Recently in 2009 Game Recaps Category

Well, I never wrote specific commentaries for the rest of the games of the World Series for two reasons. Well, first, I had family in town to visit for my son's Baptism, which was this past Saturday. With them in town, I didn't have much time to write, and then on the last day they were here, I got sick. Pretty sick - I had spiked a fever as high as 102.8. Today is the first day I've not had a fever since, but I'm still pretty "hazy" in my head, so I won't write much.

I'm disappointed that my Phillies didn't repeat, and I'm doubly disappointed it was to the Yankees. Unfortunately, my early playoff prediction turned out right. Yankees over Phillies in 6. Sigh. Yeah, I could take solace that my hometown team was in the World Series two years in a row. But it would have been so nice to WIN twice in a row, something that still hasn't been done in a little over 30 years in the NL.

Congrats to Chase Utley for tying Reggie Jackson for most home runs in single World Series (5).

The other thing is that former Rangers Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, & Jerry Hairson, Jr (!?!?) have World Series rings now. :(

Anyway, this is the last update for the "2009 Game Updates" series. I'm not in the mood to retroactively write updates for the games I missed - much less Game 6 where it was over.

Normally, I don't write about games the Yankees win, but this is the World Series, I kind of have to. :)

Game two of the World Series goes to the Yankees. To be honest, I figured the teams would leave the Bronx tied. Obviously, I would have preferred my Phillies take 2-0, but it pretty much turned out the way most people expected.

On paper, I thought the Phillies had a good chance if Pedro could hold up. He had a great game in LA, but somehow I didn't think he'd be like that again. He wasn't, but he was still pretty good. AJ Burnett I saw as the weak point in the rotation, I figured we could get to him. We didn't. Their lines:

Pedro: 6IP, 6H, 3ER, 8K, 2BB
Burnett: 7IP, 4H, 1ER, 9K, 2BB

Pedro gave up solo home runs to Texieira & Matsui, which was all they needed. The Yankees tacked on another run later, but the last two innings were pitched by Mariano Rivera, who didn't give up anything (although he had a somewhat shaky 8th).

Jayson Werth was picked off first base by the catcher, which was embarrassing, and seemed to issue a change in tone for the game at that point.

Both teams benefited by a bad call. The Yankees by a called DP where replays showed the Philly runner was safe. The Phillies by that lineout double play that was really a short hop that Howard "caught".

Really odd to see Jeter bunt with two strikes. That makes me wonder. You can foul off 50 pitches, and it stays strike two. You tap at one, and you're out. Who decided that?

Finishing off with Pedro, I felt he shouldn't have been out there for the 7th. I think he should have been done after six, and some national media were saying after 5. But overall, his line was not bad at all. Really.

Looking forward to the games in Philly. My family is in town for my son's baptism this weekend, so we'll be watching the games here.

OK, my Phillies are back in the World Series. Against the Yankees. Back when the playoffs started, I kind of thought it would be these two. Even went so far as to predict the Yankees would take it in six, because I didn't think the Phillies would have enough after Cliff Lee to take the Bronx team down. There's still a ton of time for that prediction to come through, but man, do I feel better after Game 1 of the World Series.

Cliff Lee v CC Sabathia. Despite all the hype coming in about how this series would be nothing but 9-7 games with multiple home runs in each game, that is NOT what we got. Sabathia pitched pretty darned good (7IP, 4H, 2ER, 6K), but Cliff Lee was way better. Lee threw a complete game, allowed no earned runs (there was one unearned run in the 9th), allowed only six hits (three to Jeter), and struck out ten, while walking nobody. He was seriously dominant, and the only blip was in the ninth, when he allowed two hits to start the inning. That was the ONLY time the Yankees had more than one runner on at a time in the entire game. Lee was just filthy. He struck out Jeter swinging to start the game, and it pretty much set the stage.

Outside of Jeter, who had three hits, the Yankees scattered only three others. Singles by Damon, Posada, & Matsui were it. One of Jeter's hits was a double, everything else was a single. Other strikeout highlights were Mark Teixeira fanning twice, and Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod, who has been tearing it up this offseason so far returned to the A-Rod of playoffs past. When he was nicknamed "The Chiller", and couldn't hit jack. That's what happened tonight. Arod went 0-4 with three strikeouts! It was really the playoff A-Rod of old, was a great sight to see! Jorge Posada, who is in the game mostly because of offensive reasons (according to some national press) also struck out twice, so the 3-4-5 slots struck out seven times in 12 at bats! WOW.

