearing "Metcalf" on his back. Not much to talk about offensively here at all.

Pitching wise - We got bad outings by the guys wearing #46 & #57. The third guy who happened to be wearing #60 wasn't all that great, either, but nowhere near as bad as 46 & 57.

Blah. Hopefully the Rangers can make the secondary flight and be there in time for Saturday's game. They certainly weren't there for Friday's game.

As per my policy of the last few years, I don't write about losses to the Yankees.

Although I will say this. Anyone else watching this game have flashbacks to the 1998 & 1999 playoffs? This game felt a LOT like those two games in our ballpark. The feel was exactly the same for me.

As per my policy of the last few years, I do not write about losses to the Yankees.

You know, after the euphoria of last night, I didn't know what to expect out of Marlon Byrd tonight. Sometimes after a night like that, you get a flat 0-4 or 1-5 or something like that. But tonight, Byrd continued his positive vibe from last night into this game. Marlon was 3-4 with a walk, and three runs scored. He also stole two bases. It was quite the night offensively for him. No big grand slam or anything, but he was definitely felt. One of the runs scored was a gamble shot - he was almost thrown out by Bobby Abreu. Nice night again for Byrd.

As good as Byrd's night was, it was positively awful for CJ Wilson. I know I'm jumping ahead (I generally tend to do my commentaries in game order). A lot has been said about CJ in the last few days. We're hearing quotes like "He's still our closer", and "we're going to work on a few things and get him back out there". These are not real strong votes of confidence. Of course, he's not helping himself. There's talk that he might be hurt a little, but he doesn't have that air of "closer" at the moment. Tonight's performance certainly didn't help things. 0.1 innings pitched, 1 hit batter (Arod), two walks, and one hit. A big one - a grand slam by Richie Sexson. Ugh. It was announced after the game that CJ Wilson was going to go on the disabled list. This could explain things, but he just hasn't that "swagger". Guess it's Guardado time for awhile.

We had another efficient night at the plate. Rangers had eight runs, and we had only eight hits. Three of them were Marlon Byrd, two were David Murphy, and the other three were one each by Hamilton, Boggs, & Crush Davis. We actually were held mostly in check, but Yankee pitching gave up eight walks. That is NEVER good, and it's hard to win when you give up that many walks.

One of the best performances of the night was Rangers starter Matt Harrison. Facing some of the best hitters in the league, he was fantastic. 6.1 innings pitched, five hits, two earned runs. Now *THAT* is a quality start. Great job by Matt. Hope those keep coming.

One of the greatest bits of the night was the fact that Alex Rodriguez hit into two 5-4-3 double plays (including the one that ended the game). He also was doubled off on a 5-4 line drive out. Gotta love that.

The Rangers are now six games over .500, and have won three in a row. We're now only a game and a half behind the Yankees in the Wild card race. We still would have a lot of work to do on Wed & Thursday, but if we by some chance sweep the Yankees, we'll pass them in the standings. But let's not get ahead of ourselves quite yet on that one.

BTW, if you want some entertaining posts, check out the Yankees forums on mlb.com. After both games, there's a ton of posts calling Girardi every name you can think of, wondering why they have Arod, you know. The kind of dumbass remarks you see on call in shows. It's almost as amusing as Cowboys forums after one of their losses. Calling Matt Harrison a nobody or a "bum" I can understand. HOWEVER, the Yankee fans do show some real tastelessness with several remarks about Josh Hamilton. Specifically junk like this. Or like this. And ESPECIALLY this one. I had almost forgotten how dominant Yankee fans can be in the category of jerkoffs. I was blinded by the meteoric rise in jerkoff Red Sox fans the last few years that it clouded the original jerkoffiness of Yankees fans. Thanks for restoring my faith you twonks. Sigh.

Oh yeah, SUCK IT AGAIN, YANKEES!

Early on in this game, Vicente Padilla looked like he was really being squeezed by home plate umpire Andy Fletcher. It seemed like it to me. Especially in the first inning when there was a pitch that really should have ended the inning. It didn't, and led to a run scoring that really shouldn't have.

But that wasn't the really interesting part. That came in the fifth, when at that point the score was 3-2 Yankees. Padilla was called for two straight balks in a row, and while I'm no balk expert, I find it unlikely they were both legit. That aside, Ron Washington came out and argued the second one, and got himself ejected. The second balk led to the one run the Yankees did get that inning. It really was a strange inning, but as odd as that seemed, the bottom half of the frame had a stranger play.

Ian Kinsler was up after a Ramon Vazquez single. Kinsler hit a ball that was initially ruled fair, and Pudge threw to second for an easy double play, because Kinsler didn't go anywhere. There was a discussion, and the umps conferred, and ruled it was a foul ball. Replays showed that the ball hit him around the knee. He was ruled to still be in the batter's box, but it was a real close shave call. He might have technically been in the box, but he was definitely on his way out when it happened. Kinsler ended up walking, and he was shortly followed by a three run home run by Michael Young - something that's been missing again for the second straight year - Young's power stroke.

This all followed the two run home run that David Murphy had in the fourth inning - a line shot that cleared the wall in right. So at this point, we're up 5-4. It stayed that way for awhile until the top of the 8th when the Yankees tied it up on a solo home run by Xavier Nady, making it 5-5. It was a weird feeling then - the Yankees have always been known as a team that will beat the Rangers. Yet, that feeling was tempered by the feeling we have in 2008 of the team coming back an awful lot. So I wasn't sure what to think at that point.

Before I get to the end of the game, I wanted to say something about the pitching. Padilla's line was OK. Not great, but I think part of that was him being squeezed. His overall line was six innings, eight hits, one walk, and four earned runs. Struck out five. His last inning was the sixth, and his last few batters he had some extra gas in the tank. Padilla seemed to be at his best when he came out. He also threw 111 pitches, which in 100 degree heat, couldn't have been any fun. So Padilla comes out, Jamey Wright pitches a scoreless inning, Frank Francisco pitched one inning, giving up the Nady home run. Eddie Guardado pitched the ninth, but in a non save situation.

Eddie ended up getting the win due to what happened in the bottom of the ninth. Domaso Marte (the other pickup from the Pirates on the team besides Nady) had pitched in the eighth, and didn't allow any runs. You don't use Rivera on the road in a tie game, so I guess Girardi decided to let him pitch the ninth, figuring they'd use Rivera in the 10th. Anyway, Milton Bradley led off as a pinch hitter; his first action in several games. He walked. What a shock. Was immediately replaced by Travis Metcalf as a pinch runner. Gerald Laird & Josh Hamilton also walked, surrounding a couple of outs made by Ian Kinsler & Michael Young. However, Marlon Byrd came up, and jacked a home run ball into Section 50 of the ballpark. This plated four guys - a walk off grand slam to take the game 9-5.

It was quite a cool shot watching Marlon get all kinds of excited. One always loves the big jumping pile of players (or the Flesh Pile as coined by Eric Nadel), but I got a kick out of watching Marlon Byrd high fiving people in the stands, almost knocking down Jim Knox in the process. Really laughed when Marlon stood there doing the bird wave to the fans in the stands. Loved that moment a lot.

Interesting that all nine of our runs came on three home runs. A two run shot (Murphy), a three run shot (Young), and a grand slam (Byrd). As for the Yankees? Screw 'em. They can lose, and miss the playoffs. Given that the new Steinbrenner running the shots seems to have inherited his dad's penchant for foaming at the mouth, it ought to be interesting if/when the Yankees don't make the playoffs. Will LOVE that.

One thing I totally forgot about when writing this article was that we FINALLY got to give games over .500 for the first time all season with this win. It also broke a ten game losing streak against the Yankees in Arlington.

And oh yes, SUCK IT, YANKEES!

I was busy almost all day and into the evening helping a friend downgrade his computer from Vista to XP, so I missed a bunch of this game. This will be a short one.

Luis Mendoza was a bit better than his last few starts where he got rocked. Seven innings, four earned runs, six hits, one walk. Not staller, but not horrendous, either. Pen was good too, with two innings of scoreless relief.

Offensively, the big shots were obviously Gerald Laird's two two run home runs. That was huge. Chris Davis also had a big home run as well. That was the raw power in this game.

For the second night in a row, we had just seven hits. As noted above, three of them were home runs. There were two doubles and two singles, so it was leaning more towards extra base offense than the slower kind. Which helps when you have more runs than hits. :)

The dreaded Yankees (with Pudge - ugh) come to town starting tomorrow night. I will NOT be there.

For something like the seventh time this year, we tried to get to five games over .500, but failed. The problem we had was even getting one game over .500 for awhile. The bar has been raised a bit to getting stuck at five games over. Hopefully there's enough time to get through that new ceiling so we can set another one at say 10 games over .500, which if we sustain that through the end of the season, we'll have a better record than anyone expected at the start of the season, or probably most people when they get a look at our pitching staff ERA.

Scott Feldman may be out of gas, as he's definitely not as snappy as he was earlier this year. There was a lot of talk of him going to the pen, and that may yet happen, but he doesn't seem anywhere near as crisp as he was just a month ago, even. His line is five hits and three walks over 5.1 innings for a total of four runs (three earned). No home runs at least, but he just didn't have it to my eyes. We could blame the heat, but I think it might be a lack of gas already. Jamey Wright followed, and didn't help matters by giving up two earned runs in his .2 innings of work. Josh Rupe settled things down by throwing three shutout innings, but by then the damage was done - we weren't coming back this time.

Offensively, we had just six hits, and only four players got them. Frank Catalanotto had a hit, and Josh Hamilton, David Murphy, & Gerald Laird each had two. Wasn't a great game on our behalf, and while we only lost by two, I just didn't feel we were in the game. Perhaps I was missing something, but my memory sitting here writing about it on Sunday night tells me that we just didn't have it.

Oh well, try to take the series on Sunday afternoon.

When a team starts coming back all the time like the Rangers have been doing, you start hearing a lot about "We never quit", and "This team just won't give up", and things like that. Fans sometimes get into it too, with the "There is no lead they can't come back from". Me, I'm not that blind with belief. I always assume we'll do something wrong, and the rally will fizzle. That way when they DO come back for a win, it feels that much cooler.

That's what we got tonight. Another walkoff win. Those are always fun. This wasn't the kind where it ended with a home run, and you had the dancing pile of players at home plate. This was the kind that ended with a David Murphy single, so you had two piles. One at home plate for the winning run, and another over near first where David Murphy was. Those always seem both more exciting and less exciting. Less because of the impact that having all the players in one big mob generates. More, because you have some guys running all over the place, since they don't know what to do, or which jumping pile of players to celebrate with. Either way, they're fun, and that's what happened at the end of this game.

It didn't start off that way. Tommy Hunter made his major league debut pitching tonight, and his performance is generally the way ML debuts go for pitchers. They're generally not going to go eight innings with four hits and one run. They go more like Hunter did - five innings, eight hits, two walks, and six earned runs. ERA of 10.80. His game did start quite odd, though. The first two batters were retired easily enough, but the third (Alex Rios) was awarded first base on pitcher's interference. Hunter and Chris Davis kind of crashed into each other going after the ball, and by the time Rios got down the line, there was nowhere to go, Davis & Hunter blocked the path to the base. If that wasn't goofy enough, the next batter (Lyle Overbay) also reached - this time due to catcher's interference by Gerald Laird. Was a very odd way to get going in your first major league inning. Hunter got out of the inning, but that was about it. In the second, Scott Rolen hit a three run home run. In the next inning, Lyle Overbay hit a two run home run, putting the Jays up 5-0 in the third. They tacked on another in the fourth to go up 6-0.

Josh Hamilton drove in a couple more runs on a two run home run to dead center field, setting off one of the better pileups of kids on Greene's Hill I've seen in awhile. The clip of the kid who got the ball out of the dogpile made it to the Top 10 plays of the night on ESPN's SportsCenter too - that was rather amusing. A bunch of singles and a double or so mixed in all put together gave us a nice 4 spot to tie the game 6-6 after five.

It stayed that way until the ninth when the Blue Jays plated a pair to go up 8-6 in the top of the ninth. They did that on a single, a triple, and a ground out RBI (by Shrek, no less). That set the state for the bottom of the ninth, where the Rangers made a big run at Toronto closer, BJ Ryan. Salty walked, Michael Young singled, and then Brandon Boggs doubled, scoring Salty. Marlon Byrd was intentionally walked (to set up a double play at any base presumably). Thing is David Murphy singled down the left field line far enough away which allowed two runs to come across, winning the game, setting off the player excitement I talked about above.

Nice comeback win, although I'm getting tired of having to come back from 4 or 5 runs all the time. Turns out team management was too, as the rangers fired their pitching coach & bullpen coach after the game. Out are Mark Conner & Dom Chiti. Their replacements are Andy Hawkins & Jim Colburn respectively. Colburn I don't know much about at all except he was a pitching coach for the Dodgers & Pirates under Jim Tracy. Andy Hawkins has worked with a lot of our current guys in AAA, so that should work well.

We try again to get to five over .500 on Saturday.

I don't have the time to write, I'm going to have to skip this one.

I didn't realize I missed reporting on this game, and now that I did, I don't have the time to write, I'm going to have to skip this one.

Early on, this seemed like a runaway win. We went up 7-0 in the third inning.

Carlos Silva started the game for Seattle, and proved again how stupid his signing was. After this outing, Silva is now 4-12 with an ERA of 5.95. He's lucky his team bailed him out for a no decision - he certainly deserved the loss. In all, Silva went 2.1 innings, gave up seven hits, one walk, and six earned runs. Not very good.

Thing is, the Rangers couldn't hold it. Luis Mendoza had an almost equally outing. 5.1 innings, nine hits, and six runs allowed (1 unearned). Jamey Wright followed, and wasn't that much better. Jamey finished up the sixth inning, going just 2/3 of an inning, and allowed three hits, two of which were home runs.

A cool note in this game was that Ichiro Suzuki collected his 3,000th career hit (if you count Japan too) on the first pitch of the game.

Both closers were pretty awful. CJ Wilson allowed two runs, although one was unearned. JJ Putz gave up three hits, and two earned runs.

Speaking of "awful", Ramon Vazquez didn't have a good night in the field, committing three errors himself. He did redeem himself with the game winning walk off double, however. Took a shot at the fans in the post game interviews over the errors and booing, too. :)

A few years back when Seattle brought in Adrian Beltre, it was with the promise that he'd provide a major stick to their lineup. Would be the big power masher. That never happened for the most part, but in this game it did. Adrian Beltre led the Mariners to the win over the Rangers. He went two for four this game. Both of the two were home runs. One was a three run shot in the first, and the other was a solo jack later in the game.

That wasn't the only power from Seattle. Raul Ibanez & Bryan LaHair both had solo home runs. LaHair's was his first career home run.

Scott Feldman started the game for Texas, and was definitely not the guy he's been for this season. It will take more than one start to convince me, but there's been some talk lately of moving Feldman to the pen because his innings are way up for him. It could be any number of things, but if there's too many of these kinds of outings, it may be something to look into.

The Rangers offense got to Felix Hernandez a bit, touching him up for four runs (three earned) in six innings. Technically a quality start, but definitely not the kind of performance that Hernandez brings to the hill. The Rangers had six walks and eleven hits. Of all that, only two were extra base hits - both doubles by Ian Kinsler. It was single city this game.

As much as Saturday's game was led by the longball for the Rangers win, Sunday's game was led by the longball for the Rangers loss.

We did manage to start the game with a lead, going up 1-0 in the first inning on a Milton Bradley double.

Eric Hurley started the game for the Rangers, and ran into immediate problems. Jack Cust got Hurley for a two run shot in the first inning. Hurley got out of the inning without any more damage, but was tagged again in the second. A's catcher Curt Suzuki jacked a three run home run, and combined with another run the A's plated that frame, put them up 6-1 at that point. At that point I got digusted and took my daughter out for a ride around town after getting some ice cream. My wife needed a little bit of alone time, so we went out for a ride. While I was out, I had the scoreboard on my XM display, and saw the Rangers moving back in the top of the fifth.

When we eventually got back home, I flipped on the top of the fifth, and it was nice to see the Rangers make a game out of it. The big shot in this inning was a bases clearing double by Hank Blalock.

But outside of our four run top of the fifth, it actually was a pretty well pitched game. Rangers only scored in two innings, as did the A's. The rest of the game was zeroes.

Really odd that we still can't seal the deal on a series sweep.

Well, this was one of the games we couldn't see on TV. Was radio only, which means no timeshifting for me. Until TiVo comes out with a "TiVo for radio", I'm stuck listening to the game when it actually happens when it's radio only. Since I almost NEVER watch anything when it's really on, that concept is alien to me. Since I was spending the day with my three year old, sitting down and listening to a Rangers game on the radio was not an option, so I just opted out of the whole thing. This was a box score only game for me.

Rangers rookie Matt Harrison started this game, and did not appear to be all that bad, really. He only threw five innings, but gave up just one earned run. There were two more that were attributable to a Michael Young error, but in all, the linescore wasn't that bad. Five innings, five hits, three walks. Josh Rupe followed up with three innings of scoreless relief. Warner Madrigal finished up, and allowed a solo home run in his one inning of work. In all, not bad. Just two earned runs over nine innings of work - not bad line for the staff at all.

The Rangers work at the plate was fairly efficient, as we had ten hits in all. Three of them were home runs. There were two solo shots (Chris Davis in the 7th & Marlon Byrd in the 8th), as well as the big one, a three run home run by Josh Hamilton in fifth. That's five of our nine runs right there. Chris Davis also had a double, and got picked up by me on a couple of fantasy teams I'm on. :)

Nice job by the Rangers getting to former Ranger Justin Duchscherer. Before this game, his ERA was under 2, and had only given up three runs once all year. His ERA jumped to 2.37, and we tagged him for EIGHT runs - by far his worst performance of the year. It also guaranteed we'd leave Oakland with sole possession of second place in the AL West.

The best picture from the game:

First off, I want to shamelessly steal this line from the MLB.com Texas Rangers specific game recap from this one. When I read it, it's pretty true. The article said, "This was the perfect get-well card for Rangers hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo, who underwent knee replacement surgery on Friday in Dallas.". Have to agree with that.

Secondly, it's probably time to make more complaints about late games. I was watching this game, enjoying it until my wife came out to tell me she was going to sleep, and apparently I had fallen asleep on the sofa somewhere in the fifth or sixth innings. Woke me up in the top of the seventh, so I backed up the game (yay TiVo), and started watching. Well, apparently I was more tired than I realized, as I fell asleep again, only this time it was in the bottom of the eighth. I decided I was just going to go to bed, and stopped the recording, and well, went to bed. I get up this morning, sit at the dining room table with the paper and my coffee, and see the eight spot in the top of the ninth! DAMMIT! I missed it, both because I gave up and went to bed during the bottom of the 8th, and secondly because I stopped my TiVo from recording. I tried undeleting it on Saturday morning, but then I realized I had stopped it recording when I went to bed, which I almost never do. DAMMIT AGAIN! When I told all this to my wife, who was getting ready for work at the time, she said "Wow - that's so not like you to miss it due to canceling a recording!" We need to get to the Central, and if we have to give up Hicks' precious regular series against the Astros to do it, then I say go for it. I'm tired of falling asleep on the sofa during all our division games! OK, enough of that. Let's get to the game.

Vicente Padilla took the hill, and most Rangers fans wondered which one we'd get. The good one from the first part of the season, or the one that seemed tentative and hurt his last two starts before the break. While his line won't show it, we got the good one. You see, Vicente's line shows six innings pitched, seven hits, four walks, and FIVE earned runs. He also struck out nine, which I believe is a season high for him. But the five earned runs all came in the same inning - the bottom of the third. The events of the game showed that the runs probably could have been unearned, but they were on the ledger of Padilla. Even the official transcripts and box scores don't show anything that would have led you to think they should have been, but that's how the game is played. Actually, it would have been worse, but David Murphy made a great throw, gunning down Hannahan at the plate for the final out of the inning.

Thing is, the Rangers responded in the next inning with a five spot of their own to tie the game. The first batter of the inning reached on a throwing error, which DID lead to unearned runs. Unlike Padilla, Oakland's starter Sean Gallagher was the "beneficiary" of four unearned runs. Still, the inning was powered by the long ball. After Byrd reached on the error, David Murphy jacked a ball over the left center field power alley wall for a two run shot. After a single (Davis), awalk (Salty), and a bunt (Kinsler), Michael Young sac flied in the third run of the inning. Josh Hamilton followed with a home run to right field, tying the game at 5. It was also Hamilton's 99th and 100th RBI's of the season. Quite impressive numbers.

Vicente Padilla must have been energized by that, because he retired the remaining nine batters he faced in the fourth, fifth, and sixth innings combined. Was quite the turnaround. Yeah, his third wasn't too great, but he closed out his performance QUITE strongly to earn his 12th win of the season. There's been a lot of talk this past week or so as to whether the Rangers would move Padilla. Given his overall turnaround, I find it hard to believe we'd give up our leader in wins, because Scott Feldman aside, we don't really appear to have someone who can cover that slot in the starting rotation.

The Rangers pushed across the tying run in the top of the 7th when Chris Davis doubled, and was later singled in by Ian Kinsler. The Rangers never looked back at that point. Frank Francisco came in and threw a perfect bottom of the seventh. Eddie Guardado pitched a scoreless bottom of the eighth, and was I believe the last thing I saw before I went to bed. In fact, as I type this, I now recall seeing the double play to end the bottom of the 8th where Kinsler turned it on a slightly bad hop. That's when I stopped watching. Go figure. CJ Wilson started warming up here, and never came into the game.

That's because the Rangers exploded in the top of the ninth inning when I (and a lot of other fans probably) had fallen asleep. While an eight run frame means offense all over the place, the highlights was another Chris Davis home run. It was one of those innings (from reading the play by play account) where there weren't a lot of big moments, it was a ton of small stuff. Here, you read it:

Rangers 9th (Rangers 14, Athletics 5) -- Pitcher Change: A. Embree replaces B. Ziegler. M. Byrd grounds out, M. Ellis to J. Hannahan. D. Murphy singles to first base. C. Davis hits a home run to right field on a 2-2 pitch, D. Murphy scores. J. Saltalamacchia singles to right-center field. I. Kinsler walks, J. Saltalamacchia to 2nd. Pitcher Change: A. Brown replaces A. Embree. M. Young hits a ground rule double to center field, J. Saltalamacchia scores; I. Kinsler to 3rd. A. Brown intentionally walks J. Hamilton. With M. Bradley batting, passed ball by K. Suzuki, I. Kinsler scores; M. Young to 3rd; J. Hamilton to 2nd. M. Bradley walks. H. Blalock singles to left-center field, M. Young scores; J. Hamilton scores; M. Bradley to 2nd. M. Byrd doubles to right-center field, M. Bradley scores; H. Blalock to 3rd. D. Murphy grounds out to J. Hannahan, H. Blalock scores; M. Byrd to 3rd. C. Davis grounds out, B. Crosby to J. Hannahan. (8 Runs, 6 Hits, 0 Errors, 1 LOB)

Nice to see the Rangers win the game, something we have had issues doing this season for any sort of stretch of time. While it feels like we're pretty much out of the running for the divison (we're 10.5 games back), I also don't feel we're bound for the playoffs, but this has turned out to be a decent season because of all the kids we're playing.

I wonder who we're moving before this coming Thursday. Laird or Saltamacchia? Padilla? Catalanotto? We'll see soon enough.

Speaking of "seeing", Saturday's game is one of those two mutant games in the schedule where it is not on TV here in the Metroplex. For the longest time, we've had 162 games on the TV, and I think about 3 years ago or so, we started having about 160. What's the deal with the last two?

P.S. After I wrote all that, I realized I forgot to mention that this win put the Rangers in second place, passing the A's. If we win either Saturday or Sunday (preferably both), we'll retain second place when the series is over. This is a good thing. While I'm pretty convinced we're not making the playoffs, I think second place is a good goal for 2008.

I was so busy with work today, I didn't even realize the game was on. By the time I did realize it, it was 4:30, and the game was already over. From the looks of things I missed some heartbreak.

Oh well, I think I'll skip writing about this one.

There's not much positive to say about this game.

1) Our starting pitching stunk. Luis Mendoza gave up six earned runs on nine hits and two walks (and a home run). Dustin Nippert was no better, giving up four runs on three hits and three walks (and a grand slam). Bleargh. See what I mean from the report from the last game?

2) Our starting pitching stunk. Luis Mendoza gave up six earned runs on nine hits and two walks (and a home run). Dustin Nippert was no better, giving up four runs on three hits and three walks (and a grand slam). Bleargh. See what I mean from the report from the last game?

Yes I realize that's the same thing twice, but I thought they stunk so bad, it was worth pointing it out twice.

Actually, the big positive was Chris Davis. Having recently been granted the first baseman's job by Ron Washington, he paid that back with a great night. Chris went 3-4 with a home run. Milton Bradley was also 2-4, but that's about it for the positive in this game (does Blalock's triple count?)

Scott Feldman has probably been our second most consistent starting pitcher this season, behind I'd say Vicente Padilla. So what do you do with a guy like that in the second half? Put him in the bullpen. There was some talk during the All Star break that Feldman would be going to the pen in the second half. The stated reason is one that's hard to argue with, I suppose. He's apparently either at, or about to pass his largest number of innings pitched in his career, I think they're trying to protect him. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but don't pitchers get stretched out in that regard by being pitched, and not protected? I guess it's only a mild complaint, but when you get performances like we got this game, you don't want him in the pen.

Scott Feldman tossed six innings, and allowed just one run on four hits. Had three walks, which isn't great, but there were three double plays turned behind Scott. The pen was quite good too. Three guys followed Scott (Francisco, Guardado, Wright), and between them there was just one hit allowed (Guardado). Great pitching performance. It's too bad they can't be consistent for a great length of time - look at our last dozen or so scores, they're not consistently showing this great pitching game after game.

Offensively, it's a tale of home runs. Five of our six home runs were accounted for by the longball. Classic Texas Rangers offense. There was a three run shot by Josh Hamilton in the third inning, and there was a two run shot by Hank Blalock in the eighth, his first home run in bloody ages. Given we had six runs, we didn't have a ton of hits (just eight). Half of them were doubles, though, so we had four doubles, two home runs, and two singles.