The Phillies early on wasted a chance I thought to REALLY set a done. Sabathia walked two around a double by Ryan Howard. That loaded the bases, but Raul Ibanez grounded out, scoring nobody. This is pretty much the way it stayed until the third when Chase Utley eeked a ball over the right field fence for a home run, giving the Phillies a 1-0 lead. This must have pissed off Sabathia, as he struck out several more batters after that, and retired I believe eight in a row after the home run until Utley came up again in the sixth, this time tattooing another ball over the fence, only that one was a no doubter, for a 2-0 Phillies lead.

The Phillies got into the soft underbelly of the Yankees - their middle relief. In the 8th and 9th, the Yankees used five different pitchers, and in those innings, they gave up four runs. Two in the 8th, and two in the 9th. The ones in the 8th came when Raul Ibanez got a second chance with the bases loaded, and delivered that time with a single to right. The runs in the ninth came on a single and a double, but the Yankee pitchers were having some issues late.

As if Lee's pitching wasn't enough, his defense was up there, too. Had a rather blase catch of a popup to the mound early, and then later on caught a liner up the middle behind his back. You can catch video of both of these plays here.

It was quite a good game, despite the 6-1 score. Both starters pitched well, but fortunately, the Phillies guy pitched better, and that led us to the win, no doubt.

While I hold no illusions that Pedro Martinez will pitch like Lee did tonight, I do wonder what we'll get out of him. Pedro is an enigma in 2009, he's not what he was, and guys like that who start to play the bounce around game with teams usually get toasted from time to time. I really hope that's not Thursday.

That's it. The 11th season I've had this site up for has ended. It ended like so many others have ended. With a loss. I have to confess though. It was a game of lasts.

• Last game for Hank Blalock as a Ranger (is there anyone who REALLY believes he's coming back? Bueller?)
• Last game for Omar Vizquel as a Ranger. I wouldn't mind bringing him back next year again, but my gut says it won't happen.
• Last game on the payroll for Vicente Padilla - although he's in the playoffs. Grrr.
• Last game with Tom Hicks as the owner? Perhaps.
• Last game for Andruw Jones as Ranger. For anyone? Maybe.
• Last game for Ken Griffey Jr? Like ever? Maybe.

I have to say, I watched this game, I flipped between this and football. I didn't want to miss this, yet I didn't want to not see football, either. So it'd be watch a series of football, then switch over and watch an inning of Baseball. Thank good ol' TiVo for that. About halfway through it occurred to me that this very well could be the final game ever for Ken Griffey Jr. I liked him a lot when he was with Seattle the first time around. I used to come out to games I wouldn't have come out to otherwise to see him. So when I realized he was coming up for his last at bat, I paid attention, and I was quite glad to see him get a single up the middle. Don Wakamatsu pinch ran for him, so he got more applause. Then he got called out of the dugout for a curtain call (that's what the pic is above). It wasn't quite the love fest that Pudge got when he departed after the 2002 season, but it was really nice to see. I enjoyed that.

As for the game itself, Scott Feldman couldn't get past 17 wins. He lost the game, and finished 2009 with a 17-8 record, which is freakin' fantastic. Knowing that he had the chance in September to get to 20 is a mild letdown, but man, 17 wins was what you were expecting from Padilla & Millwood coming into 2009. Not Scott Feldman! So this bodes well for 2010. Six innings, four earned runs on six hits and a walk. Ended the season with a 4.08 era. Quite respectable, even if that number was driven over 4 with some early (bad) bullpen outings.

The Rangers only had four hits the game, but made 'em count. Two doubles (Murphy, Kinsler), and two singles (Borbon & Davis). The RBI's were by Davis, Teagarden, & Gentry.

As for Hank Blalock, he seems to be squeezed out. There is no real position for him going forward, given the guys we have coming up. Davis is already causing a problem for Blalock with playing time, and if we get anyone else up next year like, I don't know Justin Smoak, I can't see where Blalock would fit, either position wise, or salary wise.

Andruw Jones? Nice experiment, but I can't see where he'll fit, either.

Omar Vizquel? I really liked him. But he can actually still play, and probably deserves a better job than part time backup. Although at 43 (in 2010), I don't know if anyone will give him that.

First off, I actually watched this game. Figured with just a couple left, I should watch at least one. The Rangers didn't actually pitch too bad here. The offense couldn't come through - which was the big story of 2009. We could pitch, but didn't always hit.

Tommy Hunter went 4.1 innings, and gave up just two innings. Few too many hits though (nine), and one walk. His pitch count wasn't too outrageous (83 in the 5th), but he was laboring. Thing is, the guys who followed him (Grilli, Feliz, O'Day, & Wilson) all gave up no runs. Only Darren O'Day gave up any hits, either (one). The pen was really good.

Unfortunately, Seattle's pitching was better. Their starter went 6.2, giving up just the lone run (an RBI double to Elvis Andrus). Rangers did manage seven hits, but they were well scattered. Only one Ranger got two (Andruw Jones). Even the three doubles were mostly ineffective.