Was a nice win, and nice to see Blalock get back on the HR chart. Probably should savor those, as I can't imagine he'll be a Ranger come 2009.

That headline is really unfair to Vicente Padilla, Eddie Guardado, & CJ Wilson, but I think most people will remember Taylor Teagarden most in this game.

Heck, Taylor got his first caught stealing throw in the majors. He got his first major league hit, which also happened to be a home run. Said home run was also the lone run in this game, and broke up a perfect game bid at the time by Minnesota starter Scott Baker. How cool was all that? It was quite a moment, and he didn't visibly smile enough for my tastes. :)

Baker certainly personified the concept of "hard luck loss" in this one - no doubt.

This looked like the Vicente Padilla we've been seeing all season - going after guys, and not nibbling. His last two outings before this one were the ones where he was presumably hurt, and it's nice to see him bounce back to his old 2008 self when coming off the DL. Hopefully he stays that way.

Despite the win, I'm a bit surprised at how underwhelming our offense was in this series in Minnesota. For all three games COMBINED we had a total of just three runs (one was zero, too) and eleven hits. Blech. It's like we went to sleep. That was a horrendous performance. If it wasn't for our pitching on Sunday, we would have been swept out of Minnesota, and quite frankly, the way we were hitting, we probably deserved that.

Having said all of that, it was quite nice to see Taylor Teagarden have such a cool day. Makes you wonder if that's it for him for awhile, given our catcher heavy situation right now.

Ugh. The only good moment of this game was Chris Davis' home run.

I know it's only two games out of the break, but after last night and tonight combined, does anyone else feel like it's April again?

First off, I wanted to make a comment about the MLB Game Recap for this game. For the last few seasons, I've been linking to the recaps on the official mlb site. This year they've gotten a lot better, with video and pictures, and recaps from both sides. They've been a serious improvement. There's technically three recaps for each game. The ones that are slanted for the home and visiting team comprise two, and then there's a third that covers the "general MLB recap", which also includes the other two. Anyway, for the general MLB one, someone is writing what I would perceive as "comedic headlines", where it's things like "Texas Two Step stops such and such team". But the one for this game really struck me as odd, mostly because it seems bizarre. The phrase was "Perky pitching powers three-hit derby". Perky? Perky? What exactly is "perky pitching"? That really seems odd to me.

Thing is, this little diatribe I wrote about the word "perky" is more than what can really be said about the actual game. I think most Rangers fans were riding high off of Josh Hamilton's HR Derby performance. Ian Kinsler's 25 game hitting streak was ready to be extended, and most Rangers fans I think were feeling good about the team. Unfortunately, we ran into Twins pitcher Glen Perkins. He tossed a gem against the Rangers, going six innings, allowing no runs and just three hits. Those hits were a double (Byrd), and two singles (Young, Bradley). Perkins only went six innings and 98 pitches, though. I thought he probably could have gone longer, but you can't argue that he would have done better than the bullpen guys who followed. The three Twins relievers each pitched a single perfect inning. You can't beat that.

Millwood was not good. 6.1 innings, eleven hits, one walk for five earned runs. Bleh.

But the bottom line was the Twins pitching shut us down totally, and handed us our first shutout of the season. Hats off to Perkins and crew for a well pitched game.

The Rangers had four guys in this game, and they all played. Granted, two of them started, and one of the other two should have started, so that came as no surprise. What was a bit of a surprise was the fact that for roughly an inning or so, all four of them were in the game at the same time - if not all on the field at the same time, as Bradley was a DH. Here's a short summary of what our guys did:

• Josh Hamilton - 1-3 with a steal. His hit was a single. He got a lot of applause because of his home run derby moves. Wasn't terribly impactful in the game.
• Milton Bradley - 0-2 with a walk and a steal. He was also picked off. The walk was a surprise. OK, not really. He's been doing that all season.
• Ian Kinsler - 1-5 with a steal and a caught stealing. He also had a great tag on a not terribly well pitched strike out, throw 'em out throw from Dioner Navarro. Was well played.
• Michael Young - 2-5 with what could have been the game winning single in the 11th, but Dioner Navarro was thrown out at the plate. That was made up for by the bottom of the 15th.

I'm not going to get into the individual stuff about the whole game, but the first four innings and innings 9-14 were both scoreless, but for different reasons. The first four were well pitched. The others were well danced. Both teams really gave the othe team a ton of chances, but nobody could get the job done.

Defense was weird. There were some fantastic plays at the plate on both sides (Adrian Gonzalez pick and Miguel Tejada falling down throw plays to save the game comes to mind as well as Ichiro's throw to get Albert Pujols). Then there was Dan Uggla, who had three errors on his own, although the third wasn't really his fault.

Young's hit and lost game winning RBI in the 12th was nowhere near as bad as the bottom of the 11th where the AL had the bases loaded and nobody out, and couldn't score. In the bottom of the 10th/11th, three of the six outs were at home plate. The National League had the bases loaded in the top of the 12th, and couldn't push one across, either. AL led off the bottom of the 12th with a double, couldn't do anything with it. There were a ton of chances in extra innings, but nobody could seal the deal until Young came up again in the bottom of the 15th with the bases loaded and sac flied in Justin Morneau.

Four hours and fifty minutes later, Michael Young gets the game winner for the second time in the last three All-Star Games. Gotta love that.

I have to admit to being somewhat disappointed in the pre-game stuff. Oh, there was nothing wrong with it, and I really did like seeing all the Hall of Famers, but there were quite a few of them that probably should have been there like Johnny Bench & Nolan Ryan. I did like how they staged it so Yogi Berra was the last announced Hall of Famer. Some other things I wished would have happened is have Joe Torre be on the NL coaching staff for some reason. Likewise having Don Zimmer on the AL staff.

No commentary; no time.

I was involved in a church event last night, and will be most of today too, so I have no time to write about last night's game. Nice try in the bottom of the ninth though. Love the resiliency (sp?).

After his last start, Luis Mendoza looked pretty bad. This was a complete turnaround. Mendoza looked like the guy he did at the end of last season. Great sinker, really good command. His last game was just bad, this one was just good. His overall line was 6 innings pitched, three hits, one walk, just one earned run, and EIGHT strikeouts. He was quite good. Kept Chicago off the board for the most part. It was quite a night and day vs his last start.

Our entire staff was pretty good. The White Sox only had five hits in all. Three of them were extra base hits, which accounted for the runs. Carlos Quentin had a double off of Mendoza for one of the RBI's. The other one was a solo home run by Jim Thome off of Josh Rupe. No shame there, Thome is a big time home run hitter. I'll take the performance of our staff. Combined, we went nine innings, just five hits and two earned runs with eleven strikeouts. Warner Madrigal was the only one who didn't have a great outing. He only went two thirds of an inning, walking three. However, he was bailed out by a play at the plate.

For the second straight game, Brandon Boggs threw out a runner at home. Plays at home plate are in vogue this past week with the Rangers, and you almost kind of hope it happens now, don't you? :)

Offensively, we were all over Gavin Floyd, the White Sox starter. He only went 2.2 innings, giving up five hits and SEVEN walks. Two home runs, for a grand total of six earned runs. We had two home runs this game. One, a solo shot by Chris Davis in the second inning, and a two run shot by David Murphy in the third. We didn't have a ton of hits (just nine in all), but we were seriously helped by the walk. With the Sox pitching giving up eight of them, including one with the bases loaded, that helps a lot.

Josh Hamilton had three hits, and Michael Young had two. Ian Kinsler also had a hit, extending his hitting streak to 22 I think it is. Strange hit, though he hit the ball deep into the hole at short, and at the time we had a runner on second. The shortstop was really going away from first, so he threw to third. Our runner was safe, and they called that a hit. It probably would have been had the shortstop threw to first, hence the call. But it was an odd hit.

Speaking of odd, I have to go back to the Chris Davis home run. Usually when a home run ball is hit out onto Greene's Hill, there's a pile of (mostly) kids going after it. Well, this one only really had one guy running after it. He was out there way early, and there wasn't a trail of people after him. There was one guy sort of in the area, but that was it. The guy caught it in his glove. Josh & Tom talked about it. What was amusing is that this guy was a web gem on Baseball Tonight too. I wonder if this guy knows that? :)

Shit.

I know I just did this a couple of games ago, but.. Yeah, there was some timely hitting. Yeah, we had a strange pitching setup tonight. But darned if this is the only thing you can think about.

What's with Jamey Wright in the group picture? Looks like he wants to kill someone. :)

Anaheim starter Joe Saunders did something you never really want to do as a starting pitcher. Go the complete game and get a loss. Saunders had a great game. Eight innings, six hits, three runs, no walks, and five strikeouts. A really good line. The problem is the Rangers' line was way better.

The problem was that Rangers pitching was better. Matt Harrison made his major league debut this night, and was fabulous. Matt went seven innings, giving up just five hits, one walk, and just the lone two runs. Matt had a rough start, with an error made behind him on the first play, but got a double play right after it, and from that point on he seemed to pitch better - even if he looked somewhat scared on the TV. :) Eddie Guardado & CJ Wilson followed. While CJ walked two in his inning (!), neither allowed a run, and kept the win for Matt Harrison.

In all, Angels hitting had just six hits. Two of them were by Howie Kendrick, and the other two were by Guerrero. No shame in giving up hits to Guerrero. Or Kendrick either, but you kind of expect it with Vlad in this ballpark. The only extra base hit was a double by Kendrick, everything else was a single.

The Rangers also only had six hits total. Two were by Michael Young, and the others were scattered amongst the lineup. Thing is, even though we only had six hits, it felt like more of an offensive game than the Angels did. That's because Michael Young had a triple, Chris Davis had another home run (his fourth in his fourth start in Arlington), and Ian Kinsler had a double. Half of our hits were extra base jobs. Josh Hamilton extended his major league lead in RBI's with two RBI's. One was a sac fly to left, and the other was a single up the second base hole. That gives Josh 87 in all.

You know, I've written about Josh Hamilton a few times before, but a few more things have happened with him I wanted to point out, and now's a good a time as any. First, when he was interviewed on the TBS All Star Game selection show, he didn't shy away from his faith. Far from it. When asked a pile of questions to open, the first thing out of his mouth was (paraphrasing), "First off, Glory be to God for everything I have and where I am." He mentioned God numerous times through the interview, and that's something to rejoice over. He was quite joyful in his love of Jesus, and it showed in his interview. It's for these reasons that I will believe Josh Hamilton when he professes his faith. It's obvious he wears it for the right purpose. Unlike guys like Deion Sanders and Michael Irvin who profess to believe, but wear their faith like a piece of gold jewelery, and that's all the wrong reasons.

Anyway, the other thing about Hamilton that I liked was that I read that he told his High School coach (or someone like that from his past) that if he ever made it to the Home Run Derby, that he'd take him as his pitcher. Well, that happened - said guy is going to be Josh's pitcher in the home run derby. It's moments like THAT that make me think that not all athletes are egotistical jackasses who care about their contract, and that's it. So God bless Josh Hamilton. I can't think of a better baseball player for my little girl to root for.

To get back to the game, Matt Harrison's performance was awesome. Makes you wonder how long he'll stick around, and if he can seize the spot on the rotation while he's here.

I know there was more to talk about, but this game will be remembered for the picture above. I was there. It was seriously impressive live. I stood there in row 14 of Section 325 for about two minutes with both arms up in the air.

Make sure and click on the "MLB.com recap" link above. It has a video clip of the play. Or you can check out this video below..

What do you say about games like this? Offense all over the place. No pitcher was particuarly well represented by his box score.

Texas			IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Millwood (W, 6-4)	5.0	9	5	3	0	2	1	4.93
Wright (H, 11)		2.0	1	0	0	1	2	0	4.44
Rupe 			0.1	2	3	3	1	0	1	4.31
Guardado (H, 17)	0.2	1	0	0	0	0	0	2.90
Wilson (S, 21)		1.0	2	2	2	0	2	2	4.70

Baltimore		IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Liz (L, 3-1)		3.2	7	6	4	5	4	1	5.94
Loewen 			1.0	0	0	0	2	1	0	8.02
Cabrera, F 		1.1	2	0	0	0	2	0	0.00
Bradford 		1.0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2.78
Johnson 		0.2	3	4	4	1	0	0	1.88
Sherrill 		1.1	2	1	1	2	3	0	3.72

In fact, that's about all I'm going to do for this one. Was a pretty poorly pitched game (21 runs and 29 hits total), that's what this one boils down to.

German Duran, a guy who has been here for awhile, but seemingly gets overlooked when you think of the current roster makeup lead the team yesterday to a 5-3 win. Duran, batting ninth went 3-3 with two doubles and two runs scored. He wasn't the only one with multiple hits. Michael Young went 3-5, and Ian Kinsler who continues his assult on just about everything went 2-3 with a walk, as well as two runs scored and two RBI's. I guess if you look just at the numbers, Kinsler "led the offense", but Duran's 3-3 struck me as more impressive for some reason. Can't tell you why, that's a "gut feeling", but perhaps it's from a guy who may be considered "the 25th man".

Kinsler did jack another home run, and is turning out to be the player he was lauded to be when he was coming up. He was not slated to start the All-Star game, but he really should be. Stupid Boston media bias. Pedroia is a fine player, but he's not comparing this year to what Kinsler is doing.

Pitching wise, Scott Feldman got a start. He wasn't supposed to start, but got the call at the last minute. Pitched OK. Technically a quality start, but barely. Six innings pitched, three earned runs, four walks though (too many). He was OK enough to get the win. He deserves that, considering how many he pitched well enough to win he got no run support. The pen was great, not allowing any runs.

Baltimore isn't even drawing 20,000 on a Saturday game. Man have their fortunes fallen. They were a 40k+ per night draw for a long time. Shall we blame it on the owner? :)

Well, after the game I went to against the Phillies when Padilla looked fairly pedestrian, I thought "OK, he's been pretty decent, he'll bounce back against Baltimore". WRONG.

Vicente Padilla looked like the 2007 edition of himself, even evoking bad memories of Chan Ho Park & Mark Clark. He gave up a run in the first. OK, no big deal, just one run. He looked wobbly in the first inning, but this version of Padilla has been good with dealing with that. Not this game. In the second inning he gave up three runs, then four more in the third. They were all earned, too. Couldn't pin the numbers on a bad play behind him - Pidente threw up eight earned runs on the scoreboard; not surviving the third inning. It was pretty darned ugly. I think the most telling stat is that he didn't strike out anyone. While he's not going to lead the league in strikeouts, he does get his fair share, and to strike out zero is a pretty much the telling sign. The Rangers pen did put up four innings of zeroes before Josh Rupe gave up two more runs in the 8th. But the damage was done, we were never really in this game.

That despite an actual first inning lead when Bradley doubled in a run. In fact, that double was our only extra base hit. We had eight more hits - all singles. Orioles starter Jeremy Guthrie did allow two walks, but our bats were pretty much shut down. In fact, Milton Bradley pretty much was the offense. He was 2-4 with three RBI's.

This game pretty much boiled down to Vicente Padilla was never in this game, so neither was the rest of the team. When you give up 28 runs total in two consecutive games, you pretty much aren't going to be in either of those games.

Per my policy, I don't write about Rangers losses to the Yankees.

Although I will say it was somewhat gratifying to beat Ponson, even if we didn't beat the Yankees.

The Rangers had been godawful in Yankee Stadium the last few years. Oh, we'd get a win here and there to show we had a small pulse, but we've been effectively target practice for the Yankees. Not this year. After last night's extremely well pitched game, we get another - and our second win in a row in Yankee stadium in as long as I can remember.

Kevin Millwood went for the Rangers, and had a pretty good outing. Went five innings, giving up five hits and a walk for one earned run. Struck out six. Funny thing is after just 84 pitches, he was out after five. I admit I passed out on the sofa for a bit there, so it's possible there was an explanation and I missed it.

Josh Rupe followed and ended up with a blown save, as he gave up the tying run; his only in two innings. Frank Francisco followed with a scoreless frame. CJ Wilson closed it out, and after getting a double play, seemed absolutely fired up - got the final out on three pitches. Two strikes at 95+ on the radar gun, and the third was a ground out that shattered the bat. Was a great ending to this.

Offensively the Rangers had just nine hits. Six of them were by Kinsler, Young, & Bradley who had two each. But the big thing was Ian Kinsler, who ran us into this win. In the ninth inning, Ian got on, then stole second, and then stole third, and scored on a single in the top of the ninth. It was quite impressive to get the win against Rivera.

As a Ranger fan, you feel positively giddy about the lofty perch of three games over .500 - and to do it against Rivera and the Yankees made it a whole lot better. Dare we think sweep on Wednesday?

A lot was made about the fact that Arod tied Jimmie Foxx for 14th on the all time home run list at 534. But what I found far more amazing was the fact that Jason Giambi got a triple in this game! If ever there was a time to use Chris Berman's NFL quote of "Rumblin, Bumblin, Stumblin...", that was it. Speaking of Giambi, when did the Yankees allow facial hair again? I thought that was verboten with them. As long as I'm at it, Giambi's 'stache looked sillier than the promo pictures for Ramon Vazquez & Frank Catalanotto for 2008. :)

The Yankees only got four hits total this game. That's the story of this one. The Yankees' offense was shut down. Of the four hits, it was for the cycle, amusingly enough. There was a single by Benji Molina, a double by Jorge Posada, the triple by Jason Giambi, and a home run by Arod. Arod's home run was pretty titanic, it cleared Monument Park - quite a shot. That was Feldman's only mistake of the night, but to a guy who should be the eventual home run king is nothing to feel too bad about.

The Rangers didn't exactly tear it up offensively, either. They had just seven hits, and Michael Young had three of those. Two of Young's three hits were doubles. In fact, four of our seven hits were doubles. Our first run scored on a Josh Hamilton single to right, which scored Ian Kinsler. That gave Josh his 80th RBI of the season. Our second run, and the winning run was plated by Chris Davis, the second game in a row where he did that. Davis' RBI was on a double to deep right field.

Nice caught stealing by Saltamacchia, throwing from his knees. His defense has looked better since Laird got hurt. If Salty keeps improving, one might think Laird would have a bit of deja-vu. That would be the second time he could conceivably lose his starting job when someone else came in and played great while he was on the DL.

Bit of bad news for Eddie Guardado. He had to leave the game after not throwing a pitch at all. He appeared to get hurt during his warmup tosses in the eighth inning.

It was nice to see Scott Feldman get a win - he should have many more. We continue to not score runs for him, but this time at least we managed to keep the other team off the board.

We finally got to two games over .500. Seems like such a "lofty goal" that we reached, even if it is just two games over .500 - know what I mean?

Anyone else want to see Chris Davis stay at first base for good, and pretty much be done with Catalanotto, and forget about this idea of Blalock being a first baseman? I don't think Hank is back in 2009 anyway.

Chris Davis came to the majors with quite a fanfare. Well, at least from those of us who have a knowledge of the Rangers' minor league system. On Sunday, he delivered what turned out to be the winning run. Davis hit a home run in the second inning, which gave the Rangers a 2-1 lead at that time.

That was the only run of the second inning, and we had just a lone run in the two frames surrounding it, too. The first inning was a leadoff triple by Ian Kinsler who was grounded home by Michael Young. The third inning run was a Michael Young double, who was brought home by a Josh Hamilton single. That was actually it for awhile. The Rangers didn't score again until the bottom of the eighth, when they plated two on an RBI single by Ramon Vazquez, and a fielder's choice by Michael Young.

The Rangers were up against former Ranger pitcher Jamie Moyer, who is still chugging along quite nicely at 45. He's one of the few players left in MLB older than me, so I notice that. :) Moyer's line wasn't that bad - 5.2 IP, 7H, 4BB, 3ER. Well, the walks weren't good, but 3ER in just about six innings isn't horrendous.

Problem for Philly was that Eric Hurley was good. He gave up just one earned run in his 5.2 innings of work. This was enough to get his first major league win. Our pen followed up with 3.1 innings of scoreless relief to give the Rangers a series win, and take them back over .500 again.

This was the pitching duel I wanted to see. Vicente Padilla vs Cole Hamels. Both are pitching pretty good this season. Funny thing is, it's not what we got. Hamels was better than Padilla was, but wasn't outstanding himself.

Cole Hamels went seven innings, giving up six hits and two walks. This for a total of four runs, although he did strike out eight. Hamels was more streaky, as he gave up two runs in the first, then nothing for awhile, and the other two in the fifth. He seemed to dominate better than Padilla did (or did not as the case may be).

Vicente Padilla gave up more. In his six innings, he gave up seven hits and three walks. Seven earned runs. He wasn't helped by the long ball - two of which he gave up. Both home runs were from guys you'd expect that from. Chase Utley & Ryan Howard. But Padilla was not the same guy who we've seen this year. Whether it was facing his former club, or the heat, or he was just "off" tonight, it wasn't the real good Padilla we've been seeing in 2008.

Offensively, Michael Young did something he hasn't done a ton of the last two seasons, hit a home run. He had a two run shot in the first inning, which was his seventh of the season. Kinsler & Young definitely had their sticks going - both went 3-5 this game. The rest of the offense was scattered amongst the lineup - Kinsler/Young were by far the standouts.

We did make some noise late when we tried to catch up - we scored a few in the bottom of the 8th against Chad Durbin, but couldn't tie it up there. In the bottom of the ninth, the Phils brought on their closer Brad Lidge, who has returned to the lights out closer he used to be in his early days in Houston. Even then, we got a couple guys on, which brought up both Josh Hamilton & Milton Bradley. Both had the chance to win the game with a walk off home run - which I think everyone was hoping for. Didn't happen. Lidge struck them both out.

Great defensive moment when Jimmy Rollins was gunned out at home plate trying to get an inside the park home run. Watching the play develop, I thought it was a no doubter, but then the throw came in better than I thought, and Rollins was nabbed on the hand - had he slid in with his hands down, he would have scored, actually.

This was a really good game. I was there, didn't care for the rain, but the game itself was a good one - while the Rangers only led briefly in the bottom of the first, it had that "back and forth" feel to it. Enjoyed this one.

It rained almost the whole game. Started in like the second inning, and had various degrees of intensity through the rest of the game, but it never stopped. Praise be to God that it stopped when the game was over, so we didn't get soaked going to the car, and more importantly that nobody had to deal with the rain in the crush of cars leaving the park.

Also, a random comment. If you're going to take your kids to the game and teach them about baseball, that's great. Don't also teach them things like "Hey, dumbass - that wasn't a strike!" There was a moron sitting behind my brother and I who was doing that. Loved he was teaching his kids the game. Didn't love he was teaching his kids the ugly side of being a fan, too. Do you really want your kids growing up like Craig Bueno? Come on, don't do stupid stuff like that.

Well, my brother flew in from Philadelphia to go to this game (and the other two as well). So we headed out, picked up our tickets from will call, and hit our seats, which were right behind first base. Got to see the tail end of Phillies batting practice, and watched all the pregame stuff. It was a weird feeling for me, both seeing my hometown Phillies at Rangers ballpark, and also having my brother with me at the game.

Anyway, both starting pitchers (Kason Gabbard & Brett Myers) pretty much stunk up the joint. Ian Kinsler got it started early with a solo home run to lead off the bottom of the first. That wasn't so bad, really. The score was 1-0 going into the third inning. Then it seriously bogged down. The Phillies scored five runs in the top of the third - the big shot there was a grand slam by Pedro Feliz. The Rangers had walked Pat Burrell intentionally to load up the bases and get to Ryan Howard. On the surface that would seem like suicide, but Howard's only batting about .210 at the moment. He struck out. But then Feliz hit a slam over the wall in left, giving the Phillies a 5-1 lead. Gabbard actually survived that inning into the fourth, but not much longer than that (only one more out).

The bottom of the third inning was started by Brett Myers, but he never got anyone out, and was pulled after several batters reached. It continued with Clay Condry, Philly's long man, who gave up the first major league home run to Chris Davis, who it it the other way over the left field wall. That was pretty cool to see in person.

In all there were six longballs in the game, three by each team. Milton Bradley had one that hit the right field foul pole. There was the aforementioned ones by Chris Davis and Ian Kinsler. The Phillies had three too, one being the Feliz grand slam. Chris Coste had one in the fourth, and Jason Werth had one off of CJ Wilson to start off the ninth inning - not what you want to see when you closer comes in.

Still, the Rangers managed to hang on and win the game, getting yet again one game over .500. They try tomorrow to get two games over, which has been a major problem all season. It will be a great pitching matchup - Cole Hamels against Vicente Padilla. That's the pitching matchup I was looking forward to the most this weekend. Hope it lives up to the billing.

One other thing was bats tonight. There were three bats that flew into the stands, including the third one which was a broken bat off the hands of Josh Hamilton. That bat hit a woman about 10-15 rows in front of me or so. She ended up leaving the game with a VERY obvious limp - she was hurting. Was funny, as soon as they started flying, or any bat broke in the field, you heard a ton of people around me shouting "MAPLE!" - not sure what the means, but the world maple is starting to be synonymous for "broken bat".

Here is a sideshow of pictures I took at the game tonight (including several of Chris Davis). If you want to see larger versions of the pictures, you can reach the photo gallery here.

Friday's game is the halfway point of the season. We head into that game at (wait for it) .500 again, after having dropped the finale of the series to Houston, 7-2. We fell behind bigtime very early, and were never ever in this game.

Millwood gave up a three run triple in the first inning up onto the giant hill of grass in center field, and then in the second inning surrendered four more runs. Kevin was just a mess. He actually threw five innings total, but his first two were so bad, it gave him a line that was bad even if you factor in the three scoreless innings he did pitch. All told, Kevin gave up twelve hits and three walks for seven earned runs. Raised his ERA over five (5.08) - just bad. The only positive to the pitching was that Josh Rupe, Jack Benoit, & Jamey Wright all had scoreless innings to follow, but it didn't much matter at that time.

Wandy Rodriguez for the Astros threw gem of a game against us, and even if Kevin had given up just a few runs, it wouldn't have much mattered. In his eight innings, Rodriguez only gave up a single run on five hits. The run that he did give up was in his last inning pitched on a single to Ian Kinsler. We were pretty much shut down all game. There was one surprise hit though - a double by Kevin Millwood. This ends NL Interleague for the season, and our pitchers did pretty well as a group with the stick.

Josh Hamilton & Milton Bradley were in the game, but neither factored into what little offense we did have, and Hamilton had to leave the game after the first inning when he was hit in the hand by a pitch. Anyone else having visions of him being elected to play in the All-Star game, but not being able to?

This ends the Silver Boot series for 2008. Every year someone writes about this - if you recall, the Rangers were making a big stink about getting out of the AL West and going to the AL Central to be more in tune with the time zone we're in. That was apparently going to happen, and Tom Hicks let Bud Selig off the hook by accepting a guaranteed series each year against the Astros, keeping us with a lot of 9PM game starting times. This was supposed to become a big rivalry, but it hasn't happened. I do like seeing us play the Astros, that part is nice, but the rivalry is a non issue. The most telling thing of all was the quote by Michael Young about the silver boot that the Rangers won (again on run differential, as the series was 3-3). Young said, "I could care less," shortstop Michael Young said. "They can keep it for all I care." That your "face of the franchise" player said that about the boot tells you all you need to know. As much as I like the Astros games, I think I'd rather be in the AL Central with more realistic starting times for my inter-division games.

Philly comes to down for the first time ever. My brother is flying in from Philadelphia, and we're going to be at all three games. Yeah, I'll be wearing Phillies shirts - it's not often I get to see my home town team live. I'll probably do the thing where I wear a Phillies shirt, and a Rangers cap. Probably won't see too many of those in the park. :)

I'm still pretty tied down with work, and since I wanted to get this done before the next game starts, I'm going to have to resort to something quick.

1) Scott Feldman can't catch a break. On a game he doesn't pitch terribly well, the team goes on to win a low scoring game. They can't score for him when he pitches great. Go figure.

2) CJ Wilson really feels like John Wetteland in that he gives you a heart attack before getting the save.

3) Welcome Max Ramirez! Not only did he get his first major league hit in the game, he then went on to get his first home run, a two run shot that turned out to be the game winner. That was really nice to see!

Tonight is the rubber game for the series, and for the overall Silver Boot. I should have some time to write about that one tomorrow.

Still busy with the project from yesterday, no time to write.

I was sitting down to write recaps for the weekend's games and was handed a project by my boss, so I will have to pass on this game.

Nice to see Pidente get his 10th win - probably could be a candidate to be an All-Star pitcher, but the last time he was, there was a tie in the All Star game. :)

The Rangers got out to a lead early in this one, with a leadoff home run by Ian Kinsler, just two pitches into the game. Unfortunately, despite the score, it was NOT one of those games that you get out early and coast. For two reasons.

One - our bullpen lately won't let you coast.
Two - We let the Nats back in the game fairly quickly.

We did get out to a three run lead in the first inning, then our bats went silent for awhile. It was during this time that Kason Gabbard let the Nats creep back in with a two run fourth, and solo run in the fifth to make the score at that time 4-3.

But a huge seven spot in the seventh inning put the Rangers way out front, and a few single runs in the last two frames assured this was a Nats stomping game.

The Rangers had eighteen hits in all, but mostly just singles. Kinsler's home run, and doubles by Murphy, Young, & Vazquez were it for extra base hits.

Jamey Wright got himself in some hot water in the 14th inning. Bases loaded, one out. Got a strikeout, but hit a grounder just out of the reach of Michael Young. That was it.

Wasted a good outing by Kevin Millwood. Hats off to the Nats pen, which kept us almost completely down from the third inning on. In fact, from the seventh inning onwards, we had just one hit.

We may have lost Gerald Laird for awhile, as his hamstring looked really bad when he collapsed in a heap. That will probably make Salty the #1 catcher for awhile, they'll probably bring up one of our kids to be the backup. Nice that Salty did finally get a guy stealing.

Basically, all this boils down to one word - DAMMIT!

The Rangers won in a thrilling fashion. Most everyone loves walk off wins in the bottom of the ninth. However, this is one I wished we didn't have to get to.

First off, Scott Feldman continues to be the most unlucky pitcher on our staff in 2008. He left the game again with a lead. I don't have a count in front of me of how many games he's had blown for him by the pen, but it's quite a few. His record is 1-3, and has started nine games this year. He'd probably have a winning record by more than a few games if the pen could hold a lead. It's probably why we continue to be a .500 team.

Which brings me to another point. CJ Wilson is having a major rough stretch right now. He's either blown saves, or just given up runs when he's been brought in for non save opportunities. If he doesn't get it together soon, I wonder if Ron Washington will go to someone else, like Guardado or Wright for saves? I have CJ Wilson on several fantasy teams, I wonder if I need to make some moves there.

Speaking of Guardado, how about that fifteen pitch at bat to his first batter? That's a heck of a lot. I remember when I was a kid, a guy by the name of Jay Johnstone for the Phillies had a 21 pitch at bat. But 15 is a heck of a lot of pitches. Good thing Eddie came through with a called third strike there.

Offensively, the big blast was a three run home run by Brandon Boggs in the sixth inning. That was to Atlanta reliever Jeff Ridgeway, who was the first of six relievers Bobby Cox used. In fact, of those relievers, only one pitched more than .2 of an inning! Anyway, Boggs' blast gave us a 4-2 lead at the time, and the game was actually feeling like it was one we were going to win - something we've had trouble with in the daytime this year.

Jarrod Salatamacchia continues to show that Gerald Laird is by far the better catcher on this team for now. Yeah, Jarrod is supposed to have a higher "potential" than Laird, but Laird is doing well now. Makes you wonder if perhaps Salty will get moved in July and bring up someone like Max Ramirez to be Laird's backup.

Anyway, nice to get a win.

You know, I was planning on writing how much I was enjoying this game, how I thought Eric Hurley deserved a better fate, and all that. But all I really WANT to do is post this image:

Yes, I know that's Adam Hydzu & Akinori Otsuka up there, but I didn't have a current picture of the bullpen like this. :)

The Atlanta Braves come to town. This is I believe their third trip to Texas, and yet the Phillies still haven't been here. I know Interleague is not an exact science, but I would like to see some other teams besides the same one over and over again like that. Especially when we have realistically only two inbound NL teams. Yeah, yeah - we get three, but one is ALWAYS the Astros, so we have only two from the "rotating pool" of other NL teams.

Vicente Padilla continues to be good this season. This game was yet another in his great 2008 performances. Six innings, two hits, two walks, and two runs allowed, although just one was earned. One of the runs was a solo home run in the sixth - he looked pretty good, although not as crisp and dominating - at least not late. Early on he was, retiring the first 13 batters. Guess that does qualify as dominating, eh? :) The pen almost blew it late, but they did hang on for Pidente's 9th win of the season.

Offensively, we got started early with an upper tank home run by Josh Hamilton. Was a serious no doubter - Tim Hudson looked like he got whiplash turning around so fast to see where it went. Marlon Byrd also had a home run in the sixth inning that went right into the wedgie. Milton Bradley went 1-2 with two RBI's before having to come out of the game with a "mild" strain injury. They didn't seem concerned, but with Bradley, you have to worry. He's been a great surprise this season, but there's always his health in the back of one's mind.

Bradley was the only Ranger with more than one hit. Of the starters, only David Murphy & Michael Young went ofer - everyone else had a lone hit. Two were doubles (Kinsler, Cat), and the rest were singles. But this was all well placed, as we put a four spot on Tim Hudson in the third inning.

Nice to get the win. Although I have to admit I'm getting tired of saying "..back to .500". I've said that way too many times this year. We need a winning streak.

We were shut down by New York's pitching. Michael Young & Josh Hamilton had RBI singles in the first and third innings, but that's all we managed to push across the plate all game. Even one of those runs was unearned. Of our six overall hits, just one was an extra base hit (double by Cat). That was pretty much it.

Kason Gabbard was "meh", although I didn't think he was THAT awful. 5.2IP, 8H, 3BB, 4ER.

I have to say I don't like watching pitchers bat. If we continue to have splits between AL & NL vs the DH, then we need to reverse it in interleague. Use the DH In NL towns, and make pitchers bat in AL parks.

Boy, the Rangers really tried to give this one away, didn't they?

Kevin Millwood came out, threw a good outing (6IP, 2R). Had too many walks (4 in 6 innings), but still got the job done. Only two runs allowed. Then Frank Francisco came in after an inning of scoreless relief by Jamey Wright. Francisco proceeded to stink up the joint worse than a Chan Ho Park outing. Just one out, gave up two hits, two walks, and allowed three earned runs to score. Well, some of them were "allowed" by Eddie Guardado, but you know what I mean. CJ Wilson got the save, and in true John Wetteland fashion, was all over the place, allowed a few runs to score, left guys on base - was so far from a clean save, it was't funny.

We needed all the offense we got, plus a great defensive throw by Milton Bradley to gun out a Met at home plate turned out to be bigger than I think anyone thought it was at the time.

The Rangers were powered by three home runs (Vazquez, Kinsler, & Bradley). Bradley's appeared to leave the park completely. Vazquez was the leader, going 3-4 with 4 RBI's and two runs scored. Nice game for Ramon.

The game between the Mets & Rangers was rained out. Came in from mowing the lawn tonight, and after a shower, sat down to watch the game. Puddles of rain in the outfield, and thanks to TiVo, I fast forwarded about an hour and a half and found out there was no game to be played.

Father's day tomorrow, and a doubleheader! The only thing that would have made that better was if the doubleheader was in Arlington, and not in Flushing, NY.

The Rangers were a good example of good pitching vs good hitting. For seven innings, the Rangers were shut down by Oliver Perez and the Mets. He allowed just three hits, while striking out eight. The only two blemishes were a solo home run by Josh Hamilton in the first inning, a single by (of all people) Scott Feldman, and another single by Hamilton later in the game. That was IT! The Rangers had nothing going all night, our swings looked bad - Perez was on. Not a lot you can do against that.

Feldman looked OK for awhile, giving up three runs in the first five. But he ran out of gas (or the wheels fell off, or any other euphemism you want to put here) in the sixth, and allowed four more runs. In all, Scott allowed six earned runs, and one unearned run. Josh Rupe and Robinson Tejeda finished up the last three innings, giving up nothing, but the damage was done.

This was Oliver Perez' game. Not much more to say about this one.

We just can't break out the brooms. Thought we had it in hand, but the Royals came back and beat us like we beat them the previous two games, although with not as many runs on the scoreboard. :)

It started off with the major league debut of Eric Hurley for the Rangers. Eric sounded like he was pretty decent. He got burnt by a few home run balls - all four runs Eric gave up were to the longball. For a major league debut, going six, giving up four on six hits and three strikeouts - but more importantly, no walks! All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good start. Assuming he stays in rotation, and isn't sent back out again, his next opponent will likely be the Atlanta Braves back home, a slightly better hitting team than the Royals. Let's see what happened.

Offensively, we were held to just seven hits, but they were efficient, as we pushed across five runs on them. KC didn't help much, giving up just one walk all day. Michael Young took another ofer for the second game in a row, dropping his average below 300 again (to .299). Josh Hamilton was the only Ranger with more than one hit (two doubles), the other five were scattered, although two of them were back to back home runs by German Duran (three run) & Ian Kinsler (solo).

The game was lost by Frank Francisco, who gave up the tying and winning runs in the bottom of the eighth, losing it for Hurley. Oh well. On to Shea Stadium and the Mets.

Through six innings, this game felt a lot like the game that preceded it. Rangers starter wasn't exactly bad, but his line was not great at the end. Vicente Padilla was the 2007 version of himself. Not bad, but not really that good. His final line was six innings, seven hits, three walks, five runs (four earned). Meh. He was victimized most by Mark Grudzajklwslfkkzb (har) who had a double, and a two run home run, and four RBI's in all. The Royals picked away with small amounts of runs (two in the third, one in the fifth, two in the sixth) until we were down 5-1 going into the seventh.

Kyle Davies started for Kansas City, and pitched like Gil Meche did the game before, pretty darned well. Davies allowed just a single run over his six innings pitched. He did walk a lot - five, to go with six hits. But he got outs when they counted. Then we got to the Kansas City bullpen.

Then we got to the seventh where it seemed Kansas City just couldn't get anyone out. To save time, I'll post the play by play from the game. It pretty much tells the story, but I'd be remiss in mentioning the big blast - a grand slam by David Murphy, his first ever career slam. Came off a lefty, too.

Rangers 7th (Rangers 8, Royals 5) -- Pitcher Change: J. Fulchino replaces K. Davies. R. Vazquez triples to center field. I. Kinsler reaches on throwing error by M. Aviles, R. Vazquez scores; I. Kinsler to 2nd. M. Young walks. Pitcher Change: J. Gobble replaces J. Fulchino. J. Hamilton singles to center field, I. Kinsler scores; M. Young to 2nd. M. Bradley walks, M. Young to 3rd; J. Hamilton to 2nd. D. Murphy hits a grand slam to right field on a 2-0 pitch, M. Young scores; J. Hamilton scores; M. Bradley scores. M. Byrd doubles to center field. Pitcher Change: Y. Yabuta replaces J. Gobble. F. Catalanotto out on a sacrifice bunt, Y. Yabuta to M. Teahen, M. Byrd to 3rd. G. Laird out on a sacrifice fly to J. Gathright, M. Byrd scores. R. Vazquez grounds out to M. Teahen. (7 Runs, 4 Hits, 1 Errors, 0 LOB)

There was some SERIOUS booing coming from the stands in Kansas City over this inning. We tacked on some more in the ninth with the second home run by David Murphy in the game (a solo shot). We got two more on some more singles. It was a pretty good offense this night. Yeah, it's Kansas City, but you always like seeing more runs than less.

I also take responsibility for ending Michael Young's hitting streak. I posted that graphic yesterday of Gabe Kapler's 28 game hitting streak from some years ago, and then Young's stopped at 23. :)

This was one of those games where you had a sinking feeling as it progressed. There wasn't any one incident where you go "AHA! - That's the problem!". It was one of those where Kevin Millwood was not terribly sharp. He wasn't a complete pile of suck, but he wasn't the good Millwood we've had this year. The Royals were picking away at Kevin over the game. KC got single runs in the first (Guillen single), fourth (Buck single), and fifth innings (Gordon home run). We countered with a run in the top of the sixth (Hamilton FC), but KC got a two spot in the bottom of the frame (Aviles single, Gathright single), killing any good vibes from the top of the inning.

So we go into the down 5-1, and to be honest, I almost turned off the game. My family went out to a nice dinner at a restaurant downtown with our church group, and by the time we got back, got our girl down to bed, it was late, and I was in a post Mexican food coma in the first place. Good thing I didn't give in to that, because the top of the eighth was a great inning to be a Rangers fan. It started out like no big deal, with two quick outs (Vazquez groundout, Kinsler fly out). But the the fun began. Michael Young walked, and then the huge break of the game, Josh Hamilton reached base on a fielding error by Mark Teahan at first. It should have ended the inning, but it was allowed to continue. That was the floodgate key we needed, because it was immediately followed by first a pitching change (to Brett Tomko), and then:

Double by Milton Bradley, scoring Young and Hamilton
Single by David Murphy, scoring Bradley
Pitching Change (to Yabuta)
Single by Gerald Laird
Single by Chris Shelton, scoring Murphy

That tied up the game at five, and it was quite a moment. You kind of wanted to take the lead then, especially as there was a walk after Shelton's single before the final out was made. The momentum was going, and you wanted to take the lead right then. But we didn't.

We did in the ninth. It was funny, Josh Lewin & Victor Rojas were talking about how the Royals reliever Ramon Ramirez has a habit of uncorking wild pitches. Turns out he was let down by John Buck who had a passed ball, allowing Ian Kinsler to score the winning run, setting off a celebration by Milton Bradley on the base paths that might be one of the most excited things I've seen a player do on the field, outside of winning a championship or in one of those walk-off mob scenes.

I did manage to see all this, and didn't succumb to the Tex-Mex coma I was dangerously close to falling into. :)

I'd be remiss if I didn't say something about the new giant scoreboard in center field. I mean, this thing was bloody massive! Check out this picture I saw over at the Royals site in the section they have about their overall ballpark renovation:

I mean it's friggin HUGE! They didn't even have the crown topper on it - there was a shot of the crown lying in disgust in the dirt out back. But even without that, it's gigantic! I read a bit about it, and I believe it beats the previous record holders for scoreboard size (UT Austin, San Francisco, & Atlanta). All these giant boards are really making the little tiny thing in our ballpark look like a joke. We need a REAL scoreboard, Chuck. I know it's not up to you, but we need something that doesn't make it look like we have a tiny little old black and white 10 inch TV set in comparison. The problem with our park is even if you did have a scoreboard that huge, where would you put it? Can't put it where the current board is. You'd have to do something like Cleveland did, but we'd have to rip out say Sections 301-306 or so in the ballpark. Not that anyone sits up there except for opening day anyway.

Come on Nolan. Push Hicks into it!

Well, this game had a few rather entertaining moments, both of them involving Rays players. One was the pitcher and catcher arguing on the mound after a home run ball by German Duran. Then we saw footage of the two of them continuing to argue in the dugout, eventually going down the walkway, followed by half a dozen players and coaches. We didn't see THAT, but one has to assume there was some sort of altercation. Matt Garza (the pitcher) did not return for the next inning. His numbers weren't all that bad, really (4IP, 6H, 3ER, 2HR), so I have to assume he was taken out due to his actions outside the lines. The second entertaining moment was Eric Hinske being ejected in the sixth inning. The final one was Rangers Captain catching a foul ball. Rather enjoyed that.

This game was also monumental in that it's the game I finally got my three year old to understand that a "Home Run" was not when someone was running. She used to think a home run was when anyone started running. But I convinced her today that Home Run was when someone hit the ball with a bat over the fence, and then they got to run - that was a Home Run. Enjoyed that parental moment a lot. :)

Michael Young and Josh Hamilton were out of the game for rest, mostly. With tomorrow off, it's not a surprise that you rest guys on the last day before a scheduled day off. To pick up the slack, we recalled German Duran from AAA so that we could stop with the oddball scenarios that ended up with Gerald Laird playing third. Duran playing third allowed Vazquez to sub for Michael Young, who was ailing.

The offense didn't suffer a whole lot with two of our top three producers out. David Murphy got it started with a home run in the first inning, pulled right over the wedgie in right field. It stayed that way until the fourth inning, when German Duran jacked a two run home run just to the left of the 400 sign in dead center field, promoting the fracas with Matt Garza. We tacked on another run in the fifth on a couple of walks and a single. A couple more singles came in the seventh (single, steal, single), and the eighth on another home run by Ramon Vazquez.

On the Rangers pitching side, Doug Mathis started for the Rangers. After a wobbly first inning where he still put up a zero, Doug got a lot better. In all, Doug went 5.1 innings, giving up just two runs (both towards the end of his time on the hill), both on a home run to BJ Upton. If it wasn't for THAT, he would have had a donut up there. But donuts are what the pen put up after him. Frank Francisco, Eddie Guardado, & CJ Wilson followed up and combined for 3.2 innings of shutout ball. Probably the reasons for the shutout were that none of the uniform numbers were 45 or 53.

Anyway, it was nice to get a win to end the series and the homestand. It's weird, as the Rays are a team we can't seem to beat. Been a series winning for every series since late April except for the two against Tampa Bay.

We head on the road against Kansas City, who isn't that great overall, but has Jose Guillen going about as a hot as Milton Bradley right now. Then it's interleague action for the rest of the month, as we have series against the Mets, Braves, Nationals, Astros, & Phillies before we see the AL again on the final day of the month, in Yankee Stadium.

I was at this game, and despite the heat out there, I was quite comfortable. I was sitting in Section 326, and there was quite an nice breeze going. After third inning, I actually moved UP, and ended up sitting in the absolute last row - there was almost nobody up there, and it was quite nice - very breezy up there. Enjoyed that. One other comment about the ballpark. I don't like that the Rangers have cut the number of ushers in the sections over the last 5-6 years. When my wife and I first got our season tickets in 1997, there was an usher for every section. You never had to worry about coverage. Not anymore - they've been cutting them (to cut operational costs), and there seems to be one for every three sections now. Chuck Morgan's announcement of "The ushers are now passing through the aisles distributing All-Star ballots" was a lie. They weren't. As was the other lie that they would collect them in the sixth. I haven't seen that happen in the upper decks in YEARS. Better check into that, Chuck. I even ASKED the one usher for some All Star ballots, since I never picked any up. He said he didn't have any (despite seeing them in his back pocket), and then never came back with any for me. Rather poor ushering, actually. In fact, the policy of going to the front of the section to see what the section is doing between innings has gone away in the upper decks. You're lucky if you see that happen in anything but a handful of sections.

OK, complaining about the ushers aside... It ended up being a good game, even though we lost. Scott Feldman started for Texas, and again was hit with no run support. Scott gave up a two run home run in the second inning, but that's all he let cross the plate in his seven innings of work. His record is 1-2 in eight starts, but he really should be something like 4-5 and 1-2 at this point. He has pitched better than his record shows. Joaquin Benoit followed him, and is acting like the Benoit of old. For the last year or so, you liked seeing him come out, but not now. He's reverted to the "Oh crap, here come two more runs for the other team" Benoit of old. Bleargh. Jamey Wright came in for the ninth, and gave up a run, but it was an odd one. Jamey was not paying attention to Jason Bartlett on base. Bartlett stole second, then stole third, and finally scored on what was called a wild pitch by Wright, but looked like a passed ball to my eyes. One amusing thing in the field was due to Michael Young coming out of the game, we had to stick Gerald Lard out at third for the last few innings of the game. My guess is this is why Saltamacchia did not attempt to throw to third when Bartlett was stealing third.

Offensively, the Rangers didn't do a ton against Andy Sonnanstine. He went only five innings, giving up just two runs. The Rangers managed just nine hits overall, and scattered four runs. However, the bottom of the ninth was the most interesting. Down two, we had Josh Hamilton come up with the bases loaded and got a run in on a fielder's choice. The Milton Bradley came up, and had one of those really weird plays you never want to see. Bradley shot a ball up the middle, which looked off the bat based on fielder positioning would be a single up the middle to tie the game. However, it pinballed off the pitcher, went to Iwamura the second baseman who threw to first to end the game. Darned frustrating way to lose the game there.

But in all, one of those losses you don't mind losing, because it wasn't like 14-3, or your guys do something monumentally dumb. Yeah, we lost, but it was't for a lack of a fight - that's what I end up caring about. Did we fight? Did we seem to try? If so, than yeah, I don't mind losing as much. It's the 14-3 ones where we have seemingly given up that I don't usually want to write about.

Also, when leaving, the new road that the Rangers installed between home plate and third base exits was blocked off. There was a motorcycle stunt exhibition going on out there. What was funny about it is I heard NOTHING about it announced inside the stadium during the game. You'd think with something like that, it would be announced. I didn't stay and watch - I figured that given the way the Rangers have screwed up parking in 2008, the people who stayed and watched that were less people in front of me with their brake lights on.

Despite the final score of this one, it was a pitcher's duel for the majority of the game. In fact, going into the eighth inning, the score was still 3-1. Last week, we were totally shut down by Scott Kazmir, and he comes to Arlington, and does it again.

Scott went eight innings, giving up just six hits and two earned runs. One of the earned runs was a Ian Kinsler solo home run, but other than that, we didn't garner much of a sustained attack. Kazmir was quite solid again - in fact, beyond just "solid". Eight innings, two runs, six strikeouts, no walks. Yeah, he was pretty darned good.

Vicente Padilla came back from the bereavement list to start this game, and he also pitched pretty good. Not as good as Kazmir mind you, but Pidente went six innings, giving up five hits, three earned runs, with no walks and three strikeouts. Vicente's downfall here was the longball. Of the three runs on his ledger, two of them were solo home runs. You always want to minimize damage by having allowed home runs be solo home runs, but a run is still a run, and when going up against a guy like Scott Kazmir, the less the better.

I actually admit to stopping watching the game after the top of the eighth. Once the Rays went up 6-1, I switched over and started playing videogames. I see from the box score that the pen stunk it up. Robinson Tejeda, who probably is on his last legs with the Rangers gave up three earned runs in his 1.2 innings of work. But the real kicker was Kameron Loe. Oddly enough, Kam allowed no earned runs, but there were a total of six runs scored by Tampa Bay during Kam's frame. All six were unearned, but UGH. Six runs allowed. Major suckage there.

We had a minor uprising in the bottom of the ninth, but it just took us from being down from ten runs to just eight. We lost this game hard in the 8th and 9th innings.

I did enjoy the games I played on my Xbox 360 though. :)

Oh yeah, Sidney Ponson. I think most Rangers fans expected the Sidney Ponson experiment to end with a streak of four or five losses in a row with 35 runs given up during that time, and an era around eight. That's not what happened. Sidney was released by the team (technically DFA'ed, not officially released yet) with good numbers on the field. His final stats with the Rangers:

9 Games
4-1 W/L
3.88 ERA
55.2 IP
71 H
36 R
24 ER
3 HR
16 BB
25 K

Pretty darned decent numbers, actually. So the DFA of Ponson came as quite a shock. Officially, the Rangers stated the reason as conduct unbecoming a player, and unprofessionalism (I'm paraphrasing). The link above has some more details.

It's nice to see in this town that imports players like Deion Sanders, Terrell Owens, Pac-Man Jones, Tank Johnson, and Michael Vick (mark my words, he'll be here eventually) that a team would have the balls to cut a player for being disrespectful. I applaud that. Too bad the local NFL team doesn't have the same kind of morals regarding player behaviour in management, otherwise I could probably like them.

This game started off like a lot of games we're used to seeing the last few years. Down 4-0 before we come up to bat the first time. This latest edition of that no fun piece of baseball comes at the hands of Kevin Millwood. Kevin gave up three doubles and two singles in the first frame, and it tallied up to four runs. Ugh.

To Kevin's credit, he turned it around, and ended up throwing six innings in all. Turns out those four runs in the first were the only runs he gave up all game. It was actually the only runs the Rangers gave up at all, since the pen (Guardado, Francisco, Benoit, & Wright) didn't give up any in the three frames of relief they threw. Nice piece of frosting on that remark was the fact that there were zero walks given up by Rangers' pitching in the entire game. Always good to see that. Even in losses.