But again, it's the story of the 2009 Rangers. They were mostly ineffective offensively. Been hearing some chatter about how Rudy Jaramillo's contract is up, and some folks are wondering if perhaps it might be time for a change there. He has been the pitching coach for 14 years now, through a ton of managers (Johnny Oates, Jerry Narron, Buck Showalter, & now Ron Washington). A lot of good has come from him, and I'm not advocating a change, I think we should bring him back. But I wonder what it would be like otherwise. Bring back Rusty Greer as hitting coach?

Anyway, just one more game to go. Sunday is Game #162 where we play for our 88th win of the season. But my Phillies are in the playoffs again! :)

Didn't see any of this game, as I had TiVo problems. I actually wanted to, as there's only three left including this one. Saturday night I'm having some friends over for the Stars season opener, and then Sunday is football.

We clinched second place with this game, and if we win the other two games as well, we'll end up with 89 wins. Rather respectable, but far short I think of what most people were expecting, once they realized the team could be good.

I don't ever want John Lackey as a Ranger. Because we seem to tee off on him a lot, he's a guy who is very good for everyone, but not with us. The Angels, having clinched, only had him in for two innings, but we had four hits and two runs on that, both came on Chris Davis' second inning home run.

Andruw Jones was the only Ranger without a hit. Everyone else had at least one (Gentry, Murphy), with most guys having multiples (Davis had 3).

Kevin Millwood, though, had a great outing in his final one for 2009. Complete game, seven hits, one walk, three runs (only two earned), and ten strikeouts. Too bad this wasn't the one we got all season. Kevin started quite well, crapped out in the middle, and had a few decent outings towards the end. I'm sure much will be made of Nolan's conditioning when looking at Kevin's season.

Still, as jaded as I've become towards the team at the end of the season, I'll be eager to see if this can carry over to next year, when Kevin's playing for a contract - probably his final big one, I would imagine.

Well, the late September version of the Texas Rangers showed up again. They led off the game with a Julio Borbon single. That was it. There was nothing else to our offense, except for a few walks. The Angels pitching staff (five of 'em) one hit the Rangers.

Figures.

The Rangers lost to the Anaheim Angels (yeah, screw you Arte Moreno, that's a stupid name you thought up, the one you inherited was way better) on Tuesday, 5-2. They were formally eliminated from all possible playoff scenarios with that loss.

That is all.

On a day where the Rangers could formally be eliminated from the AL West chase, as well as the Wild Card chase, they deliver a big stinking pile of.. you get the point.

That was bad. The only thing that has mathematically allowed the Rangers to have a feeble chance at still making the playoffs was that Boston was rained out. We'll be formally eliminated on Tuesday night.

Count on it.

The final home game of the Rangers 2009 season ended pretty poorly.

We were actually winning 5-0 going into the 8th inning. Brandon McCarthy was pitching quite well, actually. 7.2 IP, 6 hits, only two runs, neither of which were earned. Then the bullpen stunk up the joint. In fact, all seven Rays runs came in the 8th & 9th. Frank Francisco was particularly bad.

Sigh. No taking a lap of the ballpark on this finale.

I was planning on skipping this game. I had some other family stuff going on. However, I tuned in at the bottom of the fifth, and had a minute or two, so I peeked in. Picked the right time, that's for sure.

The Rangers were losing 3-1 at the time I peeked in, and I have to say I wasn't sure why I picked that moment to stop and watch. It was a party, that's for sure. The really fun part is that all the scoring happened after there were already two outs. That's very sweet.

- I. Rodriguez singled to shallow left
- C. Davis doubled to deep left center, I. Rodriguez to third
- J. Borbon walked
- E. Andrus lined out to shallow right
- J. Hamilton struck out swinging
- M. Byrd homered to deep left center, I. Rodriguez, C. Davis and J. Borbon scored
- H. Blalock singled to center
- I. Kinsler walked, H. Blalock to second
- J. Bennett relieved M. Garza
- D. Murphy doubled to center, H. Blalock and I. Kinsler scored
- I. Rodriguez singled to shallow center, D. Murphy scored
- C. Davis singled to shallow left, I. Rodriguez to second
- J. Borbon singled to shallow right, I. Rodriguez scored, C. Davis to second
- E. Andrus walked, C. Davis to third, J. Borbon to second
- J. Hamilton doubled to right, C. Davis, J. Borbon and E. Andrus scored
- M. Byrd walked
- D. Thayer relieved J. Bennett
- H. Blalock flied out to center

I enjoyed the grand slam. Heck, I enjoyed the bottom of the fifth. Too bad there weren't more games like this the last month, or we would have been actually playing for something this night.

What are the highlights here?

Gabe Kapler hit a solo home run. No wait, that would have been a highlight 9 years ago, but he did hit a home run in this game. The home run the mattered here was Ian Kinsler's, his 30th, which made him a 30/30 guy. The only other person to do that was Alfonso Soriano, a couple of years back. He took 20 games and 78 at bats to get this milestone. It's nice that he got it, but man has he been in a slump the last month or so. I hope he can realize there's another direction to hit the ball besides straight up in 2010. We'll need it.

Josh Hamilton also returned, but at this point, it doesn't mean much - I think he should just sit, given there's only a single digit number of games left, and they don't count for anything (even though I suppose technically they do).

Derek Holland was better than he's been the last 6 or 7 games or so, but not like he was when he first started. Probably out of gas, or overwhelmed, or any other rookie adjective you can send over. I bet Hannah Baugh still loves him.. wait, given Hannah's age, I should say "Hannah hearts him". ;)

I didn't watch any of this game, but I did hear some of it while driving around. Yesterday I went to the Stars exhibition game, and before that I picked up the couple of friends I went with early, and we went out to dinner. Because of that, I had the Rangers game on.

Needn't have bothered, really. The Rangers were blown out because Scott Feldman was worse than Mark Clark. He needed to win them all to get to 20 wins. It didn't happen when trying for #18 on Thursday. He could still get to 19, as I count he'll get two more starts. But not if he pitched like this.

The new scoreboards in the American Airlines Center are QUITE nice. Very good looking.

Hank Blalock had two doubles and a home run. It helped. We needed it, too. All of it. Barely squeaked out a run. I didn't see any of the game, I was playing Animal Crossing with my daughter on the Wii, then put the kids to bed, and well, I had already given up on the season anyway. Rangers will pitch a perfect game, and I'll miss it, most likely. :)

I didn't watch any of this game, to be perfectly honest.

I got a new BluRay set in from Amazon today, it was Season 2 of the original Star Trek series. I immediately sat down to watch "The Doomsday Machine", probably one of the most iconic episodes of the original Star Trek series. Even watched it with my four year old daughter, so it was her introduction to the original Star Trek.

Then after she went to bed, and the Rangers game came on, I delved into the "Tribbles" disc. There were several things on here. First, was the original "The Trouble with Tribbles" episode, the Animated series episode "More Tribbles, More Troubles", and finally the Deep Space Nine episode, "Trials & Tribble-ations". Enjoyed all of them. Enjoyed the set. If you're a fan of the original Star Trek, and have a Blu-Ray player, get these. You'll be glad you did. Review of this new set is here.

When it was over, I noticed the Rangers game was done, I peeked, saw we had lost 9-1, and went "meh".

Random other comment: Today I thought the World Series will be Philadelphia vs either Boston or New York, probably more likely Boston.

I spent most of this game working on one of my other websites. I had the game on the radio, but it was background noise. I did, however also have the MLB Gameday thing up in another Firefox tab, when I'd peek in from time to time, but I wasn't paying attention for the most part.

I did, however, happen to notice one of the more expensive double plays in team history. It was this one, which was the moment that Kevin Millwood's $12 million contract vested for 2010. So much for the conspiracy theorists who spent a lot of time thinking the Rangers should sit Kevin. Think of a way to save the museum at the ballpark, instead.

Anyway, here's a shot of the expensive play..

It did, however, guarantee that we would have a winning season. But I think most Ranger fans (even me, given my attitude at the end) would prefer a season record that was indicative of the general good play we've had this season, and not just finish with like 84-85 wins.

The Rangers lost. I barely peeked at the game. I was busy watching the Eagles - Saints game at the time. Then at 3PM I watched the Steelers - Bears game. Both my Pennsylvania teams lost. That's a drag.

However, in the evening, the Cowboys lost, which really REALLY brought me back up. If a stadium that garish could possibly be "deflated", it certainly was in the last 15 seconds of the game.

After Friday night's shutout, I had mentally given up on the season. I have to say, I wasn't interested in this game. I mean I cared somewhat, it's not like I'm shutting off completely, but I was disinterested in watching the game.

Right around 7:10 or so, I fired up the MLB AtBat app on my iPod Touch to see who was starting the game, and discovered the game was already in the fourth inning. At that point, we were winning 1-0, and I have to say I was surprised at the fourth inning. I watched a little on the iPod Touch app, and then passed out on my bed, as I had been up since 5:30 when woken up by the baby.

When I woke up, I went and played some "The Bigs 2" on my Xbox 360, and wasn't even interested in watching the game, to be honest. Was having fun with Home Run pinball in Times Square. :)

When I checked back in on the Rangers game, it was over, and we had won. Which is good, I suppose, but it really REALLY feels like "too late, guys".