Offensively, we were going up against C.C. Sabathia. This year, Sabathia isn't himself - he's 3-8 with a 4.81 ERA. He's a better pitcher than that. Still, he's a guy who strikes fear into a lineup, despite his troubles this year. We did get to him a bit. CC threw six innings, and gave up five runs (one was unearned), but walked three. He got hit up a bit and didn't seem overly dominating.

At the plate, the Rangers had twelve hits in all. Highlights were five extra base hits (two doubles, one triple, two home runs), and three hits for both Michael Young and Milton Bradley. Both Young & Bradley had two RBI's each, but they were topped by Ramon Vazquez, who had three RBI's (as well as a triple in the game).

Was a nice comeback win. Would have been better if we didn't give up the four in the first frame, but eh - a win is a win. We're doing the .500 dance again, can't get any streaks going long term (in either direction fortunately).

Blah. Ugh. Mr Yuck graphic. Any number of my one word reviews would go well here.

Rangers won, but I don't have to write about it. Read the mlb.com recap link above.

Blah.

Dammit.

Go read the official reports in the mlb.com game recap link. I don't want to write about this one.

I found out on June 5th that I skipped this game, and it messed up my count of games. No time to write later on about it, but it was an nice feeling getting back over .500 again.

This game can be boiled down to just a few things. Kevin Millwood & Brandon Boggs.

Kevin Millwood came off the DL on Friday, and threw a gem, the kind of performance you don't expect from a pitcher making his first start off the DL. I think his exit was probably due to the DL, as he left after six innings, having given up just five hits and a single run. He threw 86 pitches, so it must have been a "pitch count" thing. Eddie Guardado was quite good following up Millwood. Eddie struck out two of the three batters he faced in a 1-2-3 inning. Jack Benoit had a scoreless frame, as did CJ Wilson, who got the save. But most importantly to our pitching performance - NO WALKS! Yeah, no walks will always help out. But it was a really great performance by our staff We allowed just seven hits overall, and a single run. Really good stuff there.

Offensively, we had nine hits, and five of them were doubles. Two of THOSE doubles were by Brandon Boggs, who had all three RBI's in this game. Two of the runs scored were by Josh Hamilton, who is usually involved with runs by his bat, not by his feet. :) Still, a win is a win, and it was a good, crisp (2:37) game, with fantastic pitching, and timely hitting providing us with the win.

The game ended cool, on a 4-3 double play where Ian Kinsler had to make a play after crashing into a runner who was trying to avoid being doubled off. Let's see if we can get over .500 on Saturday - something we've had issues breaking through on.

No time to write about this game.

This is a marker page so the schedule page will have the proper score update.

No time to write about this game.

This is a marker page so the schedule page will have the proper score update.

No time to write about this game.

This is a marker page so the schedule page will have the proper score update.

Josh Lewin takes a lot of grief from some of the so called "hardcore" (read: no fun) fans that follow the Rangers. But I think even they have to recognize that one of Josh's strengths is his wealth of fiddly and useless media knowledge. He also has a quick wit, which allows him to make really good off the cuff funny remarks. Such was the case yesterday when right after Ben Francisco gifted the game to the Rangers, Josh called the play "A Ben Francisco Treat". My mind immediately leaped to the old "Rice-A-Roni" ad jingle, which is probably what Tom Grieve did too, as he was laughing at the time.

This game started off on paper to be a slaughter. Doug Mathis (who was not good first time out) was making his second major league start. He was going up against CC Sabathia (who is generally good to dominating). I was expecting a slaughter. But Mathis stuck with Sabathia. Mathis gave up a first inning run, and that was IT! Doug was quite good, going six innings in all, giving up seven hits and three walks, but only the lone run. Doug Mathis looked quite good this game. Shame he didn't get the win, he certainly pitched well enough to deserve it.

Our pen was strong too, not allowing any further runs for Cleveland. Frank Francisco bounced back from some "meh" outings with a good one here, Jamey Wright threw two scoreless, and CJ Wilson got the save in the 10th, his 10th of the season.

Our offense was fairly limited, but we got just enough for the win. Our first run came on an Ian Kinsler smash down the left field line for a solo home run in the sixth. We had a few small rallies not go anywhere, until the 10th inning. That's when Ben Francisco, playing right field for Cleveland paid us back for his good offense Saturday. Ben let a single by Ramon Vazquez get through his legs and go all the way to the wall. That allowed Jarrod Saltamacchia to score on the play for the second and winning run of the game. I didn't think Francisco really misplayed that ball all that bad. Most of the time balls that get by a guy to the wall are really misplayed, and you can tell. This one he did all the right stuff, and it STILL went through his legs.

Still, I'll take the Rice-A-Roni treat for the win.

On to Tampa Bay (still at .500), where I'm sure we'll hear a LOT about Josh Hamilton's time with the Rays.

Saturday's game was the much ballyhooed meeting between the top batting average guys in the AL (Hamilton & Bradley) against the top ERA pitcher in the AL (Lee). Cliff Lee didn't pitch like the guy who had a sub 2 era. He walked four, gave up seven hits in his 6.2 innings of work, but just two earned runs. That's more like Lee, but he walked a lot, which was very uncharacteristic. The Rangers couldn't capitalize, though. We had no power in this game, of our eight hits overall, just one was not a single; it was a Byrd double.

We did score two runs as I mentioned. Those were RBI's by Ian Kinsler & David Murphy. Of the walks, three of them were to Chris Shelton, who wins the Heinz Ketchup "patience" award for this game.

Nice defensive moment when Marlon Byrd threw out Michael Aubry at the plate.

However, this game was decided on a three run home run by Ben Francisco in the third inning. Scott Feldman started this game for Texas, and was pretty good. He was getting good pitches, but had a couple of mistakes - and they cost big. One was this home run to Francisco, the other was another home run to Jhonny Peralta in the sixth. If it wasn't for the home runs, Feldman could have beat Cliff Lee and the Indians; not to be.

Oh well, was one of the games that falls under "Yeah, I would have liked to have won, but we pitched well, got beat by a really good pitcher, can't complain too hard about that one".

This was a night when there was precious little good pitching to go around. The fact that we won was no small feat, given how frequently we tried to give the game back to Cleveland.

We got out to a 4-0 lead after the top of the first, then immediately gave back two runs. Cleveland made it 4-3 after two, and then we exploded, going up 11-3. Safe? Not really. We gave three of those runs back in the bottom of the third. While we were never behind, I never felt this game was out of reach for Cleveland.

Kason Gabbard (2.2IP, 4H, 6BB!!, 6ER) was bad. Frank Francisco wasn't that great, either (1IP, OH, 2BB, 2ER) - both the walks Frankie gave up scored. Granted, Eddie Guardado let them score, but still, Frankie shouldn't have walked the guys in the first place. Jamey Wright was the only guy without a real blemish, going two scoreless innings to finish the game. Gabbard just stunk.

Coming into this game, I thought we'd have a hard time scoring runs. Fausto Carmona can be quite good, and his ERA coming in shows that. Turns out he had to leave in the third right after a bang bang play at first, where it appeared on the surface he hurt himself covering first. However, if he was hurt from the start, it might have explained his performance (2IP, 5H, 3BB, 6ER). Still, we'll take it. And we needed it.

Jorge Julio followed Carmona, and was worse than either starting pitcher. 1.2IP, 6H, 3BB, and 5ER - including a grand slam to Jarrod Saltamacchia, which was the highlight of the seven run third.

What was cool about that home run was that my daughter had been watching most of the game with me up to this point. Without prompting, a few minutes before this, she asked to see a home run. I told her that it wasn't up to me, the players had to do that. But as soon as anyone started running, she thought it was a "home RUN" due to the word run, obviously. But when Salty's slam came up, I got to show her a real home run, so this home run will be the first "baseball moment home run" between Daddy and his daughter. I'm starting to EXPLAIN BASEBALL TO MY KID. This was the first time I got to do this when she was old enough to actually "get it". Was a major daddy moment for me.

David Murphy had yet another double - his 19th (which leads the majors). Speaking of doubles, the Rangers set a franchise record for most doubles in a game. They had nine, which broke the old record by one. The breakdown was Murphy (1), Hamilton (1), Bradley (2), Vazquez (3), Kinsler (1), & Saltamacchia (1). The only other extra base hit besides these pile of doubles was Salty's grand slam. Every other hit (seven others) were singles. Every Ranger starter had at least one. The only Ranger player not to get a hit was Marlon Byrd, but he never got a plate appearance, so that didn't count.

The reason Byrd was in was because Milton Bradley got ejected again, for the second time in three games. He'll probably hear about that from Selig's office. Not that he probably cares. :)

We're back to .500 ball with this win at 25-25. Josh Hamilton went 2-6, which lowered his average to .335, and dropped him out of the AL lead in batting average (to Joe Mauer, who is now at .338). If Josh had held the lead, it would have set up something for Saturday night's game which would have been great to see. That being the leader in batting average vs. the league leader in ERA (Cliff Lee; 1,37). Still, the Rangers have two of the top three in batting average (Bradley's third). That will be a battle against Lee.

I will have something to say about Tom Grieve shortly. I feel it deserves its own post, not to be buried as a "oh yeah" remark at the bottom of the game story, like a lot of other people have done.

Thursday afternoon's game is the third game in a row I didn't see or hear the majority of. I was at a movie theatre when this game was going on, actually. The boss at my office took all of us (about 25-30 guys) out to see the new Indiana Jones movie - on the company's dime. So yeah, that took precedence. BTW, the new Indy flick was pretty decent. It wasn't totally spectacular.

As the game was a day game, I couldn't come back and watch on TiVo. I got back from the movie in the bottom of the ninth, when it was already tied 7-7. Since I was at work, I was in and out of my office like I usually was, and one time when I was walking out of my office, I heard Victor Rojas get all excited, so I peeked my head back in, and heard the home run call on Hamilton in the 10th to win the game. That was cool to hear, and was the only actual "moment" of this game I got to hear for myself.

Vicente Padilla was less like the lights out guy he's been recently, but wasn't all that bad, really. Five innings, three runs, seven hits. The pen was shaky this game, which is why Minnesota got back into the thing.

David Murphy got his 18th double of the season, Hamilton's home run was his 12th. Josh had two RBI's this game, giving him 53 for the season. Josh has six more RBI's in 2008 than he had all of 2007. That's 101 less at bats and 21 less hits, too. Some serious numbers for the first two months so far!

Go see the new Indy movie. The fact that Harrison Ford was like 64 when he filmed it didn't really detract for me. I enjoyed it.

This is another game I didn't see the majority of, but I was busy doing some family stuff this evening. I stupidly managed to see the score in the 8th inning, so I just popped into the game at that point. Made me wish I had been watching the whole thing.

Sidney Ponson was pitching like the version we got his first few outings this season. Not the one we've had the last few. One has to imagine he was pumped up for this game, going back to the club that cut him in 2007. His line was awesome - Nine innings complete game, six hits, one walk, one earned run. This is what we need from more than just one guy if we're going to stick with this the rest of the season, and not just have a short middle season "nice run". As much as I like these efforts by Ponson, one has to think given his overall stats the last two years or so that it can't last long term. Be nice if it could, but unless he did this like two years in a row with no major foulups, one had to think you'd always wonder if the Ponson we "expect" will show up.

Offensively, we had our own seven spot to match the one the Twins had last night. Funny thing is that up until that point (the sixth), there was no scoring. It was 0-0 going into the sixth. Then the Rangers just up and exploded. The inning was started (home run) and ended (strikeout) by Michael Young. In between, a lot of stuff happened. :)

Single (Hamilton)
Reach on Error (Byrd)
Fielder's Choice Out (Murphy)
Single (Laird)
Fielder's Choice Out (Boggs)
Single (Shelton)
Single (Vazquez)
Home Run (Kinsler)

It seemed far more impressive watching it, than just reading this list of events. I didn't see it live, but good ol' pal TiVo helped me out here. Kinsler's home run was a serious no doubter. You know that uppercut home run swing he has? This was seriously on display here.

Josh Hamilton went 3-5 for this game, scoring twice, but with no RBI's (shock!). I saw a stat on screen that Hamilton was either in the lead or tied for first in all the triple crown categories. I knew he's been doing well, but I didn't realize it was quite THAT well. One hopes he can stay healthy and stay on the field. That would be a most impressive feat. But that's pie in the sky now as we head towards the end of May. :)

Overall, the team did well offensively, piling on 17 hits. The only person who took an ofer was Milton Bradley, who was ejected in the second, so he only had one at bat. David Murphy had two more doubles - he leads the AL in that stat. If he keeps this up, he could be in line for rookie of the year. Thank you Boston!

The thing I enjoyed most about this game was Ron Washington getting ejected. I don't know why, but the fact that he had not been ejected as Rangers manager before this point was an interesting point to me. A few weeks ago when a lot of the local media (and some blogging brethren) were calling for Ron's head, I sent in a question to Evan Grant (which he didn't use), asking if Ron was the first Rangers manager (other than like Eddie Stanky, and interim guys) who never got ejected during their tenure. But he's finally been ejected. I was quite happy about that - I don't know why. :)

I didn't actually see this game, and as I sit down to write about it three days later, you know it's going to be a box score only write up. Which usually means short. But since I skipped the last few games before this one, I wanted to say something, at least.

Doug Mathis was making his major league debut as a starter for the Texas Rangers this game. Normally when a pitcher has this kind of line, I'll say something like he stunk up the joint, or left a steaming pile of stink on the pitcher's mound. Can't do that to a rook like that on his first start, so I'll just say he was knocked around. Mathis went 2.1 innings, giving up eight hits and four walks. That resulted in nine runs (three were unearned). Even if you took away the unearned runs, it was a rather inglorious start to one's major league starting pitching career. Well, OK, maybe not really inglorious (that could be harsh), but it was't good, no matter how one might try and spin it.

Esteban German followed, and was pretty decent, going 3.2 innings, and allowing just two hits - no runs. Can't argue with that.

Josh Rupe finished the game from here, allowing three hits and the final two runs. Not having seen or heard the game, it's hard to judge whether this was just bad pitching, or bad luck.

Offensively, the Rangers had eleven hits. All singles. Kinsler, Hamilton, & German Duran had two each. Everyone else had one, except Chris Shelton, who was the only ofer for the night.

But the big bomb was the third inning, when we gave up a seven spot. I'll just paste the game log for that half inning. It was fairly ugly.

Twins 3rd (Twins 9, Rangers 0) -- A. Casilla singles to center field. J. Mauer singles through the hole at shortstop, A. Casilla to 3rd. J. Morneau singles to right-center field, A. Casilla scores; J. Mauer to 2nd. M. Cuddyer doubles to right field, J. Mauer scores; J. Morneau to 3rd. J. Kubel walks. D. Young reaches on force attempt, fielding error by I. Kinsler, J. Morneau scores; M. Cuddyer to 3rd; J. Kubel to 2nd. M. Lamb singles through the hole at shortstop, M. Cuddyer scores; J. Kubel to 3rd; D. Young to 2nd. A. Everett grounds into a force out, M. Young to I. Kinsler, J. Kubel scores; D. Young to 3rd; M. Lamb out at 2nd. C. Gomez walks, A. Everett to 2nd. Pitcher Change: F. German replaces D. Mathis. A. Casilla walks, D. Young scores; A. Everett to 3rd; C. Gomez to 2nd. J. Mauer out on a sacrifice fly to M. Byrd, A. Everett scores. J. Morneau flies out to M. Byrd. (7 Runs, 5 Hits, 1 Errors, 2 LOB)

It's Tuesday morning, and I don't have time to write about this. Been backlogged for awhile, and had some big visiting dignitaries show up today; I will not have time to write about it - work and all that.

It's Tuesday morning, and I don't have time to write about this. Been backlogged for awhile, and had some big visiting dignitaries show up today; I will not have time to write about it - work and all that.

We do seem to have an issue sweeping series, though. Strange.

I was at this game, and was really looking forward to it. Roy Oswalt vs Vicente Padilla. The 2008 version of Padilla, mind you. :) But before I get to any of that, I have to talk about the opening ceremonies. I had heard back on Wednesday what was planned, and I thought it was going to be really cool. But it didn't quite prepare you for actually witnessing it.

To start off, they had a live feed from Baghdad, Iraq. That was pretty cool. After thinking about it, it was 3AM in Baghdad when the Rangers game was starting. Something I bet most people didn't take into consideration. Chuck Morgan said the Rangers/Astros game was being broadcast on the Armed Forces Network. I'm sure the soldiers probably didn't mind being up at 3AM for that, but 3AM is still 3AM - that's early, eh? Anyway, as they normally do during home openers and on July 4th, they had the four sets of military all present the colors. You know, these guys..

Some soldiers from Ft Hood rolled out a flag on Greene's Hill, so it was nice to have the local military presence, on top of what was being shown from Iraq. While the local presence was unfolding, they were playing the good old tear jerker of a song, Lee Greenwood's "I'm Proud to be an American". That song gets me every time, especially with all the visual cues around regarding the military.

After all the flags were presented, then they had Major General Hammond of the 4th Infantry Division based at Ft. Hood, TX give a two or three minute speech. While I won't break it completely down, he mentioned folks supporting the troops, gave a quick update on what was going on in Iraq, but made a bigger point about supporting the families of the troops, as they're wider hit than the troops themselves, if you think about it. After General Hammond had his speech, they brought on a band from Iraq to play the National Anthem. That was pretty cool, too.

But all that stuff was known ahead of time. What wasn't announced is that they brought on a soldier from Iraq, whose kids were here in the park. They said it was their birthdays (whether they were twins, or just born on similar dates was not disclosed). Anyway, with the game being broadcast in Iraq, I'm sure said solder could SEE what was going on, and they had him on the Jumbotron saying happy birthday to his kids. What I thought was a nice touch was the soldier was positioned in front of the camera to make it look like he was looking out from the Jumbotron directly down at the area in front of the Rangers dugout where his kids were. Said kids then were escorted to the mound (by Tom Hicks & Nolan Ryan) where they both threw out first pitches. The recipients of the pitches were Josh Hamilton & Michael Young.

Since I have a three year old of my own now, these kinds of things hit me way more emotionally than they ever did. I really enjoyed seeing the ceremonies with the kids and their dad from Iraq.

Oh yeah, the game. Padilla was good, even if he ran up his pitch count early. We got to Oswalt for a couple of home runs, then he had to come out of the game. Home runs for Marlon Byrd, Milton Bradley, and Lance Berkman (who has about 500 already this season). Rangers won. We got back to .500, and that was good.

However, the pregame things took up a lot of my thoughts that night, and quite frankly, a lot of professionals who get paid for this kind of thing will write about the baseball events of this night. You can read them. I'm taking a pass on this one, as to be honest, I'm getting a bit emotional just recalling the pregame stuff again.

I really liked it - one of my all time favorite pregame ceremonies ever. I spent the entire time during all the pregame ceremonies with my cap over my heart - never took it off. Sang the national anthem out loud, which is something I usually don't do in stadium. Also teared up several times.

As I told Chuck Morgan in an email this morning, "Good stuff, my friend". I really enjoyed that.

UPDATE: I spoke with Chuck this morning about the ceremonies last night, and first off, he said the credit for the idea wasn't his, it was Nolan Ryan's. Apparently Nolan came to Chuck and said that this Iraq video feed thing was something they did in Round Rock, and that he thought it would go over well here, too. So thanks to Nolan for that.

Chuck also told me that some people were complaining on online message boards about the game being delayed due to the ceremony. That just made me mad. First off, they couldn't delay the game, it was advertised as starting at 6:17 or so due to the pregame stuff. If they delayed the game for that, the umpires, starting pitchers, and managers would throw a fit. Chuck also told me some people were complaining about the Lee Greenwood song. Come on guys - have you no heart? Besides, I was told the Army requested that song be played. It all worked, and if all you have to do is sit around and complain on message boards about a very nice military pre-game ceremony, then perhaps should consider giving up your baseball fan title. I cannot believe people ACTUALLY COMPLAINED about the ceremonies. I told Chuck I've been doing this online forum and email communication thing now for 22 years, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's that folks who mouth off online about things like that can be ignored, that their opinions don't really matter, because they just want to complain.

I'm actually embarrassed that Ranger fans had the audacity to complain about this stuff. Thanks guys. Thanks a lot. :(

This game definitely belonged to Josh Hamilton. After almost making a spectacular play in center field (lost the ball to a snow cone hitting the ground), Josh proceeded to go 5-5 with a walk, scoring four times, and had five RBI's. His hits included two home runs and a triple. Quite the performance. He has the major league lead in RBI's. At the current rate he's going, he's looking at something like 35 home runs and about 140, 150, 160 RBI's. It's a seriously impressive set of numbers. We haven't seen anything like that since the glory days of Juan Gonzalez in the late 90's. I hope he can stay on the field.

Lost in the hoopla of all the home runs and Josh Hamilton was another pedestrian outing by Sidney Ponson, now making his second in a row. Granted, Ponson was hurt by some poor fielding, but still did not dominate. His line was five innings, 80 pitches (not that bad at all, actually), nine hits, and seven runs, although only three were earned. I've seen a lot worse lines than that, but watching the game he was just "eh".

But there's no doubt the big deal in this game was the home runs. While the box score says we had six, it honestly felt like more than that. The home runs came from Josh Hamilton (two), Jarrod Saltamacchia, David Murphy, Chris Shelton, & Michael Young.

The Rangers had seventeen hits in all. The only Ranger without a hit was Frank Catalanotto. Everyone else had at least one. Hamilton had five, David Murphy had three, Milton Bradley & Michael Young had two each, and the rest were all single hit performances. Still, it was enough to club the Astros into submission.

It always seems that some game against the Astros each year we score some really huge pile of runs. Normally it comes later in the six games we play. Hopefully, this wasn't the last one.

More importantly, we can get back to .500 with a win on Saturday evening. It should be a great pitching matchup, Vicente Padilla goes against Roy Oswalt. I'll be there.

Make sure and check out the MLB Recap link at the top of this entry. There's video highlights of a lot of this. These new recaps they have in 2008 are worth checking out, now that they're all into recaps and video clips.

The game just ended a minute ago. I'll have some more to write later, but probably not till tomorrow.

My kid was up most of the night sick, so Mommy and Daddy got very little sleep. Will probably pass out tonight. :)

I ended up passing on commentary for this one. It was an extra inning loss, which always end up irritating me.

Kason Gabbard looked good again, and seemed to have no ill effects at being at the bottom of the pile due to Sexson's still gutless move of charging the mound. Unfortunately, Kason didn't get the win due to Josh Rupe letting some inherited runners score. Kason went 5.1 innings, gave up five hits and two walks. Rupe, who allowed runners to score, got the win, and got no earned runs on his ERA. Gotta love those baseball rules, eh? :)

But this game was about our defense. Kinsler, Vazquez, Hamilton all made spectacular plays in the field to rob several Mariner hitters.

We actually didn't have a ton of offense. Just seven hits, and they were all by just four Ranger hitters (Murphy 2, Laird 2, Vazquez 2, Boggs 1). Boggs and Murphy doubled, but that was about it.

Scary moment for Gerald Laird going headfirst into second base, looked like he was done and headed to the DL when he hit the bag.

Eddie Guardado looked spectacular in the ninth, didn't he? I have to admit I didn't think that signing would amount to much. While it's still early, and he can still tank, he's done well so far, something I didn't think would happen.

You know, as I sat here watching this game, I thought of several angles to take reporting on it. With all the seesawing in this one, I didn't know which way I'd go in reporting this story. Now that it's over, I can't get the following image out of my mind, so it's what I'm going with as commentary for this story. Except to say that Hamilton's ball went WAY further than it was reported. Can we institute a recount? Can we overturn a distance call?

Well, first off, I didn't see most of this game. I spent the day with my family, and with it being Mother's day, I saw just part of the early bits of the game before we headed out to do the family thing in the afternoon.

What I saw was the Sidney Ponson that has existed for the last few years make a reappearance. The one we've had up until this point has been really great. The one we got on Mother's Day 2008 was well, "Sidney Ponson". He actually stuck around the game for awhile (5.1 innings), but he gave up seven hits and five walks. That was pretty indicitave of the entire Rangers pitching staff, actually. Ponson was followed by Esteban German (0.2IP, 3H, 2R), Jamey Wright (2IP, 1H, 1R, 1BB), and Eddie Guardado (1IP, 2H, 3R, 2BB). None of our guys did particularly well this day.

Rich Harden came off the DL for Oakland, and proceeded to stink up the joint about as badly as Ponson did - worse if you look at the line. 3.2 innings, eight hits, four walks, and 5 runs. Not good.

Since I didn't see much else of this game, I'll pass on going into a lot more detail. Check out the MLB.com Recap I link to here, there's plenty of detail, plus some video.

On Saturday evening, the Rangers went to extend their winning streak, but in the first inning, we got something that kind of made it not much matter. After just two thirds of an inning, Kevin Millwood came up lame after a pitch, and had to be removed from the game. The injury was later described as "mild strain of the right groin muscle". It turns out it wasn't so "mild", as Kevin ended up on the disabled list over this. This now leaves just Vicente Padilla as still in the rotation from the original opening day starting rotation. Blech.

Josh Rupe followed Kevin, and threw three innings. He wasn't sharp, gave up five hits and two walks. Fortunately, he just gave up one earned run in all that, with one unearned. Josh ended up with the win, but the next reliever had quite the dominant outing. Frank Francisco threw 2.1 innings, gave up just one hit. More importantly he faced eight batters. Struck out five of them. Guardado & Benoit followed up, keeping zeroes on the scoreboard. CJ Wilson finished up, although was not very good, giving up two runs in his one inning.

Offensively, we were driven by positions 1 through 4 in the lineup. All but one of our hits came from the first four spots in the lineup. Ian Kinsler, Michael Young, and Milton Bradley each had two hits. Josh Hamilton had three. Milton Bradley had a home run and a double. Josh Hamilton and the non 1-4 hit (which was by Duran) were also doubles.

We did lose our scoreless innings streak in this game too, but the more important part of this is that we won the game, bringing us back to just two games under .500.