We did score three runs, which is a major uprising, given last week's offense. However, it still isn't a major offensive production, three isn't terribly great. Good thing Feldman was there to win (his 17th), otherwise we would have lost yet again.

Speaking of Feldman, he has an outside shot at winning 20 games this year. By my count, he can get three more starts this season, the third coming on the actual last game of the year. It would be quite an accomplishment for him to do that, it's been quite awhile since we've had a 20 game winner.

Half a dozen seasons ago when the Rangers came out with their then new logo, the circular Texas Rangers logo... A lot of people were kind of "meh" about it. Some people (like myself) didn't care for it. To be honest, I said at the time it looked too much like the Montreal Expos logo. I thought it lacked imagination.

But this morning, I realized the real reason they chose that. It looks like zero! Which is the number of times this team has won in the post season, and also the number of runs they seem to like putting up in late 2009 - when it matters! I mean look at it. It LOOKS like a zero, it's like we're being mocked. MOCKED I TELLS'YA!

Pretty darned sad. It's what, about 600 innings in a row now without a run? And 1,433.2 if you add in David Murphy's solo home run from a few days ago?

Five in a row.
Zero for five games (27) with runners in scoring position.
One run in the last 46 innings
7 1/2 back in West with 16 to play
7 back in Wild Card with 16 to play
The Angels Magic Number is 9
The Red Sox Magic Number for the Wild Card is 10

If anyone was still holding out hope (I kind of sort of still was even though I said they were done after Tuesday), forget it..

The only thing I'll say about this game individually is that catch that Nelson Cruz made in right with the bases loaded in the second was really quite good. Kept things from getting out of hand, really. Like they weren't already in the larger scale.

I didn't think the last few games could be topped by bad play. I was wrong.

Wow, that was just pathetic. Lose 4-0 to the A's. Get one hit (single by Marlon Byrd) by the A's, the last place team is bad.

We now have four straight games in a row where we went a combined ofer with men in scoring positions.

We've scored just one run in our last 37 innings.

We're six games back in the West, and 6.5 in the Wild Card. It might be time to bring out that tugboat picture I have posted here the last few years or so when we're done.

Ian Kinsler walked twice, but he popped out to the outfield about 25 more times, too.

Sigh.

I was at this game. I wasn't expecting to me, but I was sitting in the library in Garland near my house, and saw a message posted by Michael Gonterwitz asking if anyone wanted tickets to the game. I did, so I headed on down. Turned out it was great, because I got to sit in Section 15, Row 3. The view from there was quite awesome. Thanks a lot for the invite, Mike. I had a good time sitting down there - was quite the treat for me.

Unfortunately, the view was about the best thing in the game. The Rangers continued their total lack of offense in this game. Well, that's not ENTIRELY true. They did score one run. But it was their only run of the game, and the only run for the previous 22 innings when it happened. So now the Rangers have one run over the last 27 innings. UGH! I mean..

It was bad. Brandon McCarthy was all over the place. Three innings. Only allowed four hits, but he walked three, and allowed four earned runs. Neftali Feliz gave up the others, and his ERA "raised" to 1.46, just about an entire point, as I think he was at like 0.65 or something like that before this game.

We also had three errors. A throwing error by Pudge, a fielding error by Esteban German, and offhand I can't recall what the third was. It was sloppy to say the least.

But the more annoying part was our offense. We had just five hits. Two of them were doubles (Byrd & German), two were singles (Murphy & German), and one was a home run by David Murphy in the fourth. It broke the scoreless streak at 22 innings, but was pretty pathetic as the lone offensive output over the two games before this, AND this one.

I think we're about done, folks. Would take a miracle to bring the team back, and even if they did get in, you'd get the feeling they'd be like the San Diego Padres, who back in there, and get destroyed in the first round, since they're not really that good.

I mean, when you're more interested in getting a good shot of the live Dot Race when it runs right past you instead of most of what was going on in the game, you know you're watching a bad team.

I think that might be it, folks. While I haven't completely given up for the 2009 season, that certainly was a deflating feeling. Yeah, I know. We're only technically 4.5 games behind Boston, but it doesn't feel good, my friends.

This was great through five. Then not only did the wheels fall off, but they all fell off, the truck went off the road, went upside down in a ditch, and the only thing to do in the meantime was read Jean-Jacques Taylor articles about the Rangers while you waited to be picked up by AAA. What a nightmare!

Anyway, I digress. Feldman looked great through five. Then it sucked. SUCKED HARD. Rangers have now been shut out two games in a row, and haven't scored in what, about 50 or 60 innings? Actually, it's 19 and change, I believe, but who's counting?

Thing is, I'm not even mad at this. Usually I get mad at losses like that. Not this one, I was just sad and disappointed.

Felix Hernandez (and two relievers) shut down the Rangers. Julio Borbon had three singles, which was half of the total offensive output the team had. No runs.

Derek Holland seems as gassed as Millwood has lately. Six innings, eight hits, two walks, five earned runs. As good as Derek seemed when he came up, he seems positively pedestrian now. He's young, I can pass it off, but you would have loved to have seen one of our kids lead us to the playoffs, eh?

Really - not a lot to say about this one. Felix Hernandez was great, we couldn't mount any offense. Meh.

So Friday night's game was rained out. Saturday night's game probably should have been. So we get to Sunday. We have a doubleheader to play. Due to some insane television coverage rules (I think), the DH was scheduled to start at 12:05. Due to the rain still in the area, the game didn't start till just about 5PM.

The game was finished in two hours and eighteen minutes. Why? Tommy Hunter. He threw a complete game on just 102 pitches. The breakdown was 68 strikes and 34 balls. The Mariners managed just six hits, and just two runs. it was not totally dominating, but it certainly was a really great performance. Something that's needed given how many doubleheaders we've pitched. Nice to rest the rest of the pitching staff with a complete game in one of the doubleheader games.

Offensively, it was four doubles, three home runs, and five singles to account for the Ranger runs. Given how soggy the grass was, the home run by Chris Davis that landed on Greene's Hill sank into the grass, and disappeared. Made me laugh. Made Tom Grieve laugh on the air, too. You can catch a little of that by watching the clip on mlb.com of the home run.

Not a ton to write about. Tommy Hunter was great. Our offense put up a seven spot. We won the game. :)

The Rangers were outhit 15-6. That's the bottom line, really.

Kevin Millwood was ass. 3.2 innings, 8 hits, 2 walks,5 earned runs. He's out of gas it seems, and I'm starting to see rumblings that the Rangers should sit him to not let him get to his vesting option. If they tried that, I could quite easily see Scott Boras raising a stink about that. I'm sure someone will write about whether or not Nolan's "just shut up and pitch and stop whining about pitch count" mentality is causing this or not. But Kevin Millwood now is not the guy you want pitching a lot should we still manage to make the playoffs, which is more and more starting to not look like it's going to happen.

I could write about the relievers, but I don't want to. Millwood's pitching performance was pretty bad, so I don't feel like writing about Rangers pitching for this game at all.

If you want to look for something good, three of the six hits the Rangers got were extra base hits. Doubles by Kinsler & Davis, and a home run by Julio Borbon, which itself accounted for two of the three RBI's. In fact, the other RBI was Borbon, too. So he had all three of the team's RBI's. Marlon Byrd had two singles. Not much else going on besides that.

Except rain. Lots of rain. They played through the game in a lot of rain until the bottom of the ninth when the Rangers had a man on first, and were playing in a swamp, more or less. Byrd had one of his two singles to lead off the inning, then Nelson Cruz hit a ball to short which was a perfect double play ball, except that Wilson slipped and fell, and Byrd slid past second base. It was a mess - it reminded me of the postponed Game 5 swamp in this past World Series.

Don Wakamatsu came out, and said something to the umpires, and play was put on hold, as the teams came off the field. The tarp was run out, but it had been raining on the field for a few hours, there was almost no point. The game was then called roughly an hour later, and it was over.

Granted, the Rangers were down by five there, but we did have two on with nobody out. I would have liked to have had the chance to keep going. Would have been nice to pick up the bottom of the ninth the next day or something like that. Would like to hear an official explanation for that or something.

Well, the headline says it all. Fridays' game was rained out. It didn't rain too hard around here, but it did in Arlington, as the game never got started. Was kind of looking forward to it, as well. I did spend the time with family. First putting my daughter to bed, then after that, played a little "The Bigs 2" on the Xbox 360, and when my wife was done putting the baby to bed, we watched a little "Man v. Food". Man, that's a great show.

Anyway, this will be made up Sunday as part of a doubleheader. That's particularly annoying for me, because I have some church commitments I have to go to. I could probably postpone those, and go to the games, but since my family only has one car, that would deprive the rest of the family, and I can't do that. Anyone want to pick me up in Garland, and go to the DH with me? :)

Kevin Millwood was supposed to pitch Friday night. He's pitching Saturday, and Derek Holland & Tommy Hunter are pitching the doubleheader on Sunday.

A little while ago I made the remark that Scott Feldman really was the Rangers staff ace. That notion is now getting some movement as Dave Barnett referenced the fact that Feldman is the real staff ace now. Makes you wonder, if all things are equal if Scott Feldman will get the opening day nod for 2010. He certainly deserves it. Millwood has held that position the last few years, but man, he doesn't really deserve it in 2010, does he?