I started listening to this game on my headphones. I had to mow the lawn. Since we bought our daughter a sandbox for her third birthday, I can't let the grass in the back yard slide as much as I might have in the past, since she plays out there. Don't want the fire ants to hide behind tall grass, eh? So I'm walking around the back yard listening to all the pre-game, as well as the start. The team made all the claims that last night was "behind us", but you all know that Padilla will be on the mound, so you wonder if he'll plunk someone - he's pretty good at it. :)

Anyway, this game was quite good. Scott Feldman, who seems to be making some good first steps at becoming a starter took the hill for the Rangers. While it's hard to judge how effective a pitcher is by listening to the radio sometimes, one gets the feeling that he was pretty decent. Obviously, his line spells that out, but I didn't see how the pitches were moving, that kind of stuff. Speaking of Feldman's line.. Six innings, two hits, four walks, but (something you probably already know) ZERO runs allowed. Feldman was followed up by Jamey Wright, Joaquin Benoit, & CJ Wilson. All of which threw a single frame of (again, scoreless) relief. This was Feldman's first win of the year, and it continued in the line of great pitching we've received lately. This makes two great outings in a row for Scott. He was great in Oakland last Sunday as well when he got screwed over by a dropped ball - one of the "non error errors".

When I was out mowing the lawn, Brandon Boggs took a dive into the left field wall, and from the sounds of it on the radio, he smacked his knee in a rather unfortunate place in the left field wall. As you can see in the picture above, there is a very small place where you could do this, so Brandon was unlucky in that he hit the really small spot. It knocked him down; he was on the ground for awhile, but stayed in the game. I did see the latter parts of the game on TV; they showed Brandon's parents and sister (who seemed bored quite frankly, unlike his mom). I bet Mom was a bit freaked out during that.

Anyway, the following inning, Brandon erased any doubt over whether he was really hurt or not by jacking a home run into the left field seats for a 1-0 lead. This kid really has earned his spot, and I cannot see a reason why we'd send him back down now. With his emergence, did anyone see a regular outfield of Brandon Boggs, Josh Hamilton, & David Murphy at the start of the season? I didn't. These guys are all doing very well. I rather hope they don't try and shoehorn someone in (Cruz) to get at bats "or a look". The guys out there now are doing great, and should stay there until they prove otherwise.

Boggs' home run was all we really needed, but he didn't stop there. Boggs had two other RBI's when he doubled in the sixth inning, scoring Bradley & Hamilton. Boggs had a great line tonight - he went 3-4 with a run scored, and three RBI's. Not bad when your parents are in the stands at all. :) The other run was driven in by league leading Josh Hamilton who went 2-4 this game.

It's three shutouts in a row. It's thirty one innings in a row of shutout ball by the staff. It's quite a pitching feat, even more so that it's from a team that is not known for this kind of stuff. Kevin Millwood goes on Saturday to see if the streak can be continued.

Richie Sexson is still gutless for throwing his helmet. Should have been more than six.

"That is a gutless, six foot seven, two hundred hitting. formerly good player - what a joke."

This game started off with a lot of moves, and a little less than halfway through there were a lot of moves on the field. First off, the roster moves. Two guys were activated from the disabled list. One was tonight's starter Kason Gabbard. The other was third baseman Travis Metcalf, who hadn't yet appeared in a game this year. Metcalf didn't really seem needed to me right now, as German Duran is doing a decent job over there, and we have Ramon Vazquez both to handle third till Blalock returns. However, with Ben Broussard being designated for assignment today, I guess you needed an infielder. Broussard other than the first couple of games of the season really hasn't hit the ball at all. Nice enough guy, but man, he was just not getting it done. Additionally, A.J. Murray was sent back to AAA, but that's no surprise, he was just up for a spot start.

Then the game started. Kason Gabbard started for us, and was looking pretty good. Gave up no runs, and just two hits. But unfortunately, he only went 3.2 innings (more on that later).

The game started off well, with Vazquez singling and both Hamilton and Bradley walking. A sac fly and a single later, the Rangers are up 2-0. Felix Hernandez (I still refuse to use his dumbass nickname) labored. I didn't get a count, but he was around 30 pitches for the inning. Gabbard tossed up a donut on the scoreboard in the first. Gerald Laird was hit by a pitch, and then was driven in by a two run home run by Ian Kinsler. That was about it for the Rangers offense for awhile. In the fourth, Ian Kinsler was hit by a pitch. He wasn't thrilled about it by his look at the plate, but didn't do anything about it.

Then in the bottom of the fourth comes the head scratcher of the evening. Kason Gabbard threw a pitch up high, but over the plate. For some really unknown reason, Richie Sexson charged the mound. The pitch was easily a foot or more away from him - he ducked out of a pitch that if it was a foot lower would have been a strike. And he charged the mound. That was quite odd. Then to make it worse on himself (probably with the Commissioner's league) he tossed his batting helmet at Gabbard before he got to the mound. Charging the mound is a suspension anyway, but throwing an object will probably make the penalty worse.

As he was charging the mound, Josh Lewin said "...with a helmet throw - COME ON!" In the replays of this and the discussion while the melee was going on, Tom Grieve came out with a comment that was right up there with his opinion on Hideki Irabu's ability to pitch himself out of a paper bag. Grieve's quote here that made me laugh out loud was:

"If he doesn't get suspended for a week for that gutless move, I'll be completely shocked. Number one; for charging the mound on a pitch that wasn't even close, and then getting twenty feet away and throwing a helmet at him like a girl. What a joke."

That made me laugh out loud. Another really good Grieve line from this was the one I started this article with. I actually thought of another word to use here, but it definitely isn't a good one to use on a baseball blog like this one. All I'll say about that is "meow". Grieve's comments made me get out the laptop and start writing this commentary before the game was over; something I don't normally do. After the initial remark, there was the usual brawl milling around, and pushing and shoving happened. The only actual person who was ejected was Sexson - probably because there wasn't any real fighting in the brawl outside of Sexson. What was interesting was the clip of Milton Bradley pushing Gerald Laird - about 3 or 4 times on camera, and with some force too. On one of them, I thought Bradley was going to push Laird down, actually.

Gabbard ended up coming out of the game shortly after that; early reports say it was about his leg, and not his back (which he was on the DL for). One never knows if it was directly related to Sexson, but that seems like the obvious response to the situation. Gabbard was followed up by Franklyn German, Jamey Wright, Eddie Guadardo, & Frank Francisco. These guys continued their pen dominance, and allowed squat. In fact, all those guys allowed just two hits.

In the sixth, we tacked on another run after a Gerald Laird double, and a Ramon Vazquez single. Speaking of Vazquez, he started in place of Michael Young tonight, and more than picked up the slack for Young. Vazquez went 4-5 with with an RBI and a run scored. A pretty good night for him. Brandon Boggs was 2-3 with a walk, showing no signs of giving up his spot to go back to AAA.

This was the first time the Rangers had back to back shutouts in four years.

With two shutouts in a row, plus going back into Tuesday night's game, that's a total of 22 innings in a row the Rangers have shut out the Mariners, and going further back, that's just one run in the last 27 innings, and just one in the previous 32 (the M's put up a four spot in the third on Monday's game).

The one thing I don't want to see is Tom Grieve back down from his comments. Stick to your guns, man. You were right. Don't back off them. Don't apologize.

This was an extremely well pitched game - on both sides of the field. The Rangers were going up against Eric Bedard, who for some reason seems to have had his reputation as a "Godlike" pitcher increased just because he was traded away from Baltimore. Now don't get me wrong, he was a great pitcher in Baltimore, but does anyone else feel that the press is making him out to be better than he really is, merely because he wears a different uniform? Anyway, Bedard did pitch well, he went seven innings, gave up just six hits and two runs. Struck out five. A pretty decent outing.

Thing is, Vicente Padilla is pitching by far the best he's ever done in a Rangers uniform - perhaps ever? He was fantastic - he went seven innings as well, but no runs and just two hits with eight strikeouts and two walks. On top of that, he was stupidly efficient with his pitches. Going into the seventh, he had thrown something like 60 pitches total. He had to work a bit in the seventh, but the first six were total cruise control. Even the seventh was something cool. Vicente's two walks were both in the seventh. He started the inning with them. Then proceeded to strike out the side. He looked strong, he could have come back out for the eighth, I'm sure, but I understand the decision.

Also on Padilla, the way he just went after Seattle after the two walks in the seventh was really impressive. I'm going to shamelessley steal this bit from Joey M over at Baseball Time in Arlington, because he already wrote this better than I could. :)

And yet, it was Padilla's seventh inning that really stole the show, if only because of the way he buckled down in the face of adversity. After walking Raul Ibanez and Adrian Beltre on back-to-back 3-2 pitches to lead off the frame (which prompted a predictable visit from pitching coach Mark Connor), Vicente went into overdrive:

92. 95. 94. Strikeout looking.

95. 96. 95. 95. 95. Strikeout looking.

96. 96. 97. 95. 96. 96. Strikeout swinging.

Dynamic. Singular. Electric. I'm not sure any one adjective can properly describe that 14-pitch sequence.

The two runs we got were both scored by Milton Bradley. One was in the fourth when Bradley scored on Brandon Boggs' first career triple. The other was the sixth when Bradley jacked a home run ball into the Mariners' bullpen. We had a chance to get some more in the latter innings, but didn't come through.

The win now puts us in sole possession of third place. I really hope we win Thursday night, as I don't want to leave Seattle tied for last place again. We're now 15-20, and inching back to .500.

I also hope we win against the Red Wings, but I don't see it happening.

After the third inning, I needed to hit the head, so on the way I remarked to my wife (who was reading in the bedroom) "Man, it's about time the Rangers had a game like this, we're winning 10-0 in the third inning". Since our daughter was born, my wife has kind of tuned out on Rangers games. That's fair, since she spends so much time taking care of our girl that when Samantha is asleep, Mommy usually wants to pass out. Last night though she watched the first inning with me, and the Rangers were up 2-0. So when I walked by her last night saying we were winning, she remarked that she needed to watch them more. She also remarked in the inning she did watch, "Wow, I don't know any of these guys". I did inform her about what I wrote about her in the Rusty Greer entry from yesterday, which is what made her say she didn't know anyone.

The game started off nicely, as Miguel Batista (who normally pitches well against us) was really putting up a stink in Seattle. He threw I think 47 pitches in the first inning, walked several, and had virtually no command to speak of. To be honest, he should have given up more than two runs in the first inning. If I remember right, we left the bases loaded, and it just felt like we should have nuked Batista a lot worse, although that was still to come.

Sidney Ponson, who seems to be the 2008 "Lightning in a Bottle" pitcher for Texas so far started off the bottom of the first with a walk and a single, and you thought - "Uh, oh - here we go", but he ended up getting out of the inning with no runs scored. Good. So Batista goes back out there for the second, and gives up just a single run, which wasn't too bad for the Mariners. 3-0 is still manageable, even if your starter is stinking worse than the animal barn during the State Fair. Ponson follows that up with a 1-2-3 in the bottom of the second. Then the Rangers come out for the third.

Batista is still out there - at this point having thrown about 6,453 pitches. Not surprisingly, Milton Bradley leads off with a walk. David Murphy followed it up with a home run to right field. It was a line drive home run from a ball rather high in the strike zone (if not out of). Was nice to see it go out - because off the bat, it didn't have the trajectory that looked like a home run - it looked like a double in the gap. Batista did get Boggs to strike out, but then walked Catalanotto (Batista's SIXTH walk), which prompted John McLaren to finally pull Miguel Batista. In from the pen comes Cha Seung Baek, a guy who has traditionally in the past done extremely well against Texas. Not tonight - Baek was just as bad as Batista (in this inning, anyway). Saltamacchia flies out to Ichiro, but Ramon Vazquez followed up with a single. Michael Young singled, scoring both Catalanotto and Vazquez. Funny thing about Young's single is that it looked like an out - was heading up the middle, but Seattle second baseman Jose Lopez had the ball go just under his glove. Really - it looked like an out, and then - whoops - there it is in center. Lopez probably REALLY wished he had caught it a few minutes later, because it would have ended the inning. Instead Lopez watched with everyone else as a Josh Hamilton hit ball was deposited WAY up in the upper deck in right - it was a SERIOUSLY impressive home run. The kind that you just watch and go "HOLY CRAP - Look at that!" Josh & Tom were both impressed with it. I didn't hear it on the radio, but I suspect Eric & Victor were also impressed. If you click on the MLB Game Recap for this game, there's video highlights there, and you can hear the Mariners call of the home run too - even they were impressed with it. Milton Bradley finished up the inning with a ground out (he was the first and last batter in the frame).

That home run restored Hamilton to the major league leading lead in RBI's with 36. Josh is looking quite good, and boy, I hope he stays on the field. I know Volquez is looking good in Cincinnati now (at this point, 6GS, 4-1, 1.27 ERA), but Hamilton has been equally as good on our side, so it's nice to see this trade working so well.

I watched through the fourth, and at this point did something I didn't normally do - I turned off the game when we were winning. I did that because I wanted to play some Grand Theft Auto IV - if I waited till the end of the game, I'd be too tired to get in some gameplay. Peeked in on the game from time to time, but I was confident in the win - turns out (for once) I was right about it - the Rangers didn't score any more this game. The Mariners did pick up a lone run in the fifth on two consecutive doubles by Balentien and Ichiro.

Ponson got the win, and is now 2-0. Sidney went seven innings, gave up seven hits, one walk, one run. Didn't strike out many (two), but had a pretty decent, if not dominating outing. Can't argue with one run over seven innings, no matter what the rest of the numbers were.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention a catch by David Murphy (which is in the video highlights on the MLB Game Recap link above) later in the game. I missed it live, but I did go back and watch it a few more times. Nice rolling, diving catch. I've said it a few times already, but I really like the acquisition of this kid. I expect the emergence of David Murphy has really kind of negated the acquisition of Frank Catalanotto, who hasn't done a whole heck of a lot since his return. I know Cat is signed through next year (with an option for 10), but it wouldn't surprise me if Murphy keeps going like this if Cat isn't moved or released after this season.

Funny thing is with ten runs, you'd think we'd have a boatload of hits. We didn't. The Rangers only had eight hits all evening. Granted, two were doubles, and two were home runs, and the Mariners pitching staff gave up 10 walks (all the walks came early, too), but still - you'd think we'd have like 17 hits or something. Nope, just eight.

Very efficient evening, very nice to see a night like that. It also keeps the Mariners with us tied for last place. Two more games in Seattle - be nice to take both, and not leave Seattle still tied for last place.

I was busy working on another website tonight, so I flipped on the radio and listened to the first inning. OK, we're down 2-0 early, not great, but not bad.

I then had to go do something else, so I turned off the radio. Came back to my desk, turned it on again, and when the KRLD coverage came back from a commercial, I heard "..and the Rangers are down 7-0". I actually said "Shit!" out loud, and turned off the radio - that was it I was done for that game.

I'm really tired of 7-0 games early where I have to hope we'll come back. There's too many of them, and I'm getting burnt out hoping we'll have a comeback (that almost never seems to happen anyway).

• Rookie pitcher Greg Smith was quite dominating for the A's.
• Josh Hamilton lost a fly ball in the seventh which led to Oakland's three runs.

Those are about it for the two major points to this game. Scott Feldman started the game, and took the big hard luck loss. His first six innings pitched, he allowed NO runs, and only three singles. Then in the seventh came the non error error that led to the three runs Oakland scored. That was a shame, as Feldman deserved better than that. At least call it an error so the runs are unearned.

Offensively, there was only one thing to talk about for the Rangers. That was German Duran's solo home run in the third inning. The Rangers had just four hits total. German's home run, a double by Brandon Boggs, and singles by Michael Young & Gerald Laird. That's it. This was of course due to Greg Smith. Smith went six innings, striking out ten Rangers, walking two, and allowing just three hits. A quite masterful performance. Smith's bullpen mates followed him up by not allowing any more runs, but Houston Street almost blew that. He obviously felt he was being squeezed, and got into a minor shouting match with the home plate umpire. I was a bit bummed he didn't get ejected, as it might have turned the tide.

Duran's home run gave us a 1-0 lead at that time which held up for awhile. However, as the game progressed, you kept getting that feeling (well, I did) that one run was not near enough - you kept waiting for the meltdown. Normally, those meltdowns involve the other team getting five to seven (or more) runs, so the fact it was just three was nice, but still. Never thought we'd win 1-0.

Still, we took the series, and that's always a positive thing.

A.J. Murray was called up to start this game on Saturday. I generally don't like once we start going into the minors for guys to start games, who aren't likely to start more than a game or so. It just "feels" like panic. Oh, I know all the rational, factual reasons for why it's done, but once we start having these kinds of subs (and especially on May 3rd), it just feels like desperation and/or panic.

Still, Arlington John Murray started this game, and actually pitched pretty decently. He went 5.1 innings, giving up six hits and two walks. Gave up three runs, although one was unearned (oh look, another Ranger error). Our bullpen threw another 2+ innings of shutout ball, so that was nice to see, although CJ Wilson did not get the save opportunity - must have been unavailable (missed that point when I was watching).

Offensively, we had about as spread out an offense as you could get. We had nine hits overall, and each Rangers player (there were no subs this game) had exactly one hit. David Murphy's though was the biggest - a three run home run in the first inning - which pretty much set the tone for the whole game. Chris Shelton had another home run, his first as a Ranger - that came in the ninth for an extra insurance run at that time.

Jarrod Saltamacchia and German Duran connected on a strike 'em out - throw 'em out double play, which was nice to see.

Milton Bradley had a caught stealing, and a pickoff in his ledger this game. Makes you wonder if there was a lapse of attention on the bases for him tonight.

I suppose the biggest news of this day was not the Rangers win (which is good), but the fact that Josh Hamilton was named the American League player of the month for April 2008. That hasn't happened to a Ranger in many a season. It was nice to see him get that award in his first month as a Ranger. Based on his spring training numbers, it's nice to see it carry over into the regular season. As a Christian, I rejoice in his story of salvation, but as a baseball fan, I rejoice in his performance. Praise be to God that Josh is in the place he is in, and has the skills he has to get noticed, and be able to deliver God's word from a place you don't normally see it delivered from. Good for Josh.

This game was a game where you took advantage of the situation. The Rangers had just seven hits overall (and three by the same player; Milton Bradley). There was not a lot of concentrated offense here.

In fact, of the seven runs total in the game, just three of them were earned. Vicente Padilla was hit with that more than Joe Blanton was. Padilla only gave up one earned run, and the Rangers only had one error. The A's, on the other hand had FOUR errors in the game, although one of them was that bogus foul ball where nothing actually happened foul.

Milton Bradley and Gerald Laird doubled, but everything else was a single, so there were no longballs here to account for the "efficient" runs. Joe Blanton only walked one. Heck, Ian Kinsler's RBI was on a groundout to second base. Those kind of runs. :)

Josh Hamilton took an ofer this game, but made a quite spectacular catch in centerfield, to double off Daric Barton, who had gone all the way to third. It was quite the highlight catch, and I think a bit more cool than Gary Matthews catch from two seasons ago.

Our pen was good, too (Wright, Guardado, Benoit, Wilson). No runs allowed by those guys. Nice to see after the recent shaky appearances by Benoit.

VIcente Pidente earned the win, going 5.2 innings, giving up just five hits and four walks (too many walks). He was not as crisp as he has been in his other wins (VIcente threw 108 pitches), but it was enough to get the win.

We're still not that great at 12-18, but the last week or so has been much improved over earlier in the season. Perhaps some of the local talk about Ron Washington's head can go away for now.

Uh, hello? Is that really Sidney Ponson who did that? Did my ears deceive me? Perhaps it was because I was at work, and not listening as intently as I do at home. No way could Sidney Ponson go eight innings, give up just one run and striking out five. Not THAT guy. No way. That had to be some sort of typo.

Turns out it really was Sidney Ponson - the guy who couldn't "pitch his way out of a bleeping paper bag" (Thanks Tom) for awhile now. It was his first win in the majors in a full calendar year. The same guy who last had what could be qualified as a "good season" in 2003 when he split the year between Baltimore and San Francisco. It was quite impressive to hear. Probably better to watch.

There were just eleven hits total by both teams. Nine of those were singles. The other two were solo home runs by the Rangers, accounting for all of our runs. The first was a leadoff home run by Ian Kinsler in the first, and the other was a shot from Ramon Vazquez in the sixth. The Royals pushed across their run in the third. But that was it. Little offense to speak of. We turned two double plays against Kansas City, which always helps.

The biggest surprise to me (sadly) was that we didn't make any errors. There were a few lineup changes. Michael Young DH'ed, and Vazquez played short. Milton Bradley did not play at all, and Brandon Boggs started in left.

The game was very short, by far the shortest of the season, lasting just two hours and ten minutes. Given how much games cost anymore, I prefer longer - I feel like I get more value, but 2:10 is always nice to see from time to time.

This game got off to the start you want to see in a home game. Seven runs and multiple home runs before the second inning. We were up 7-0 after two, and 9-1 after five. But as some baseball players might tell you, a ton of runs (even 22 of them) isn't always enough.

The Rangers got out to a 9-1 lead due to the longball. This was an extremely windy night, and even the changing of the wind with the Gold Club probably wasn't responsible for this one - it was REALLY windy. It was one of those games where hot dog wrappers and All Star ballots were blowing all over the place. Not quite like that footage from Pittsburgh from the 80's where it was a mini tornado, but there was enough of it. Kind of like this picture from the August 6, 2005 game...

That's significant, since several of the home runs balls (David Murphy's to left in particular) were severely assisted by the wind. Now they weren't all windballs, but most were. One that was not was Josh Hamilton's first career grand slam, which came in the second inning. That was Josh's only hit of the night, but it was a good one.

There was a lot of offense, as the score would indicate. Every Rangers starter except Chris Shelton had at least one single. There were five home runs in all (Bradley, Murphy, Hamilton, Boggs, Laird). In addition to Hamilton's first career grand slam, it was Brandon Boggs' first ever major league home run. The other eight hits were singles.

Things were going great until the seventh inning when we couldn't get anyone out. The Rangers threw out three pitchers in the seventh (Millwood, Francisco, Wright). Didn't seem to make much difference. We gave up a five spot that inning, which made things 9-6 at that point. OK, nowhere near as good as 9-1, but we're still winning. We got the lead up to 5 again with a two spot (Murphy's HR) in the bottom of the seventh. Then we got to play nail biter again, as we gave up three more in the 8th and 9th, to make the game's final score what it was.

Don't like endings like that. Like when we get out 9-1, and the margin stays that way.

Still, a win is a win, and we're now 10-18.

My subject says it all, I think. The only thing I can think of to write about Jennings is that according to several post game stories, he got hurt during the game. If that's true, and something really is wrong, it could be a graceful way out. Jennings looked good early on, and had a few fantastic moments, but he's making Mark Clark look good now. Time for something else there.

Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention something that I always love seeing - someone make their major league debut. Tonight it was Brandon Boggs. Pinch hitting for Frank Catalanotto, Boggs worked the count to I think 3-1, and then jacked a low and away pitch into right center for his first major league hit. In fact, Boggs got another hit on his second at bat, so he's 2-2 so far in the majors.

The game left lifeless, and that's because of the crappy feeling you get early on when down 5-0 after the first two innings.

But in more interesting news, the Philadelphia Eagles are suing Terrell Owens over money he did not pay them back. Go Philly! :)

It's been awhile since we've had a game like this. We were out in front early, and kept it - no looking back. We've not had many of those. We're usually down 4 or 5 to nothing in the first inning, and we have to hope. Not this time.

Milton Bradley had a no doubter of a three run home run in the bottom of the first. His home run got me to say something I haven't said much this season - GOODBYE! the second the ball hit the bat. There was no doubt about this one. One funny thing I was surprised that Josh didn't talk about with the home run was some guy near where the ball landed had his popcorn fly up in the air - and it looked like a pretty full bucket. Whether it was an accident or he was throwing it at the ball is unknown, but popcorn was a flyin' when the ball went over the fence. That wasn't the only home run of the game for the Rangers. Josh Hamilton & Jason Botts also launched balls over the stands (but no more popcorn).

But this game wasn't about the offense, even though there was a lot of it. It was about Vicente Padilla looking very much like the pitcher that Arizona and Philadelphia hoped he would be. Looked strong, pretty good pitch count (121 for nine innings), and most importantly, a complete game shutout. We haven't had one of those in several years now, and I could go for seeing more of those. We all could. Question is next time out, which Padilla are we going to get? He needs to string together several of these before I think people will really buy into him. I don't mean complete game shutouts (although that'd be nice), just good strong outings. On the whole, he's been better in 2008, but I don't think Rangers fans are ready to completely buy into him just yet.

Josh Hamilton and Michael Young both had three hits, not a huge surprise there. Gerald Laird was 2-5 and is now batting .269. Respectable, definitely an improvement over last year. If he keeps going up, I suspect he'll get traded in July.

Ian Kinsler had two hits in the #1 hole, and has an OBP of .359. Not bad at all, but you'd like a little better from the leadoff guy.

This was a good game. Something we needed. Next up are the Kansas City Royals starting on Tuesday. They're not as light a touch as they used to be, so we better keep our heads about us.

Our huge one game winning streak is over, having been thrashed by the Twins 12-6 on Saturday night. To be honest, I wasn't filled with confidence when the game started. That's mostly because of who was starting for us. Sidney Ponson. I'm thinking - GREAT. It's April 26th, and we're already using guys to start games for us that are now journeymen trying to resurrect a career, and if they don't make it here, they're done. I have issues with that for two reasons. First, that we're using guys like Ponson, and second that we're considered the last line. Can't make it in Texas? Well, you're done then. That's fairly annoying.

So anyway, Sir Sidney Ponson took the hill for the Rangers. Didn't look too bad early on, actually. His pitches had a lot of movement on them, and actually looked decent. His line is actually pretty good too, so he'll probably stay in rotation for awhile, now with Brandon McInjury going to be out for awhile. Ponson's line was 5.1 innings, seven hits, one walk, and five runs, although only ONE was earned. Finished with an ERA of 1.69 for his work.

Yeah, four unearned runs. That's thanks to more errors by the Rangers. In all we had THREE errors (plus a passed ball by Saltamacchia). One of the errors was by Ponson himself, the others by Ramon Vazquez, and one by Michael Young. The one by Vazquez was one I saw happen, and it was just "Come one dude, you can make THAT". The fielding does seem extremely sloppy this season.

Of course when the team gives up sixteen hits and twelve runs, there's not going to be much in the way of great pitching lines. In fact, only Franklyn German gave up a donut, and he went just 0.2 innings. Blech.