Today was highlighted by seven shutout innings for Scott Feldman. He scattered five hits and a walk - none of them in the same inning. Which would explain why a five hit shutout had only one 1-2-3 inning (the third). He left with 111 pitches thrown, which would possibly be the only knock on him, that's a few too many pitches. Not obscenely too many, but a little on the high side. General convention says you should have 105 through seven. So not too awful, but the lack of more than one 1-2-3 probably contributed to that. But you can't argue with this.. This was the fourth shutout in the last nine starts for Feldman. Wow.

Offensively the game started with a bang. Cleveland starter Fausto Carmona was beyond awful. 0.2 IP, 5 H, 5ER, 1BB, 1K, & 2 HR. He threw 41 pitches, and only got two outs in the game. I mean, as much as it was good for the Rangers to have a performance like that, you felt bad for Carmona (although not TOO much - haha). Those five runs were all scored before 11:30AM Dallas time. And that's all we got offensively this game. That's all we got for the majority of the game - we didn't get any more until the ninth inning.

The biggest individual performance was Esteban German, who went 5-5. Nelson Cruz was the only Ranger without a hit, taking an 0-5. Marlon Byrd, however, continued his assault in Cleveland. While he didn't have as many hits as the doubleheader, he did have four RBI to go with his 2-5 performance. Other notable things is that Pudge had 3 RBI's. We also had 10 batters in the first, scored nothing else for seven more innings, then had a total of 11 more in the ninth as well. We had five runs in the first, and five runs in the ninth. Probably could have had a lot more in the ninth, as we left the bases loaded.

The game was finished off with some fantastic defense in the ninth inning. There was a great lineout to Elvis Andrus, and then a big play from Andrus to Chris Davis.

For the first time since the end of the 1999 season, the Rangers are 19 games over .500. They're also just a game and a half behind Boston for the Wild Card. Of course, as I write this Boston hasn't played yet tonight, so it could end up being just one game. LET'S GO ORIOLES!

Marlon Byrd went 4-4 with a walk in game 1 of the DH. In game 2 he went 3-5. That's most impressive - combined, Byrd went 7-9 with a walk. Wow.

But he wasn't the only one hitting this game. Everyone did - nobody took an ofer. In fact, just three of the nine Ranger batters had a single hit (Andrus, Jones, German). Three guys had two hits (Cruz, Murphy, Teagarden), and three guys had three hits (Kinsler, Byrd, & Davis). There was a ton of offense. If you count game 1, that's 21 games in the doubleheader, which was a nice bounceback after the scoreless streak we had just gotten over. Five doubles, a home run (Davis), and a pile of singles accounted for all of that.

Bradon McCarthy was charged with five earned runs. I say charged, because Eddie Guardado allowed the two inherited runners he took the mound to to score. Those runs were the only ones allowed, though. None of the Ranger relievers were charged with any runs. McCarthy, if you take away the last couple of runners pitched fairly well, and looked like the early season McCarthy. Man, you get the feeling that the 2009 incarnation could be good just in case he could stay on the field. Oh well.

Kind of pressed for time, plus it's hard to write about a game while another one is on (I'm listening live to the Wednesday game at the moment). Nice to get a sweep, even though both Boston & Anaheim won. We still gained half a game on those by the benefit of the doubleheader sweep.

We're now 6-0 in three doubleheaders this season. That's sweet.

David Murphy solo home run in the second
Julio Borbon solo home run in the third
David Murphy fielder's choice RBI in the fourth
Pudge double, scoring David Murphy in the fourth
Elvis Adrus double, scoring Julio Borbon in the fifth
Marlon Byrd three run home run in the seventh
Julio Borbon solo home run in the ninth
Pudge double, scoring Byrd & Cruz in the ninth

That's the list of the Ranger runs, and how they scored. That's all after the Rangers had gone sixteen innings without scoring a run at all, so it was a nice breakout. They needed all of that to get the win, however. Would have been nice to coast, and not worry like that.

Julio Borbon's two home runs were great, it was the first multi home run game of his career, and he raised his career home run total from 1 to 3. :)

Marlon Byrd was the big deal, though. Byrd went 4-4 with a walk, so he was on base all five times he came up. Scored twice, had three RBI's.

The team also had five doubles, a specialty of recent Ranger vintage, too.

But, as usual, with a game that had a total of 20 runs between both teams, there were some epic level pitching breakdowns. Of the nine pitchers used total between both teams, only one didn't allow any runs. That was the final pitcher by Cleveland (Mike Gosling), who only pitched 1/3 of an inning. He also only threw one pitch, too. I'm not going to list all the pitching awfulness, as there was a lot - just look at the MLB Recap link above. Man, it was some pretty ineffective pitching. For the record, the Rangers threw 136 pitches total, and the Indians threw 163.