Offensively, we had twelve hits. All were singles except one double by Josh Hamilton, who seems to be going to left field an awful lot. David Murphy was 2-5 with three RBI's, and is turning into quite a steal from Boston last year. Josh Hamilton was 3-4, and Ian Kinsler was 2-5. Not much power, and we did have a decent number of hits, and of course, we left a dozen men on base.

Ron Washington looked fairly blah in what little of the post game interview I saw. Looked pretty flat. Whether it's a product of the team just being bad, or everyone (except me) seemingly calling for his head, I don't know, but the team does seem fairly lifeless now.

Hands up those of you who thought that Justin Morneau's home run was the end of the game. It was for me. Fortunately, I didn't just skip past the bottom of the third inning.

The third inning was an active one. The Twins got two singles (one of which was a bunt single), and a walk. Morneau followed that with a grand slam, putting the Twins up 5-0. Given how our last week has gone, that was a "Oh crap, here's #8" feeling. Fortunately, though the Twins put a stinker of their own up there in the bottom of the frame.

If my box score is right, the Rangers started off with five singles in a row, and then two doubles. Unfortunately, the second one had a boneheaded baserunning play. Jason Botts doubled to right field, which sent Blalock home. Hank was thrown out, though, and on the play, Botts stupidly tried to advance to third - he was so out it was laughable. That killed the momentum we had that inning, as Catalanotto struck out looking right after that. Now, a five spot is nothing to sneeze about, but had we not had the bonehead play, five runs would have been in and men on second and third with nobody out. Could have been a heck of a lot more.

What made that feel worse is that in the sixth inning, Catalanotto was called out at the plate, too. Two outs at home - something you never want to see.

Kevin Millwood's line obviously wasn't good, but he seemed better than his line showed. He did go six, but gave up eight hits and three walks. Struck out six, but did give up five earned runs. Even with that, his ERA is still a VERY respectable 3.32.

Our bullpen threw four innings of shutout ball. Something nice to see after the bad performance on the losing streak. Eddie Guardado came off the DL and was the first of the four relievers (including Wright, Wilson, & Benoit) to toss a scoreless frame.

Offensively, we had a lot of hits (fourteen in all). Every Rangers starter had at least one, and we had four guys with multiples. We were led here by David Murphy who went 3-5. Hank Blalock had two doubles in this game. Jason Botts & Josh Hamilton also had doubles. Hamilton's double was one of those that stopped in between two outfielders, and Josh chugged his way to a double where most guys would have settled for a single - nice hustle on that one (if you saw it, you know what I mean). Murphy would have had two doubles, except the walkoff one was far enough for a double, but was only credited with a single; the game having ended at that point.

Unfortunately, though in the bottom of the 10th inning, Hank Blalock came up gimpy going to second base, and was quite clearly in pain, clutching his hamstring. That looked bad when it happened, but he was going to be evaluated today. The fact that he wasn't put on the DL last night is hopeful, but hamstrings are never a good thing to see happen in a game. I'd be surprised if he doesn't end up on the DL.

Also, there was an enormous amount of press yesterday about this weekend bringing the firing of Ron Washington. Some of my blogging brethren were actively calling for it. Quite frankly, I don't see the need for this. Washington reminds me a lot of Johnny Oates, and Wash I think needs more time than the one year and a month he's been given during the regular season. Are things going great? No. Does someone need to be accountable? Oh sure, my gut just doesn't say it's time yet.

Having said that, if Wash is let go, my guess for interim replacement is probably Art Howe, as he's already here. But I really don't want to see Wash go yet. I don't think it's time, even given the horrendous start we've gotten off to.

That's one Wash for each loss in a row. Seven of them. As with most of the recent games in the 2008 edition of the Texas Rangers, there's little to like. It did, however start off pretty decently, at least for me.

I work across the street from a Chili's. I had gotten an email from them recently saying they had a new Soup & Salad deal for lunch (the express lunch). So I decided to walk across the street for that. I'm siting there eating my bowl of really extremely good Chicken Enchilada soup, and the TV's there were on. Baseball Tonight was just finishing, and it was noon, so I mentioned to my waitress that the Rangers game was starting, and she had the bartender change the channel, so I got to see the first inning of the Rangers game in High Def. I have not seen a Rangers game that way before - at least not like this (meaning not at demo setups in your Best Buys, that kind of thing). It was seriously cool watching it that way. Michael Young's home run was pretty cool, too.

Jason Jennings took the hill, and I got to see Curis Granderson's leadoff home run - which actually got me to say out loud at Chili's "here we go again". I was pretty much done at this point, but I hung around to see the whole first inning in High Def. If I was't on my lunch hour, I might have ordered some beers and watched the whole thing that way. :)

The problem today was the longball. Jennings gave up three of them, and Kaz Fukumori gave up two. Seven of the eight Tigers runs all came off one of the longballs. Speaking of Fukumori, man, what the heck happened to the guy in spring training? He was lights out, and when the lights went on for the season, his lights were knocked out. Thing is, his ERA went DOWN to 20.25 after this outing. Ugh.

We never could get much going this game. After the initial high of being in the lead (gasp), we never could get anything going. The Rangers managed just four hits total (two were by Michael Young), and looked pretty lifeless.

We limp home to play the Twins at home this weekend. Hopefully, maybe, the team will show some life after getting home. We've already tied the record for worst start in team franchise history (even including the Senators days?) according to the local press, so some home cooking might help.

Something's gotta.

The Buccos got off to their usual start. Behind early. Only this time it wasn't perennial "run surrendering guy" Matt Morris, it was Ian Snell.

Snell's actually been a decent pitcher for the Pirates, which on the surface isn't that difficult a thing to do. The Buccos haven't had a winning season since Barry Lamar played there, and that was 16 years ago. Snell is supposed to be one of the long term blocks of the Pirates rotation, and outside of the first inning, he didn't really do that bad. Ian gave up four runs overall, and all of them were in the first inning. After that he settled down and threw five innings of shutout ball.

In the bottom of the fourth, the Pirates strung together a few singles, and got a sac fly, which scored two. OK, that's helpful, but then in the following frame, Jason Bay smacked a two run home run off Cardinals starter Todd Wellmeyer to tie the game up at four apiece. A few more singles sandwiched around a double brought in three more runs in the bottom of the eighth to give the Pirates the lead, and the eventual win. Domaso Marte, who followed Snell, got the win, and Matt Capps picked up his sixth save of the season so far. That's an interesting number as the Pirates only have nine wins total. That's a better percentage than Steve Carlton's 27 wins in 1972 for the Phillies, the year they only won 59 games total!

Nate McClouth, a bright spot for the Pirates took an ofer tonight, but his average is still pretty darned good at .349.

Other offensive highlights for the Pirates were doubles by Xavier Nady and the rookie Brian Bixler. There was the aforementioned home run by Jason Bay, as well as eight other singles. Was a nice comeback win, and in PNC Park, too. Good feeling for the Pirates in this one, for sure.

What the heck is all this?

I covered another game, as I there was no way I could bring myself to cover the fiasco in Detroit tonight. On top of that, I spent most of the night watching weather reports about all the storms in the area, and only superficially paid attention to the Rangers game. Here's all I have to say about the Rangers and this one:

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.

I don't know why, but the path to a win now seems worse than the terrain of the Hartz Mountains of Asia. There was a momentary feeling that we were over our blip of bad play there, but we definitely seem mired in the mud, that's for sure. Our starting pitching is generally doing well, there doesn't seem to be any one glaring thing that if it was fixed, you could say "Hey, we'd be 14-7 instead of 7-14". Just don't seem to be able to get out of our own way.

Milton Bradley has been a nice surprise, as has the starting pitching ERA. Josh Hamilton was tied for the league lead in RBI's after this game, so it's not like we're total shite. I'm reminded of a graphic I've used before here. Seems appropriate again.

As for the specific game, there isn't much fun to say about it. Frank Catalanotto's early home run was a nice feeling, but that was pretty much wiped out by the three home runs Detroit got in the third. I saw that before I started skipping forward on my TiVo. Anyone else expecting Padilla to plunk someone in the back? I certainly was.

I don't think we're quite at the point where I'm ready to panic, but I am now skipping more of the games on my TiVo than I'm actually watching.

P.S. Josh Lewin should probably understand the references at the top of this post.

You know, I thought I was disgusted after Sunday's game, and being disgusted with that to the point where I had a one word review. This one annoyed me more, and I've written quite a few more words. But it still boils down to a one word exclamation.

SHIT!!!

SHIT.

Jason Jennings bounced back, had a decent outing on Saturday against the Red Sox. Gave up just two runs in six innings. Unfortunately, Joaquin Benoit blew it late and gave up a home run to Manny Ramirez, giving the Sox the win.

Dammit.

That picture pretty much says it all, doesn't it? As a habitual nail biter myself, I can understand Gerald Laird's doing so here.

This game was a mess. Of course, the big blast was David Ortiz' grand slam in the third inning. Mendoza's outing really hurt the overall team pitching. TR Sullivan said it very well, with this:

Mendoza gave up seven runs in all, as his ERA went from 1.80 in his first two starts to 9.00. The Rangers' rotation ERA also went up from 3.65 -- third best in the league -- to 4.18.

Ugh - ugh - UGH! To add to the lovely overall performance, we had another error, this time by the guy wearing Rusty Greer's old number; Jason Botts. All three Rangers pitchers (Mendoza, Rupe, Nippert) gave up runs, although one of Nippert's was a result of Botts' error.

Rangers batters had only six hits overall. Only one was a single. Four doubles and a home run. The home run was Hank Blalock's, and the swing reminded me of that home run he had in Chicago a few years back in the All Star game. It looked nice.

In all a pretty craptacular performance by the Rangers out there.

Given this Wednesday was my daughter's birthday, and my mother was in town this week for the event, I didn't spend much time thinking about the Rangers outside the time I watched the games, so I tuned in for this one, and saw Roy Halladay, and got bummed. He dominated us last week, and generally it's hard to beat a pitcher like that. But, as the saying goes, that's why you play the games.

The Rangers started by making a few roster moves, and rested some guys. Michael Young did not play, nor did Hank Blalock. Playing short was swiss army knife (thanks Josh) Ramon Vazquez. Playing third was a kid making his major league debut, German Duran. A few other roster moves had to be made to make room for Duran, as he wasn't on the 40 man roster, either. The 40 man roster was to move Thomas Diamond to the 60 day disabled list, and the 25 man move was to put Marlon Byrd on the 15 day DL. I don't recall much being said about Byrd being hurt, I wonder if this is one of those fake DL moves or not. Anyway, watching Duran at the plate against Halladay was somewhat painful. Felt bad for the kid, as he was up three times, and struck out three times. He also looked like a kid. He was born after I graduated high school (June 1983), which is becoming a far more common occurrence. Still, it probably was a major thrill for the kid, which was cool to see. For some reason, seeing kids make their major league debut continues to be something fun to watch. Haven't gotten THAT jaded about the game yet. ;)

Vicente Pidente took the hill for the Rangers, and followed up the previous game's performance by Kason Gabbard with one of his own. Vicente went seven innings, giving up seven hits, three walks, but most importantly just a single run. Jamey Wright and CJ Wilson followed up with scoreless frames of their own, sealing the win. But Pidente looked pretty darned good, and I'm wondering if all the talk about him being a different player in the spring is true. He's now 2-1 with a 3.12 ERA. Pretty decent numbers for the first couple of weeks of the season. Extrapolated over the whole season, that's 24 wins. That's probably dreaming, but it's a great start, I hope it continues.

David Murphy had three doubles in this game. Too bad some of them couldn't have come in the previous game when we had 6,334 men left on base. Still, three doubles against a Cy Young pitcher is nothing dismiss too lightly. Murphy was the only Rangers batter to get anything other than a single against Halladay.

Josh Hamilton's monster home run power hasn't shown up yet, but he continues to hit the ball hard, no matter what he does (single, pop up, or foul). When that light goes on, I wonder if we'll start hearing talk about the old "Hit it here - win a suit" sign that used to be on top of the scoreboard in right field at our park. You think if all the planets align right, he probably COULD do that. Or, he could hit one into one of the hotel rooms in Toronto, too.

Come on Josh, "Hit it here!"

In a game that took four hours and fifty three minutes, the Rangers finally prevailed, and got back in the win column. But not for a lack of trying to give the game to the Jays. Jack Benoit had a bad outing, giving up three runs (only two earned - uh oh, another error!) in his one third of an inning of work. Oddly enough, Benoit was credited with a hold. His successor on the hill (Wes Littleton) was charged with the blown save, despite not giving up any actual runs of his own. I mean I know WHY this happened, it just seems odd. That's all.

Kason Gabbard started the game, and pitched well. I thought he deserved the win, actually. Six innings, seven hits (OK, a few too many), and two walks. But only two runs, which was the important part. This felt like the first week of the season again. Not the sharpest pitching outing, but certainly effective, and enough where he should have gotten the win.

Toronto burned through their entire pitching staff (save for the other starters), I believe, including finishing up with AJ Burnett which threw the final inning.

When you have a 14 inning game, you get some weird stat lines. One of the weirdest is Milton Bradley, who shows as going just 2 for 3, but with FIVE walks. Michael Young was 2-8, and Josh Hamilton was 4-7. Some weird sounding numbers there. :)

We had seven doubles in all (Catalanotto, Bradley, Botts, Hamilton, & Young), with two of the guys (Catalanotto & Hamilton) getting two each. Jason Botts finally broke through for his first hit of the season; a solo home run in the fourth. Frank Catalanotto also had a home run, he had a good day overall (3-7 with three runs scored, and an RBI).

Unfortunately, our men left on base problem continues unabated. The team left a total of NINETEEN men on base. Granted, it was a 14 inning game which helped that number a bit, but even if take out the average of that for the extra innings, we still left over a dozen men on base. That's not good at all. The individual left on base numbers were downright nauseating. There were FOURTY ONE men left on base by individual batters. The worst one was David Murphy, whose numbers were 11 in that department. Ugh.

This night's entry in the Bad News Bears Rangers fielding clinic was Ben Broussard, who had a throwing error.

I know it's way too early for this kind of serious depression about my baseball team, but after listening today, all I can think of is the picture below. It feels that way for some reason.

Also, anyone listening to the game catch the irritation in Victor Rojas' voice? He was (as was everyone) astounded at the play that left Marlon Byrd at third when he should have scored, putting the runner behind him into a rundown and an out. But when they went to commercial, Rojas sounded positively disgusted. Reminded me of the time that Tom Grieve swore at Hideki Irabu a few years back when his mike was not closed like he thought it was.

Anyway, tell me if you think this picture is how you feel at the moment.

The feel good feeling of the first time through the rotation in the 2008 season is gone, replaced by a sinking feeling when you see how sloppy we're playing in the field, and how inept we are with runners in scoring position. The play from the other day when Byrd led off with a triple, and was stranded there is still particularly annoying.

Last night's game had yet another error for the pile for the 2008 Rangers. Where the heck is all this coming from? We were a much better fielding team than this the last few years. Our general core of players is the same, so why are we fielding like the Bad News Bears? No, I don't want to hear it from Randy Galloway, either. Yeah, platitudes like "it will come around" are heard about now, but I don't want to hear that EITHER. I want them to be fielding like they should be - RIGHT NOW.

I think Jason Jennings thought he was wearing an Astros uniform last night, as he certainly pitched like the 2007 vintage. BAD! 4.2 innings, seven hits, four walks, seven runs (six earned). With performances like that no wonder our attendance last night was 16,541. When the game started, I noticed the TV coverage is not showing a lot of shots of the park anymore. I wonder if that's intentional - because the one shot we saw of the upper deck taken from a camera on Green's Hill showed an almost empty upper deck five minutes before the start of the game. It was quite embarrassing.

Positives were Hank Blalock's home run - that looked really good. Milton Bradley has definitely changed my mind about his signing - he's doing very well getting on base. Our bullpen was pretty good - 4.1 innings of shutout ball.

But Good Lord man, we're playing like crap at the moment. I'm already at the point where I'm skipping large sections of the game via TiVo, because it's painful to sit through all the pitches watching the team.

NOT a good feeling to have on April 15th.

Our inability to hit with men in scoring position really made me mad yesterday.

We could have tied the game in the bottom of the 10th. Marlon Byrd led off the inning with a triple. A friggin TRIPLE no less. He was stranded there, and we lost.

Got too mad at this one to want to write about it.

There's two things that pretty much will guarantee that you're not going to win a game. The first is when a Cy Young caliber pitcher is on the mound against you, pitching like he's Cy Young. Most teams don't have a chance. The other is your own shoddy defense. If you put the two of them together, forget it. You don't have a chance.

Roy Halladay, when he's on, is a pitcher that will keep anyone down. He's an extremely great pitcher, and one shudders to think what he would be like record wise had he been on a team that was better than the Jays have been the last half a dozen years or so. That's the kind of the guy that was wearing the Toronto uniform with the number 32 on the back. Halladay threw a complete game against the Rangers. As has been talked about a lot of places, that's a dying thing, but Halladay has led the league in that stat the last few years, so it shouldn't have come as a surprise. Through eight he was almost totally untouchable, allowing just four hits and a big fat donut in the runs column. In the ninth, the Rangers finally broke through with a Hamilton single, and then a Byrd double for our only run, but even that feels like it didn't happen.

Luis Mendoza was activated from the DL and pitched pretty decently. If you look at his earned line, it was five innings, eight hits, one run, and three walks. OK, eight hits & three walks might not be great, but in the "where it counts" department, he gave up just one unearned run. Unfortunately, he gave up four runs in all, and that's where the defense came in. Making yet another error (do we lead the league in that? Seems that way), Hank Blalock's fielding error paved the way for three unearned runs in the fourth, pretty much handing the game to Toronto what with the way Halladay was pitching. Mendoza took the loss, but helped out the starting staff's ERA, as his ERA is now 1.80.

There's very little to write about offensively by the Rangers. We had just six hits in all. Other than the run in the ninth, the best thing is probably Marlon Byrd, who went 2-4 and getting the lone RBI of the game. Byrd's been horrendous offensively so far this season, and his 2-4 raised his batting average to .130. Hopefully he's broken out of the slump, and can get going. Can never have enough runs.

Anyone else concerned at how BAD Catalanotto has been offensively since returning to the Rangers for this go around? I always liked Cat, but good Lord - two years in a row when his batting average is so far down there that the Mendoza Line looks like something worthy of hall of fame induction by comparison.

Vicente Padilla went six innings, but it wasn't just enough that he went six. He gave up a bunch. But not right away. He was pretty darned good through the first inning, then had a Chan Ho Park moment, and just totally lost it, giving up a four spot in the sixth. It wasn't pretty. He then had another scoreless frame in the fifth, but gave up a fifth run in the sixth inning before exiting the game.

But what bugs me most is the three errors the Rangers had. One by Frank Catalanotto and two by Gerald Laird. This is way too many. If my count is right, we have more errors (12) than games played at this point (10). That's just pathetic. Our guys are better than that. We seem to be playing generally pretty good so far this season, but the errors are disturbing.

Kaz Fukumori continues to NOT be the pitcher he was in spring training. In spring his ERA was zero (or close to it), but his ERA in the regular season after tonight was a sparkling 32.40 (!). In his one third inning of work, he gave up four hits, three runs, plus a walk. Not good at all. He just didn't look good - not even close. Ugh.

Dustin Nippert who had an ERA of about a billion after his first outing came in and did a good job, going 2 2/3 innings, and only giving up two hits with no runs. That helped, as we did make a late charge, but it wasn't enough.

The Rangers had eight hits in all. Five singles and three extra base hits. One was a double (Ian Kinsler), and the other two were home runs. Hank Blalock had a solo shot in the first, but the other was by Josh Hamilton, who I believe everyone was just waiting to see his power. He delivered in the seventh inning with a titanic home run which not only went into the upper deck in home run porch, but.. It went out one of the walkways for the section, and presumably kept rolling for awhile. It was a seriously impressive home run. I've been out there, and I know what it looks like from way out there. In fact, here's a picture from my seat selector showing you what the view is like from there. Keep in mine the actual landing spot of the ball would have been about 15-20 feet above my head in this picture.

On another note, Frank Catalanotto is getting off to another ice cold start, just like last year. He was decent enough towards the end of the season, but we need that output now. His average is a measly .105. That's pretty darned awful. Of course, Marlon Byrd is batting .053. Bleargh. :(

Overall we're not doing good, but I don't like these games that just get away from us. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for Fukumori's horrendous outing.

Oh well, there's always Saturday night and game 2.

The Rangers get over .500 for the first time since 2006 with this win. Hey, every other blogger, newspaper, writer is saying that, so I might as well too.

Kason Gabbard continued the streak of pretty decent starting pitching we've been getting so far this season. Now he wasn't lights out, but he wasn't Chan Ho Park/Mark Clark bad, either. 5.2 innings pitched, 7 hits and two walks. Three runs. Fell just one out short of a technical quality start. Most of that came in the sixth anyway. After five innings, Gabbard was leading 4-1, it was a pretty nice to see him do pretty well. In fact, when he was pulled, I didn't think he needed to; he didn't look that awful.

Jason Wright followed, and blew the lead, giving the Orioles their fourth run, which at that point tied the game and giving Wright a blown save in his ledger. He didn't pitch all that bad, either, but gave up his hits in the wrong place. In 2.1 innings, he only had two hits and one walk.

C.J. Wilson saved the game, which was cool because he saved game one of the doubleheader as well. 18 pitches; two saves in one day is quite a good thing.

Offensively, we got started by a solo home run by Michael Young in the first inning which barely cleared the right field wall. Milton Bradley also did pretty well with two doubles and a couple of RBI's. Adam Melhuse also had two hits. The rest of our hits were all scattered singles.

In all, a nice win. Wasn't terribly crisply pitched, but we had enough timely hitting to pull out the win in the bottom of the eighth inning.

I wish I could have been at the doubleheader.

Yeah, yeah, it's just three games, but Kevin Millwood is pitching like the guy he was in his one year in Cleveland. THAT is the guy we thought we were getting. While Millwood hasn't exactly been awful in his couple of years here so far, he hasn't been the Cleveland Millwood. But in the first three starts of 2008, he has been better than Cleveland Millwood. Check out these numbers:

Mar 31: 6IP, 4H, 2R, 0ER, 3BB, 4K
Apr 05: 8IP, 12H, 2R, 2ER, 1BB, 5K (complete game)
Apr 10: 7IP, 3H, 1R, 1ER, 5BB, 2K

Other than a few too many walks, he's been pretty darned good. His ERA after three games is a measly 1.29. The disappointing thing is that he's only 1-2. He really should be 3-0, in my opinion. You have to be excited if this keeps up. The first game of the DH was particualrly good for Kevin. One run on just three hits. Two of the three hits Baltimore got were by Adam Jones, one of the guys Baltimore got from Seattle for Erik Bedard.

Baltimore's starter Steve Trachsel wasn't any slouch either. He went 6.1 innings, giving up five hits, three runs (two earned).

This was another well pitched game. Of the nine total hits combined with both teams, seven of the hits were singles; the other two were doubles. Not a lot of power, which tells me that the pitching was rather good. This is quite QUITE refreshing to see.

This gets us back to .500 again, as we've played win-loss-win-loss so far this season.

I didn't write much about this game, but in looking at the box scores, it all comes back to "Well pitched game". No point in saying how all the individual guys couldn't hit the starters. On top of that, the game started at 4PM when I was heavy into some work, so I could barely even listen.

To nobody's surprise, Wednesday night's game was rained out. It will be made up as part of a doubleheader tomorrow, starting at 4:05PM. Weather permitting, of course. :)

I normally go to doubleheaders, but given this is happening on April 10th, and it's one day from now, I can't get the time off from work. I love doubleheaders.

The morning started off by reading a newspaper article in the Dallas Morning News about fans and how they feel about the Rangers. I was interviewed for this piece myself on Monday, and I ended up in there. Funny that the author quoted my remark about the Phillies losing 10,000 games as a franchise. :)

When I left Garland at around 9:30AM, it was pouring raining. I mean painfully raining. This was not good. I don't like rainouts ever. I detest them on opening day. The weather forecast had rain on Tuesday & Wednesday, and into Thursday a bit, too. So I got to the ballpark, and ran into the first of the changes - the redone roads. I'm going to write a separate article on the external changes at the ballpark at some point in the next day or so, so I won't get into it here, but it was confusing. I had to park way the heck out - in a place I have NEVER parked at in all the games I have ever gone to at the Ballpark in Arlington. That kind of bummed me out.

Fortunately though once I got past Dallas, the threat of rain seemed to go away, and I never saw any more the rest of the day (which was odd, as my wife said it poured REALLY hard several times back home in Garland).

I got into the park around 10:30 or so, and did my usual walk around the park. I watched some batting practice, and checked out new signage and things of that nature. I'm the only dork who comes to the park and spends as much time checking out signs and advertising as he does the batting practice. :) The usual things were there for opening day festivities. Some of them I really like that they're always there - it just feels right. Then you sometimes get silly things happening. Like this:

One really bizarre thing I noticed. All the gift shop cash register computer systems were down. For the first time in ages, I never went to the big one in center field, but I checked out the small one behind home plate, as wel as the kiosks in the 200 level, and finally the one up top behind Section 325. Their registers were all down. Or the computers weren't working right or something. That was major failure that you couldn't buy merchandise on the Home opener. But even that kind of annoyance didn't bother me. I was back and seeing this in person:

The time rolled around to the start of the pre-game festivities, which are always great. So I made it back to my seat (shown in a semi panoramic shot above). The only pre-game festivities I like better are the July 4th ones. Chuck Morgan always does a bang-up job with both of these, and 2008 was no different.

They carried out a giant flag, Rangers alumni were introduced (including Inky!), the Orioles players were introduced, then finally, the Rangers were introduced. What I found amusing is that of the coaching and staff that were announced on the field, the Japanese interpreter got the loudest applause and ovation. Coaches generally get polite applause (except for Rudy), but the Japanese interpreter seemed to get the loudest applause at that point. Made me chuckle. After the Rangers players were all introduced (I love that bit), the giant flag in center field was unfurled. This was a pretty darned huge flag. They were always big, but in the past they were smaller than this. This one was bloody' gigantic!

Another tradition is the flying in of the bald eagle from center field, around the park, and onto his trainer's hand on the pitching mound. I don't know why I like seeing that, but it's something else like Cotton Eyed Joe in the 7th inning stretch that is always there, and that's comforting. Like we are "back". :) Speaking of that, there's the ubiquitous B1 bomber flyover.

And finally there was the first pitch ceremony. This year the pitch was thrown by Eric Nadel, who is celebrating his 30th year of broadcasting Rangers baseball. He was escorted to the mound (why? Do people get lost going there?) by Nolan Ryan, and the ball was caught by Jim Sundberg.

So finally, we get to the first pitch, and the actuall baseball part of the day happens.

That's where the fun ended, really. Local boy Jason Jennings took the hill for the Rangers, and almost immediately killed all the fun from the game. He walked the bases loaded in the first inning, but managed to escape damage in that frame. Sitting there in the stands watching him, it was obvious he wasn't going to have any sort of control. I've seen games where pitchers come back after that and the light goes on. This wasn't going to be the case today. Jennings went four innings in all, giving up seven hits and four walks, allowing four runs as well. It should have been a lot worse, IMO.

He was followed by Jamey Wright who was pretty good in his time on the hill. Went 1.1 innings, and did give up two runs, but both were unearned due to a fielding error by Ian Kinsler. That error was the subject that caused me to turn off the KRLD post game call in show, because we had another mental zero call in and call Ian Kinsler "the worst fielding shortstop in the history of the Texas Rangers". Oh Good Lord, it's dumbasses like that who make me want to throw my radio out the window. SHUT UP! Anyway, the error led to the two unearned runs, putting the Orioles up 6-0 at that point. Jamey Wright did manage to pick off a runner, after throwing over there about 4 times. If you get picked off after the pitcher throws over there multiple times, then you deserve to be out.

The Rangers almost got a run in the second when Milton Bradley broke for home from third on a wild pitch. Problem the pitch wasn't that wild and Bradley was thrown out trying to score. It ended up looking like this:

Our offense was rather frustrating, to be honest, as we had the bases loaded at least once, had men on base in every inning that I can recall except the first and ninth. We finally managed to get one across in the seventh on an Ian Kinsler single. Singles were the order of the day. Except for Gerald Laird's double, everything we hit was a single. This was also our first game of the season without a home run. I don't know if we would have scored enough to overcome the eight we gave up, but we probably should have had more than one run. Speaking of home runs, I kept hoping that this guy would jack one. He didn't.

Marlon Byrd continues his crapfest that passes for his at bats in 2008, now at something like 0-17 I think to start the season. Big fat donut.

We lost, obviously, and it just felt weak. The Rangers have been playing better than that the last week, this didn't feel like the same team.

The place cleared out pretty well once the Rangers started falling behind, but I think they were all sitting out on the streets. It took me almost an HOUR to get to 360 and actually get onto the highway from the Ballpark. That was nuts.

Speaking of delays.. Did anyone else in the park notice that the much hated delay was back? And it wasn't just back a little, it was back A LOT! This makes listening to the game live in the stadium useless, as there's a 10-12 second delay. When that first started, it got reduced to two seconds, and then removed totally. But it's back again at the start of 2008. I'm HOPING that was an oversight, and it's not the new norm. That would be zero fun for those of us who listen to the game at the park.

I normally don't get on 360 going home, but there was an Ice cream store I wanted to visit. My wife grew up in Pittsburgh, and if you're from that area, you know Brusters. When they opened one in Arlington last year, my wife said that we had to go. However, Brusters is 47.2 miles from my house in Garland, and with gas prices now, that kind of killed an ice cream trip. Since I was mostly there already, I went. Folks, the ice cream is awesome! It's a tad on the expensive side, but holy crap was it worth it. Great ice cream. This is on 6301 South Cooper Road in Arlington.

Finally, I picked up my daughter's Junior Rangers package. My little girl will be three in a week or so, and I've had her as a Jr Ranger now for three years. :) She's been too small for the stuff they give out until now, so today I came home from the Ballpark with "treats" for her. There was a backpack, a picture of Rangers Captain (which she LOVED holding and showing Mommy & Daddy), a baseball cap, and a couple of wristbands. There's also a coupon book which has vouchers for free kids tickets and a free gift for the kids once a month. It's usually something like a poster, or a ticket to Six Flags, but sometimes you get really cool stuff like a bobblehead or a baseball.

One hidden cool thing in the kids pack is that you get a free kid's ticket for select games each month, but in addition to that, you can also buy adult tickets at the same time for $6 each. It's kind of like a cheap mini plan, because you can buy the $6 adult seat, and get the free kids ticket, and you have two seats for $6. I suppose you could buy the pack without a kid, and just make the $15 back for the package pretty quickly doing that. :)

Anyway, my daughter loved the stuff from the Rangers, so unless it's a poster (which she wouldn't be into yet), and it's like a hat or a ball or something, I'll be giving the things to her this year. I have to say I absolutely loved my little girl tonight telling me "Thank you Daddy for the presents from Rangers Captain!". We told her they came from Rangers Captain (as it is the Jr Rangers club, and they have Captain all over the advertising for it). Here's my last picture in this report. My just about three year old wearing the cap and the wristbands (which she did NOT want to take off AT ALL) doing that "kid smile".

My complete collection of pictures from the game is here. If you were reading this on an RSS feed reader, all the pictures may not show up. Please visit the website to see the article as I intended it to be seen. Thanks.

I'm really tired, and I wanted to catch up with the weekend's games before the home opener tomorrow.

So I'll take the cheap way out on this one. It was all Gerald Laird. 4-5 with 3 runs scored, SIX RBI's, and three runs scored.

A heck of a day for anyone.

We come back home at 3-3, which again is more than what most people thought we would be at this point, so that's a good thing.

Kevin Millwood is finally pitching like the guy we signed him to a couple of years ago. He's pitched 14 innings over his two starts and has an ERA of 1.29. Fantastic numbers. Unfortunately, his W-L record is 0-2. He really looked good out there, had some nasty curveballs I can't recall seeing before - looked almost like Zito in his prime curveballs. This is a very good thing. Kevin did have too many hits (12) for the innings he pitched (8). He did a great job.

However, Jeff Weaver was much better. Seven innings, three hits, and zero runs. In fact the 1 the Rangers got was a solo shot by David Murphy.

There's not much else to say about this one other than it was a good old fashioned pitcher's duel. Don't get many of them anymore. As such, I'm not writing about the offense in this one.

Was a nice one to see if you like pitching.

11-6 doesn't seem like a blowout, but until the 9th inning, it was 11-0, which most definitely qualifies as a blowout.

This game was started by Kason Gabbard, who arrived in Texas as a promising young pitcher, but has taken over the mantle of "highly erratic, fairly fragile". On top of all that, his spring training ERA was 10.80. Not something that a pitching weak franchise really needs. Still, it was uniform number 13 out there on the hill for the Rangers this night, and he pitched like he was wearing #34 instead. OK, maybe not that great, but he was a major surprise. Gabbard's line was 7 innings pitched, ZERO runs allowed on seven hits, two walks, and four k's. OK, the Ryan comparison was silly, but it was a way better pitched game than I think any Rangers fan was expecting.

He was backed up by a lot of offense. Five doubles, a triple, and one home run. However, the home run was not your garden variety one - it was a grand slam by Ben Broussard. Josh Hamilton was 2-5 with 3 RBI's, Ian Kinsler was 3-5 with 2 RBI's and two runs scored, David Murphy was 2-4, heck Ramon Vazquez was 2-3 with a run scored. Was a nice night, and the grand slam certainly capped the offense.

It was a snoozer until the ninth inning. Up 11-0 going into the last half frame of the game, Dustin Nippert made his Rangers debut, and it was a big ol' pile of stink. Let's put it this way, when your ERA after your first appearance is 81.00, there's no way to clean that up. It sucked. Hard.

It's why I called an 11-6 game a blowout, as it really wasn't "The Rangers" that gave up 6, it was Dustin Nippert. :)

Still, a win is a win. That's good.

There were five runs scored this game. All of them were a direct result of the longball.

1) Jose Vidro's solo shot on the second inning off Jason Jennings.
2) Jose Lopez' three run shot in the fifth off of Jason Jennings.
3) Ben Broussard's solo shot in the sixth off of Carlos Silva.

That was the major offense. The Rangers were kept pretty darned quiet. Other than that home run, we had merely just two hits. Those were both doubles. One by Milton Bradley and the other by Ian Kinsler. It was definitely a night where we had nothing going.

Thing is, Jason Jennings wasn't all that bad, either. The two home runs were about the worst thing he did. Five innings, five hits, two walks, and four earned runs. Take away the longballs, and he did what Padilla did. Pitch "meh", but with enough to get out of jams.

Jamey Wright followed Jason with three scoreless innings. Did his job. But unfortunately we couldn't get anything going all night, and that was pretty much it for this one.

Well, tonight was a game that I was hoping would be against the Angels, actually. Vicente Padilla and the Angels is always something fun to watch. We didn't get that. We got the Mariners. And we got Felix Hernandez, who always bothers me because "King Felix" is like fingernails on a chalkboard. Not because of his pitching - he's a great young pitcher. But the ego and arrogance of the nickname. Oh well.

Last night we made Erik Bedard work. This night we made Felix Hernandez field. He fielded his position a few times tonight, and made plays that were seriously close - the point where you'd think both went the wrong way without 15 different angles on the replay. In all, Hernandez had a great game. Seven innings, five hits, three walks, and only one run allowed - even it was unearned.

Vicente Padilla also only allowed one run, although he allowed a bit too many other things. Like eight hits and three walks in six innings. However, it was just one run allowed (this one was earned).

The thing is, one word that could describe this game was sloppy. The Rangers had three errors, and the Mariners had two. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your point of view), both teams managed to escape real damage. The Rangers loaded the bases twice in the middle innings - nothing. In all, the Rangers left 10 men on base, and the Mariners left 15 - Good Lord, that's a lot of wasted opportunities!

The game certainly had a roller coaster feel to it. From the wasted opportunities, to the feeling of winning in the top of the 8th, to the "Oh crap" feeling in the bottom of the 8th to back on top again in the 9th. To top it off, you had a bit of queasiness in the bottom of the ninth feeling they were going to let it get away. Fortunately, we ended up on top of the roller coaster, and that was because of Josh Hamilton.

Yeah, that's a not relevant picture, but it is a funny one, so I wanted to use it. Josh made two really great plays in the outfield. The Willie Mays style catch and crash into the wall one, plus one where he ran a really huge distance across the outfield to catch a ball were both really awesome to watch. On top of that, he hit a game winning two run home run in the top of the ninth off of JJ Putz to give us the win. Was a great night for Josh Hamilton, and a nice win for the Rangers. As was said on TV, you don't want to start the season, or leave your first stop on a trip with an ofer. Ugh.

A few pitching comments: We had another wild pitch leading to a run. That's not good to see ever, and especially two days in a row. Padilla allowed a lot of baserunners, but was able to get out of it when he needed to. That was nice to see.

Just for the heck of it... Richie Sexson looks bad. USSMariner thinks so, too. ;)

Kevin Millwood's good news from the 2008 opener is that his ERA is zero. The bad news is that he's also 0-1.

The start time for this game was rather odd. 5:40PM Central time is hard for me, as I get off of work at 6PM, and as such it was difficult to avoid the score. Oh, I know where to avoid, but the temptation to check it out as it's happening was rough. So I got home, and ate dinner, played with my little girl a bit in the back yard, and then settled in to watch the game after it had technically ended. Dinner tonight was hot dogs, too, so I was ready to go.

I started watching the game with a Stella Artois and my Palm so I can score the game in hand. Like most Rangers fans I was quite excited seven pitches into the season when Michael Young deposited a Erik Bedard pitch over both Brad Wilkerson and the WaMu logos for a one run lead in the top of the first. When you're emotionally invested into a team like that, a home run seven pitches into the season brings up visions of 100 win seasons, playoff wins, etc, etc, etc. I was jazzed at that point. The other cool thing is that Bedard was NOT as advertised. He went to full counts on a ton of Ranger hitters, and was out of the game in the fifth due to a rather high pitch count. He still only gave up one run, so it's not like he was terrible, but wow did he have to work for what he got in this one.

Kevin Millwood was pitching like he was the #1 starter. Kevin's was let down by some defensive issues in the field in the sixth. Michael Young couldn't handle a hot smash from Ichiro for an error, which led to the two unearned runs Kevin gave up in the sixth. He did look really good. Josh & Tom spent a lot of time talking about how he looks better, new conditioning and all that, and it did look good. When he got into some minor trouble, he was able to pitch his way out. He wasn't being helped by the home plate umpire who seemed to be squeezing him at points.

One moment that made me chuckle was the argument that ensued between home plate umpire Jim Joyce and Ron Washington over Milton Bradley. Bradley was hit in the foot by a pitch, and went to first, but Joyce didn't see it, and ruled he wasn't hit. So he came back after some mild discussion with Washington, and then the next pitch was a ball, he threw his bat away (a bit hard, IMO) and went to first. Bradley never said a word to the umpire, and just went to first. Ron Washington came out and said a few things, and apparently someone from the Rangers dugout did too, as there was a very clear camera shot of Joyce bitching at someone. What's funny about that is Bradley has a reputation (as Carl Everett did when he came here) of arguments with umpires. His first game as a Ranger, and there's confrontation. It just amused me.

Anyway, the game went on with the Rangers leading 1-0 for awhile. After the aforementioned error led to us being down 2-1, Millwood was pulled after six innings, and Kaz Fukumori made his Rangers debut. His spring ERA of zero must have been in play, as his outing today more than made up for it. Only one third of an inning pitched, and in that time, he gave up two hits, two walks, three earned runs, and to top it off, had two wild pitches - one directly leading to a run. A rather ghastly debut, leaving his ERA at 81.00. At least it wasn't as bad as Tom Gordon for the Phillies yesterday, whose ERA is 135 after his 0.1 innings on the mound.

Fukumori was followed up by Franklyn German, who did keep his spring performance intact, by going 1.2 innings, and not giving up any more runs. German looked good.

Offensively we were quite literally led by Michael Young. He had the home run in the first, but also went 3-5 for the game, now batting .600 after the first game. Hits were at a premium despite Bedard's struggles. In all the Rangers had seven hits, Michael Young having three of them. David Murphy had two, and the other two were Josh Hamilton and Ian Kinsler. All were singles except the home run. The best thing though was the way the players worked the count at the plate. Something we're not used to seeing from the boys in Arlington - and I don't mean the team that will be in Jerryland. I mean the real boys from Arlington - the Texas Rangers.

Gerald Laird threw out two baserunners in the game; that was always exciting to see.

Nobody likes to be 0-1 after the first game, but the euphoria you get from the start of Game 1 was certainly diminished. I don't feel really beat down, but I was definitely LET down. Doesn't get any better tonight as we face Felix Hernandez.

That's always an embarrassing headline to write. In theory, one should never lose to one's own minor league team. Still, that's what our Rangers did. Yeah, it's the last game, yeah it doesn't even count in the SPRING standings. But still, you don't want to lose that for pride. But my guess is nobody will talk about it, since all the movement now is towards tomorrow in Seattle when the season opens for real.

Kason Gabbard had a real Chan Ho Park moment in this game. He started off with four perfect innings. Then he totally lost it, and gave up four runs in the fifth inning, then returned to pitch a scoreless sixth. When you five four perfect in a row, then just give it up like that, it just screams "MENTAL LAPSE" to me. Still, five out of six innings pitched with no runs is very encouraging. Kea Kometani & Bill White gave up the other three runs.

The Rangers offense was pretty non existent. Makes you wonder how hard they really tried against their AA team; perhaps they didn't want to show them up? Who knows. Ian Kinsler (homer), Marlon Byrd (single), and Michael Young (single) were the only "regular" Rangers with hits. We had seven hits in all, but the other four were from subs (Jason Ellison, Casey Benjamin, Adam Melhuse, Joaquin Arias).

So that's it. Another spring comes to a close. Our final spring training record was 17-11-2. A pretty decent spring, and we have several batters on tears, and our bullpen is looking pretty good. Starting pitching is a question mark, but when is it not, really?

Unless your name is Randy Galloway, you've got to have a decent feeling going into the 2008 season.

Friday brought the Rangers and the Southsiders from Chicago to Oklahoma City for an exhibition game.

Michael Young led our offense, having a phenomenal spring which we'd all be talking about if it wasn't for Josh Hamilton. Michael went 2-3 and raised his average to .403. Ben Broussard also went 2-3, and has his average recovered quite nicely from his early spring slump (it's at .298). Hank Blalock doubled off of former Rangers farmhand John Danks, as did Ben Broussard off of Mike MacDougal. The rest of our hits for the game (nine of them) were all singles. No longballs, so the "chicks" were disappointed. ;) All of the regulars/starters had at least one hit, so that was very nice to see. Always like a more balanced attack. Ironic then that all of the guys subbed in for the starters did not get any hits at all. Milton Bradley's first inning single was worth two RBI's, and his numbers are small, but that's because of his late start.

Pitching wise, the Rangers ran out there nine relievers. No starters in this one. Each guy pitched a single inning. C.J. Wilson (4th) and Josh Rupe (7th) were the only guys to give up any runs (Wilson 2, Rupe 3). All the other guys put up blanks in the run column. Fukumori & Benoit still have ERA's of zero for the spring, and Franklyn German has a very un-Franklyn German ERA of 0.90.

Our pen looks good this season, which is why the trade announced last night was a bit of a head scratcher. The Rangers acquired reliever Dustin Nippert from the Arizona Diamondbacks Friday evening. It was quite the day for Dustin, as his wife gave birth to their second child earlier in the day. Quotes in the evening from Rangers brass say the final spot was down to Nippert & Robinson Tejeda. Tejeda, who is out of options will be DFA'ed. You wish you could hang onto that in case he figures it out, but it's the old options thing. Nippert comes into the organization also out of options (which is why he was available), and goes straight into the pen. His career (and spring 08 numbers) don't seem to indicate he's a "Oh my GOD - WE HAVE TO HAVE HIM" kind of pitcher, so it definitely falls under the category of head scratcher to me. If you want to read more in depth on Nippert, check out Jamey Newberg's entry on the trade. Good details there.

One spring game left, and it's against the Frisco Roughriders in Frisco. It doesn't technically count in the spring training standings.

I'm not entirely sure what the official deadline is to submit our 25 man roster, but I believe it's a day before your first game, which would mean we have to submit it sometime tomorrow. That means a bomb of transactions all at once.

Just about there, and then the fun begins. Last year, the season just cropped up on me, and I didn't have much in the way of anticipation for it. This year I admit to actively looking forward to it, which is odd, given I've made the conscious decision to not attend all that many games this year (mostly because of cost, but also because I've donated that money to my church in a capital campaign we're having to build a new church).

I'm also working on an article on the 2008 Home Parking situation which I'll be posting either Sunday or Monday. If you know the parking at the Ballpark, prepare to have your world rocked - if you've been keeping up with what they're doing out there.

This will be a short one. :)

Jason Jennings was decent (5.1 IP, 6H, 2BB, 2ER, 4K). Marlon Byrd & Nelson Cruz doubled. Kevin Mench doubled twice, Hank Blalock & Milton Bradley homered,

Rangers won. Coming back to the Metroplex. Goodbye Surprise for another year.

Bring on the real stuff. I'm ready.

Josh Hamilton continues to be the story of the spring. He went 2-5 today with a double and a home run. Two RBI's, scored twice. Great day. I know it's spring, and I know I've been let down by too many players wearing the Texas uniform, but dammit, it's hard not to get excited about him. if he can stay healthy.. Man, will that be an awesome move, even if Edinson Volquez stays in the Reds lineup and does well.

Games that have nineteen runs scored usually mean one thing. Not a lot of good pitching. Funny thing is, if you go down the list of San Diego pitchers, four of the seven of them didn't give up any. However, the other three did, and two of them alone combined for ten of the twelve runs. I find it odd that one of them was Jake Peavy. Jake gave up four earned runs in three innings, making his spring ERA 9.39. Bleargh!

On the other side, Vicente Pidente joined Peavy on the "Bleargh Train" by putting up some stink worthy numbers of his own. Six innings, ten hits, one walk, five earned runs.

Some other highlights from this one were doubles by Mike Young & Ben Broussard (who certainly seems to have picked it up lately), a stolen base by Gerald Laird, and a 3-5 day by Michael Young. (Yeah, I know he's in that list twice).

This was a National League game, so the box score has about 8 guys in the 9 hole. Getting ready to write some of these about real games. Almost done.

Last night the Rangers were on the radio. I was listening to our guys call the game while I was doing dishes in the kitchen. Exciting stuff, but you need something to do, eh?

Offensively, this game was clearly led by Hank Blalock. Hammer went 4-4 with three RBI's, and a run scored. The big moment was a two run home run in the first inning. Ian Kinsler and Frank Calanotto both had two hits each (one of Ian's was a double). The interesting thing about this game is there was only one other hit the entire game by the Rangers that was NOT off the bat of Blalock, Kinsler, or Catalanotto. That was Milton Bradley. Bradley tripled in the first inning, and from the sounds of it, stumbled a bit coming around second but still made it.

The Rangers ran out there what could be considered a regular season lineup. Everyone but Catalanotto (the DH) was subbed out at some point. So that was 17 different Rangers hitters. Only four of them got hits. While we had enough to win, it bothers me it was so bunched up. A win is a win - and I know that. But you like to see more balanced attacks. I know I do.

The Rangers were hiding their regular starters, as we'll see Seattle in a week. So this was a game of relievers. Kaz Fukumori started the game, and threw two scoreless innings. In fact, his spring ERA is zero - very impressive. Kam Loe followed Kaz, and gave up the only run Seattle got (as well as three of the five overall hits). Loe seems like he will end up in AAA (to me), and while his outing today wasn't great, some of the other moves we heard about seem to imply that Kam and his snake will be headed for Oklahoma City. The other three relievers that took the mound for Texas were Franklyn German (who made the club), Josh Rupe (probably not), & Wes Littleton (not sure, probably not). All pitched scoreless frames. Our pitching staff, what that it is, seems to be coming together.

As much as I seem to be dumping on Kam Loe, make no mistake, I like the guy, but you have to go with what you see. He did contribute to a really great pitching performance as a team. Rangers pitchers combined went nine innings, allowing just one earned run on five hits. Too many walks though (five), and not enough strikeouts (four). But you can't argue with the bottom line in this game.

We did get to Miguel Batista, who at one point I thought would be great, but now seems to be a "meh" pitcher. Still tosses well against Texas though, although this time he did not. Five innings, six hits, three walks, three k's, and four earned runs.

I'm going to skip this one, as it was another "didn't hear it at work" game.

Didn't like Gabbard's line (yeah, I know most of it was in the first, but it still counted).

Sunday was the second of the two televised spring training games. Unlike Saturday's game, I did get to see this one - well, most of it. I was again doing some church stuff (it was Resurrection Sunday after all), so I didn't get to see it until late. Which means I sometimes fall asleep on it if I don't get to start watching until after 10PM like I did this one.

Still, it was nice to see the Rangers play well. Granted, it is the Giants, who probably won't threaten a team made up of current and former Rangers beat writers for the various local newspapers, but there was some nice stuff in this game. Several great defensive plays, including two guys thrown out at home.

You can tell we're reaching the end of spring training. The same nine guys who started for the Rangers also finished. Even the pitching roster we sent out there seemed fairly normal. Mendoza went 5, Francisco went 1, Littleton went 2, and Rupe finished up and got the save. Which brings up another point. I'm starting to get mildly concerned that CJ Wilson has not yet appeared in any games lately. I know what the team is saying, but if he's going to be the closer, he should be getting "A" work.

Speaking of "A" work, Michael Young seems in fine shape in terms of his stats. He went 3-3 yesterday, and raised his average to .388. Josh Hamilton, the darling of spring took an ofer, and his average dropped below .500. Jarrod Saltamacchia seems to have gotten it together a bit. He's now batting .276 after going 2-3 on Sunday. Ben Broussard, who seemed in low gear for most of March is doing better. He's now at .267.

A couple of other guys are not doing that great; and they're on the roster. Milton Bradley, Marlon Byrd, & Frank Catalanotto are all under the Mendoza line. Not good for guys we're counting on.

Luis Mendoza pitched well again which will be good if he remains in the starting rotation. Five shutout innings. Speaking of pitchers, I was quite surprised to see how young Tim Lincecum was. Good Lord, he looked like he belonged in High School. Given the comments that Tom & Josh had about him, I have to say that is not an uncommon remark.

In a fairly useless note that might make Rob Neyer proud, our 7/8/9 batters on Sunday may have set some sort of record for letters in their surnames combined. Between Catalanotto, Saltamacchia, & Broussard, that's 32 letters. Not bad for the bottom part of the lineup. :)

The first televised game of the season came against something that I thought was far more important, going to my daughter's Easter egg hunt on Saturday afternoon. Jamey's spent a bunch of time talking about his kid lately, so I thought I'd use my site to give my offspring a mention. :)

Seeing THAT was far more important than any other Texas Rangers game I've ever seen or will see. I did get to see the top of the first inning, where we scored two runs and Blalock got picked off first, but that was all I actually saw. By the time we got home from the egg hunt, and spent family time, I had to attend an Easter Eve service at church, so it was too late to start watching the rest of the game. So this was a box score only game for me, even though it was on TV (and radio for that matter).

Ian Kinsler and Michael Young had great days. Both went 3-3. Kevin Mench was 2-3. Hank Blalock was 2-3. Jason Botts was 2-5. Lots of hits. Eighteen in all - six of them were doubles. No home runs, however. Kind of surprised we didn't have more runs than we did with all those hits. Of course, pickoffs to end an inning don't help much in that regard.

Eric Hurley started the game and got a bit torched. 4.1 innings, ten hits, two walks, and five earned runs. The rest of our pitching staff (Rowe, Wilson, Benoit, Wright) didn't give up any runs at all.

Nice to beat a division rival like that.

Milton Bradley took to the field in an official Cactus League game for the first time (as DH), and went 0-4. Not exactly thrilling. Bradley is a decent enough hitter, so I'm not worried, but no matter WHO the player is, you never like seeing ofers.

Ben Broussard and Frank Catalanotto had the best of the Rangers offense this game. Ben had three hits, and Frank had two (one a double; the only ebh of the game). Problem with the game in general is those two guys were 50% of our hits. The Rangers were definitely shut down offensively in this one.

We did pick up a run in the third, but that was it. Funny thing is that one run held up for awhile, as the Angels didn't score until the sixth.

Pitching was good in this game. Sydney Ponson went three innings, and gave up no runs and just three hits. Franklyn German threw a scoreless inning. Kam Loe, who seems to be regressing in general, went three innings, giving up four hits and a walk, allowing two runs. Robinson Tejeda, who continues to be the engima he was in Philly went 1.2 innings, giving up three hits and a walk, and the other two runs the Angels got. Elizardo Ramirez mopped up Tejeda's final inning, getting the last out.

Jered Weaver looked like he was in fine season form. He went 6.1 innings, giving up seven hits and a walk; striking out six. He allowed just the one run. The Angels pen didn't allow anything either.

Was a pretty decently pitched game all around, except for Loe and Tejeda (who weren't godawful either, but not that great).

When I followed Kevin Millwood in Philadelphia, the one that that always dogged him was that he wasn't cut out to be the number one pitcher in a rotation. That his mental makeup wasn't cut out to be the top dog, especially in a market that tends to devour its sports players. So he goes to Cleveland, and pitches one really good season, having a fantastic season in the ERA department, and signs a five year deal with the Rangers. He has a good first year, winning 16, if his ERA was up. 2007 was not terribly good for Kevin.

That brings us to 2008. Kevin Millwood makes his first official spring training start. He was looking good. From a pitching standpoint, this was a good outing. Kevin went five innings, giving up no runs on just three hits and walk; striking out five. This is the kind of pitching we need from him if we're going to go anywhere. As for his makeup, well, he seems to fit in well here in Texas. We're not as rabid (well, unless your last name is Galloway) as the press in Philly, and Kevin's laid back demeanor seems to have a nice Texas fit to it. At least that's my perception of it. So I continue to hold out hope that he really can be the number one pitcher we need him to be. As always, our pitching needs are great. Yeah, everyone always needs more pitching, but the Rangers always seem to need it more than others. Especially when you look at the other teams in our division (except maybe Oakland this year), our guys don't seem to stand up. It's where we need more of the type of pitching Kevin showed yesterday in Tuscon.

One of the other questions of this spring is the catching situation. In the offseason, a statement was made that Saltamacchia was named "the man" for 2008. That definitely seems to have changed, as a lot of local press is making it out to seem that it's assumed now that Saltamacchia will be starting at AAA to get the regular job, while Laird will be the guy in the majors. Quite frankly, despite last year's offensive dropoff, Laird is definitely a better defensive catcher. I don't think anyone believes that Laird is the long term guy at catcher, but he is the guy now. The future is any number of names (Saltamacchia, Ramirez, Teagarden), so you keep Laird. Then there's the mix of Broussard not doing well offensively at 1B, so he could go there, too. We'll find out more in the next 7 days I imagine.

About this game itself, Saltamacchia muddled the offensive situation at catcher by going 2-4 with FOUR RBI's, and a run scored on a home run. Hank Blalock also homered. However, Salty's batting average is at .231, which is not great. Yeah, you could say that you need a larger sample than spring, and you hear a lot that spring numbers don't matter as much. However, more jobs are won and lost based on the small samples in spring, so it definitely seems like Salty is going to AAA. At least for now. Things change much, and if you're reading this site, you know that. :)

This game had a lot more extra base hits than singles. We had two home runs (Blalock, Salty), and three doubles (Blalock, Salty, & Josh Hamilton). Just two singles in there.

Wes Littleton had a bad outing, and doesn't seem to be doing many favors for himself. He went just one inning, giving up five hits and one walk for four earned runs in all.

It's almost time for big cuts to be made, and these bad performances like Littleton had tend to weigh rather heavy in the minds of the decision makers, who according to an article in the DMN today are going to be working out their roster in the next few days or so.

Luis Mendoza, who looked good in six appearances late last season appears to be making a major case for himself to be in the starting rotation, and not the spot where you don't need him all the time (aka the fifth spot). In his six appearances last season, he had three starts. All totalled 16 innings, 13 hits, 4 earned runs, four walks, and seven strikeouts. ERA of 2.25. Small sample, I admit, but they're still decent numbers.

One always wonders if quick flashes in the pan will stick going into a following season. It's spring, so you can't get too excited, but Luis' performance yesterday certainly will help him. He went five innings, giving up just two hits and one run. Only one strikeout, but more importantly - no walks!

Ian Kinsler led off, and led the offense, going 3-4 with an RBI and scored twice. Nice game for Ian. Hank Blalock and Marlon Byrd both doubled. However, Adam Melhuse had a home run that really excited Steve Busby who was calling the game for an mlb webcast. It sounded like a monster shot as I was listening online.

I did realize as I finished listening to the game last night that I'm ready for the season to start. Tired of no games on TV - ready to go guys. I know it's starting earlier than normal this year, but I don't think I'll be getting up that early to watch the games from Japan.

This game started with a pitcher who has beaten us several times already. Cha Seung Baek. I remember the first time we faced him, he was one of those guys who fit the pattern I've noticed where pitchers we never have seen before dominate us. They get rocked by everyone else, but against us - it's Cy Young time.

Well, Baek has been such a pitcher against us. Today was no different. Today he went four innings, giving up no runs and one hit. He continued his streak against the Rangers. I suspect next time it will be the same. We had nothing for a really long time, because our old friend R.A. Dickey also shut us down. Dickey went three innings of shutout ball with three hits and two strikeouts. Between the two of them, we had next to nothing going on. Eric O'Flaherty came on and pitched the eighth and then fell apart in the ninth.

The two runs the Rangers had were in the bottom of the ninth, and as I recall, we left the bases loaded, or left a few guys on. Made it interesting at least, but we were really shut down by Baek & Dickey in this one. We had six hits in all. Five singles, and a double by Jason Ellison.

Our pitching was pretty good, too. Jason Jennings continues to look good so far this spring. He went four innings, giving up one run on two hits and no walks. Robinson Tejeda threw a scoreless inning, Josh Rupe threw TWO scoreless innings, and Wes Littleton gave up two runs (one earned) in his inning of work. Our final pitcher was Jeff Mathis, who from the sound of Victor's call was not all that great.

Was nice to hear Victor on the webcast. I'm glad to hear our guys on these mlb webcasts for a change, as opposed to hearing some random mlb guy or worse, another team's announcer.

I'm about out of time to write tonight, so I'll make this one short.

Josh Hamilton walked and doubled to extend his on base streak to 13, where it ended, as he struck out on the fourteenth.

Kevin Mench went 2-3 with a double, raising his spring average to .355.

Gerald Laird homered while going 1-4, making his average .276.

David Murphy continued a pretty torrid pace, but not like Hamilton's. Murphy is now batting .417.

Sidney Ponson pitched like the guy everyone expects him to be. Bad. 2.1IP, 6H, 4ER, 2BB. Bleh.

I twisted my ankle, and it's starting to hurt a lot just sitting here, I need to go soak it in the tub. Yeah, I know, TMI, but it's hurting me to write right now. :)

As I'm writing a few games' commentaries on Sunday night off of box scores, the first thing I do is scroll down the page to look at the pitching lines. After the last few stinkfests, I expected another line somewhere where a Ranger pitcher was horrendous and the rest were pretty good.

Well, this game five Rangers pitchers threw, and two gave up runs, and just one was crappy. That was Frank Francisco, who threw just two thirds of an inning, giving up hits, three earned runs and four walks. With a line like that, you'd think he'd have more runs scored against him. Eric Hurley started the game, and went four innings. He had a bunch of 2's on his line. Two each of hits, runs, walks, strikeouts.

The stinkfest came from the Rockies starter this time. In a stink that you'd actually need TWO Mark Clark outings to get to, Mark Redman went 4.2 innings, giving up ELEVEN hits, seven earned runs, but just one walk. Ewww....

David Murphy was the big name here (mostly because Josh Hamilton didn't play today). Murphy 3 for 4, scoring twice, and knocking in four. Two of the three hits he had were two run home runs. The other hit was a single. Nelson Cruz also had a good day, going 2-3 with a solo home run of his own.

Ben Broussard went 1-3, and his average is .219. There's been some talk that Shrek might get time at first base. Kevin is batting .321 this spring, and if these two players keep this up, I wonder how realistic the possibility is that Ben doesn't make the team, and Kevin does as a first baseman. Jason Botts & Ramon Vazquez also had two hits each.

Nice offensive day that ended with a 10-5 win by the Rangers.

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.

The Rangers record now includes a -2 at the end of it, and that's not two losses. It is two ties. This game did go to extra innings, it ended after 10, though. Generally that stuff is decided ahead of time, from what I can gather.

We do have another person on the injury list (which is dangerously close to being larger than the active player list). This time it was Frank Catalanotto leaving the game with back spasms. I know I'm writing this on Sunday night, and this game was Thursday, but still. Great. Not.

Both team's starters had the air of "stink" in their box score lines.

Mendoza: 3.1IP, 5H, 5ER, 1BB, 1K
Jimenez: 4.2IP, 8H, 5ER, 2BB, 6K

They both went longer, but as we're at the midway point of the month now, you should be seeing a lot more of that now. Relievers on both sides were quite good. There were eleven relievers combined for both teams. Between all those pitchers and the twelve innings of work, they had eleven hits, and just two earned runs. Not all that bad on the reliever side. Actually, Mendoza's damage was all in the fourth inning. He was perfect in the first three frames, but a stink bomb like the fourth tends to discount the good work in the first few for most people.

Offensively, the Rangers were led by Hank Blalock, who had a three run home run. David Murphy also had a solo shot, and both Michael Young & Josh Hamilton had three hits. Hamilton is now batting .577 after this game. Obviously those kinds of numbers won't translate long term into the season, but even if he bats just 50% of that, it's .288, which isn't anything to sneeze at, either. I think he'll do better than THAT, however.

First off, I get done writing an entry for yesterday's game, and then I turn around to write one for today's game that just finished. So I see the score, which is good. Then I see this article. Can we stop this, please? DO NOT WANT! Too many of these small fiddly "don't matter" things. Sigh.

Eddie "Replace your divot, please" Guadardo was the only pitcher who really had what could be considered a bad line. Went 0.2 innings, giving up two hits and two runs. Then he discovered he had a hangnail, and had to come out of the game (OK, I'm exaggerating JUST a bit). Jason Jennings started, and went 3 innings, giving up three hits and one earned run (two runs total). More importantly, he had four strikeouts and one walk. Elizardo Ramirez, Robinson Tejeda, & Wes Littleton all threw scorless frames, and Sidney Ponson made his Rangers debut. He went two innings, and faced only six batters. Walked one (erased on a double play), and struck out one. I hold no real hope for Ponson and the Rangers long term, but you always want to see a better line than a bad one. I could take the stance that I want him to have an ERA of 54, so he'd be released, but then that would hurt my team in general.

Offensively though the story was Gerald Laird. Gerry had two home runs (both solo shots), and Michael Young also contributed with a solo home run in this game. Young went 2-3 and had a second RBI besides his home run - the fifth came from Edgar Alfonzo.

Former Ranger Alfonso Soriano had a home run in this game (off divot boy). I was busy at work again with a project that has been demanding almost all my afternoon time for the last month to 6 weeks, so I didn't get a chance to listen. Hopefully we finish the project before the season starts. :)

Any long time reader of this site knows that I don't care for extra inning games. We always seem to lose them. And we always seem to lose them in the tenth inning, too. If we can get past the 10th or 11th, we have a shot, but we usually don't get there.

So it was quite the surprise when I saw the game score on the 6PM news saying that it was in extra innings. Much bigger surprise when I saw the score on the 10PM news that we had won in extra innings.

This game was driven by Josh Hamilton again. Mr. Tattoo went 3-3 with an RBI and a run scored. The RBI was a home run, which was shown on the Channel 5 10PM news. Bound for AAA (or another team) catcher Adam Melhuse chipped in with an RBI and a 2-2 game. Hamilton's home run wasn't the only tater by the home 11 either. Ben Broussard & Nelson Cruz also went yard. (This paragraph turned out to have way more silly phrases than I normally have in my writing).

Most of the Ranger first stringers in this game threw an ofer as well. Young, Cat, Kinsler, Blalock, etc... That was a bit of a surprise.

Vicente Padilla went 3.2 innings, and game out with one of these "minor injuries". All the quotes afterwards were saying the usual niceties about how it's not a big problem, how it's nothing to worry about, etc, etc, etc.. But I'm seeing way too many of these. Something is going on, and I'm not sure I like it. Anyway, Padilla wasn't helped by defense, as he gave up two unearned runs (and no earned runs). Still had more walks (3) than strikeouts (2). Scott Feldman wasn't all thatr great either, although he did pitch four innings - I believe the first Ranger pitcher to do that this spring. Feldman gave up three earned runs on six hits and a walk. A few too many for four innings.

Kazuo Fukumori pitched another scoreless inning. That's all he's thrown this spring in his six innings of work overall. It'd be nice if he could carry that over into the regular season and keep it going. We could use a performance like that.

Josh Hamilton is in spring turning out to be everything we have hoped for so far this spring. His batting average at the moment is .450. He only went 1-3 last night, but had a big two run RBI triple, which at the time gave the Rangers the lead in the game. Rangers fans have been excited about this kind of stuff before, but given the man's background (in baseball, not his personal life story), you have to be just a little excited about this. :)

Rangers minor leaguer Nate Gold also helped here with a solo home run in the eighth inning (off of Trevor Hoffman, no less). This was another of those spread out offensive attacks. The seven Ranger hits in the game were by seven different players. Only Gold and Hamilton had extra base hits, the rest were singles.

Rangers pitching was pretty good too. The only one that really qualified as not great was Matt Harrison, who gave up three hits and one earned run in his two innings of work. In fact, Harrison was the only pitcher who went more than a single inning. Every one of the seven other Ranger pitchers went just one.

The Padres were not helped by their fielding. Three of the five Ranger runs were unearned. Shawn Estes gave up four of the five, only allowing one earned.

Next up is Vicente Padilla against the White Sox on Tuesday. Let's see if his surprisingly good spring keeps going.

Don't have a lot of time to write about this. Rangers lost. Kason Gabbard wasn't good. Eric Hurley wasn't good. Ian Kinsler was picked off first base.

Jarrod Saltamacchia had a two run home run, Kevin Mench doubled.

Rangers dropped below .500 for the spring. That's a place they're familiar with a bit too much.

With only 11 games played so far, a theme has cropped up. Something Rangers fans can relate to over time. The starting pitching stunk. AJ Murray was the stinker-du-jour today. Two innings, six hits, one walk, four earned runs. Kam Loe, who seems to be pitching himself down the pecking order in the last 12 months followed, going one inning, allowing two hits and two runs. That's six of the nine the Pads got right there.

The only real offensive highlight for Texas was Kevin Mench's three run home run in the seventh inning. That closed the Rangers scoring. We did have two other runs, but they both game on singles by Mike Young and John Mayberry, Jr. Ian Kinsler had a double, but that was it. Seven hits in all. One homer, one double, and five singles. Not a major offensive threat.

That's mostly due to San Diego's Greg Maddux & Wilfredo Ledezma. Between the two of them, they went six innings, allowing two runs and three hits (Ledezma also walked two). The big damage was against their third pitcher (Heath Bell).

Not much going on for the Rangers this Saturday. The loss drops us to 5-5-1 for the spring.

Jason Jennings was good. (2.2 IP, 1H, 0R)
Robinson Tejeda was not. (1IP, 2H, 3ER)

Travis Metcalf was good. (2-3 with run scored)
Josh Rupe was not. (0.2IP, 1H, 3BB, 3ER)

Josh Hamilton was good. (1-2, grand slam)
Jamey Wright was not. (1.2IP, 5H, 3R, 2ER)

Six straight Rangers reached base in the third inning. Very good.
Three Rangers wild pitches by three pitchers in this game. Not good.

Seeing my little girl play in the snow for the first time ever in the back yard - EXTREMELY good.
Brandon McCarthy and injury back in the press again. Not good. :(

I said I was going to continue that until I ran out of good things to say. I'm done. We lost, anyway. :)

As sloppy as Wednesday's game was, Thursday's was much better. Rangers pitching was the order of the day, not allowing any earned runs at all. The ChiSox did score once, but it was an unearned run on a Jason Ellison miscue.

Vicente Padilla started this one and went three innings, giving up just one hit, and two walks. Extrapolated over a full game, that's six walks - too many, but for now, it's OK. Full season box scores show you the number of pitches thrown. The spring box scores don't seem to show that, so I can't say how crisp he seemed from just reading the box score. But three innings with just one hit, and only one earned run is quite nice.

A followup to that was Scott Feldman, who also tossed three scoreless frames. Feldman had just one hit as well, allowing no runs, and one walk. Feldman also had seven ground outs vs NO flyouts. That's great to see (Padilla was one grounder, and six flyouts). Feldman also faced just ten batters in his three innings of work; one over the minimum (the one hit). Bill White, Paul Kometami, & Elizardo Ramirez each followed with an inning of work. All three allowed no runs, and only Kometami allowed a single hit. Very nice pitching by the Rangers on this game. Something we'll need a lot of of once the season gets going.

Offensively, we had the longball working. Got three of them this game (Travis Metcalf, David Murphy, & Chris Davis). John Mayberry Jr also chipped in with a double to round out the extra base hit portion of the offense.

If you look at the line score, we had a two spot in the second, and then lone runs in the 3rd, 5th, 8th, & 9th. With spread out scoring like that, you'd think our offense was also spread out, and you'd be right. Only Mayberry had more than one hit.

I'm encouraged by the performance so far by Vicente Padilla. By all accounts in the local press, he's more friendly, in better shape, and trying a lot harder than before; he appears to be healthy. Which will be important, as we're hearing the word injury more often than I'd like this spring. I always kinda liked Padilla when he was in Philly, and I could like him here too, but he seems to have become a victim of head games. I always kind of liked the throw at people mentality he has. Not that I want to INTENTIONALLY throw at people's heads, but the fear of "will I get hit" can work for a pitcher. He just needs to learn how to get that fear into people without plunking 7 or 8 guys at once and starting brawls all the time (hello Anaheim).

This game from last Wednesday can be summed up in one word. Sloppy. The two teams combined for four errors and twenty seven hits for a total of eighteen runs. Not good. Fitting this mess happened on a day that my wife and I formally lost our second baby.

Ramon Vazquez had a good day for the Rangers, going 3-3 and scoring a run. Jason Ellison also went 2-2 and scored both times. Travis Metcalf had a solo home run, and Nate Gold drove in two runs. This was a day for singles, because of the fourteen Ranger hits only one was not a single (Metcalf's HR). Overall, the hits were pretty spread out, there were a total of eleven different Rangers who had one.

Pitching wise, Matt Harrison had six hits and a walk in his 2.1 innings of work. Gave up five runs, but only three earned. Jonnny Poveda followed that with a stink job that was way up there on the Stink-O'-Meter. Only had one third of an inning pitched, and gave up three hits, three walks, and FOUR earned runs. Bleargh. Even Mark Clark wasn't that bad. Speaking of sloppy, later on Jason Davis gave up three runs, but only one was earned. Of course we had five other pitchers who threw for Texas who didn't give up any, but these numbers above are fairly sloppy.

A couple of former Rangers had decent days, too. Gabe Kapler went 1-2 with an RBI sac fly, as well as scoring a run, and another RBI as well. Laynce Nix, went 2-2 with a run scored and an RBI. Both of these guys are in camp with the Brewers on NRI's - my guess is that neither breaks camp. Kapler was in attempting a comeback after having been out of ball for a short time - I wonder if he'll play the minor league bounce around game, or go back to being a manager in the minors for the Red Sox.

Losses are never really that great. I know in my decade or so of doing this site I've said many a time "This wasn't a bad loss", but the bottom line is "you lost". Still, having said that, only the first two pitchers were bad. The others weren't.

Kason Gabbard stunk. Two innings, five hits, one walk, one home run. Four earned runs.
Kameron Loe stunk. 1.2 innings, four hits, one walk, two home runs. Four earned runs (five total).

The big shot for Arizona was the grand slam by Connor Jackson in the fourth inning, obviously.

That wasn't good. The other pitchers we threw out there (Garr, Eric Hurley, Franklyn German, & Elizardo Ramirez) were good. Combined they went 5.1 innings, had just three hits (2 German, 1 Hurley), and only one walk (Ramirez). Eric Hurley was the best there, going three innings.

On the Diamondbacks side, we squared up against their Ace, Brandon Webb. Webb was hittable, but it is March, with a single digit number on the calendar, so there's probably not a lot to make of that. He went three innings, gave up two runs on four hits.

Offensively, we were led by Michael Young's first home run of the spring. That's something that has disappered from Young's game the last few years - the power numbers have fallen through the floor. Not that he's ever really been a candidate for 35 home runs, but the 22 & 24 he had in 04 and 05 were what I think most people were expecting. Not the 14 and 9 he had in 06 and 07. Hopefully he can raise that up a bit, say get back to 20. I'd be happy with that.

Young was the only Ranger with multiple hits, the other 7 that were not off #10's bat were all singles, except for a triple by Jason Botts.

I didn't get to hear any of this game, as my wife and I have had a personal crisis in our life right now, and I'm only writing this on Wed morning during nervous time as we get ready to head to the hospital. I'll have more on that later, but baseball isn't the biggest thought in my mind right now. Far from it.

This was another one that I didn't get to hear. It was being "webcast" on mlb.com, but didn't use either SF or TEX broadcasters. That's not normally a problem, but my wife and I were dealing with a family emergency most of today, and sitting in front of my computer to listen to a baseball game was not an option.

So I was enjoying it when I peeked in at the line score, and saw we were up 4-2 early. That's always a nice thing to see. So imagine my surprise when I look further over and see that the Rangers have NO hits, and one Giants error. Oh boy, this ought to be interesting.

So I look down and see Noah Lowry pitching for the Giants. OK, not a world beater here, but definitely someone who has had some success at the major leagues. Holy CRAP! What is that line?

                                  IP   H   R  ER  BB  SO  HR
  SAN FRANCISCO
 N Lowry                           1   0   4   4   9   0   0

What the heck? Nine walks in one inning pitched? NINE? Well, it turns out seven of them were in the first inning, and the other two were from when he went back out for the second (WTF!), and walked the first two guys. According to the box score, Lowry faced just 12 batters. Walked 9 of them. That's gotta be some sort of record - that's quite amazing. Now I didn't see it, but one envisions Rick Ankiel's pitching meltdown, only worse. This must have been a meltdown of epic proportions.

Anyway, SF's pitching gave up a total of 15 walks in this game. That's just NUTS. That's more walks than actual hits the Rangers got (8). The Rangers actual bats were pretty scattered. Of the 8 hits, only Travis Metcalf had more than one (2); the other 6 were by 6 other Rangers.

The game score was a bit of a seesaw. We were gifted four runs in the top of the first, then gave up two in the bottom of the frame. SF put up two more in the fifth, tying it. Stayed that way until the top of the 8th, when we put up two more. However, SF scored twice in the bottom of the ninth, taking into extra innings. The Rangers then proceeded to score twice more in the 10th inning, winning it.

Despite all the walks by SF, they had a couple of guys who did pretty good. Valdez & Corria combined to relieve Lowry, going 5 innings combined, allowing no runs and just one hit apiece. Vinnie Chulk also threw a scoreless frame, but Steve Kline & Randy Messenger did NOT.

On the flip side, this was a mix of pitchers we know, pitchers that are just there, and guys I've never heard of before. Of the pitchers that have a realistic shot to be with us in April... AJ Murray was not great in his start. Gave up two hits and two walks in one inning. Just two runs as well. Jamey Wright looked good, putting in two innings of one hit, shutout ball. Robinon Tejeda stunk up the joint again, giving up 3 hits and a walk to combine for two earned runs. Most of the guys put up zeroes, except for minor league callover Tommy Hunter, who gave up 4 hits and 2 runs in his inning.

As I mentioned before, we weren't that great offensively. Of the 8 hits we got, two were doubles (Murphy & Metcalf); the rest were all singles. We were gifted four runs via all walks in the first. Our RBI's were fairly efficient too. Pedro Borbon had 2 & Travis Metcalf had 2. The other four RBI's were scattered (and two of THEM were just sac flies).

Overall, you can't argue with essentially a gift win, but it's nice to see us in in the 10th, as opposed to the loss we usually get when the game goes just ten innings. :)

In a game that could be considered somewhat sloppy and not terribly well pitched (4 errors, and 24 hits), the Rangers came from behind in the bottom of the ninth to win on Sunday, 8-7. Now before I get started talking about the game, I have to say that I did listen to the entire game. I was by myself listening to it. Unfortunately, I listened to most of it unconscious. I fell asleep somewhere around the bottom of the third, and woke up as the Rangers were coming to bat in the bottom of the ninth. It was the usual Sunday afternoon siesta. Both my wife and kid were also asleep in their respective bedrooms. I was in the living room blowing Z's on the sofa. But my little girl woke me up, and announced "I like it when Daddy has baseball on the radio!". For some reason she thinks it sounds like "music". I don't get it, but I'll take the fact that my kid wants me to have baseball on the radio. :)

Late winter acquisition Jason Jennings started this game for the Rangers. His first batter was walked. After that, not much else. In fact, there was nothing else, as he had no hits, and just the one walk in two innings. Obviously, we don't want to proclaim him awesome just on THAT, but it's nice to see that line instead of say the line that the next Rangers pitcher threw. That was Luis Mendoza, who went 1.1 IP giving up three hits, two walks, and four earned runs. Not good (although two of those runs were when Rowe was on the mound). Of the four other Ranger relivers, Eddie Guadardo escaped unscathed, with no hits and no runs. Fukumori wasn't bad either - two hits over two innings with one unearned run. Josh Rupe & Rowe each gave up an earned run in their mound time.

On the flip side, only KC pitcher Luke Hochevar didn't give up any runs.

Offensively, we were led by Josh Hamilton, who went 3-3 with an RBI. Ian Kinsler had two