But the game was definitely closer than I wanted it to be. Still, a win is a win. We'll take it. We need a lot more this month.

I noticed an article that came out last night which had an update on the sale of the Rangers situation. The full article talks about a few things, not just the Rangers - the relevant part of the article is about halfway down the page under the subtitle of "UPDATE ON POTENTIAL SALE OF THE TEXAS RANGERS". A few of the bullet points.

• Hicks is looking for about $600 million for sale of the team.
• The Rangers value appears to be currently lower than the San Diego Padres. (eek)
• The only names that have come out are David McDavid & Nolan Ryan, so no new names in the article.

The article also goes on to say there could be ownership issues for the Stars, too. While it doesn't explicitly state that, the words used in the article imply (or maybe I'm inferring, not sure) that there could be an attempt by creditors to force control of the team from Tim Hicks, despite there not being any move to sell the Stars at the moment.

I suggest reading the article. It isn't all new news, but it is a good summary of the current situation, as it is known to me.

Not much to say about a rainout. I had the game recording on the TiVo, and when I saw it was rain delayed, I padded my recording by three extra hours at the end. It appears to have been called somewhere around a two hour and 20 minute delay from the outset tonight, although I'm not 100% sure about that.

Anyway, it will be made up as part of a doubleheader on Tuesday night - the first game is now scheduled to start at 4:05.

That makes two doubleheaders in a week for the Rangers. Haven't seen that in awhile.

Tommy Hunter was supposed to start Monday night, and will start Game 1 of the doubleheader. Brandon McCarthy will start Game 2.

I don't even want to write about this. :(

I missed most of this game, as I was driving around in the afternoon, and only heard bits of it on the radio. When I started listening, the Rangers were up 3-0 going into the bottom of the first. Then they gave up a run to the O's in the first. Then they gave up another run to the O's in the bottom of the second. They picked up one in the top of the third, but then gave two more back to the O's in the bottom of the third. That was the end of the scoring for the Rangers. The O's however, tacked on a single run in the bottom of the fifth, which turned out to be game winning run, as no more runs were scored after that for either team.

Sigh. At least the Red Sox lost.

The Rangers closed the gap in the wild card race to just two games with a win in Baltimore, as Boston got shellacked in Chicago on Friday night. They did it with a familiar story, really awesome starting (and relieving) pitching.

Wait.. WHAT?!?

It's amazing that the 2009 edition of the Texas Rangers is seemingly more known for its pitching than its offense. Scott Feldman, who took the mound in Baltimore on Friday night is one of the best examples. He's 15-4 on September 4th, and that's really amazing considering he started the season in the bullpen. While his record wouldn't be that radically different, perhaps maybe 17-4 if he won both of the starts he might have gotten in early April, it's even more amazing if you look at the numbers of those three appearances.

Apr 9 - Cleveland - 2.1 IP, 5H, 4ER, 2HR, 2K, 0BB
Apr 13 - Baltimore - 2.2IP, 4H, 3ER, 1HR, 3K, 2BB
Apr 22 - Toronto - 1.2IP, 2H, 2ER, 0HR, 1K, 2BB

After those three relief appearances, his ERA was sitting at 12.15. Which was actually a drop, because after April 9th, his ERA was 15.43! A guy with an ERA over 12 isn't a likely candidate to be added to the rotation, but he was. His first start was April 25th in Baltimore, actually. He went five, threw 78 pitches that game, and was not terribly stretched out, in a spot start for Mr. Anna Benson. Scott never left the rotation after that. While I do not believe it's a realistic option, just seeing his name mentioned with the words "Cy Young" in the same sentence is nothing short of totally amazing. I know great players can come from any round (as evidenced of what the 62nd round once produced in Mike Piazza), but the fact that we're talking about a potential Cy Young performance from a 30th round Texas Rangers self drafted starter is just stunning. I know Kevin Millwood is technically the staff ace, but wow, is Feldman pitching like it. If we make it to the playoffs, I know who I want in there easily multiple times in a five game series. :)

Scott last night went 6.2 innings, allowed just four scattered singles, no runs, and a couple of walks. Left with 102 pitches thrown, and two guys on base, so he was pulled before it got out of hand. His performance Friday night lowered his ERA from 3.72 to 3.62.

Scott wasn't the only pitching story - Neftali Feliz took over for Scott and threw the final 2.1 innings of the game. As good as Feldman is, you look at Feliz and go - "Oh wow" - if his numbers hold up like they do now, it would be stunning. I don't think it will, there will be a crash, or an adjustment, a comedown, or whatever you want to call it at some point, but Feliz is fantastic, too. Last night he went 2.1 innings for the save, allowed NO hits, NO walks, and struck out two. He lowered his ERA to 0.41. ZERO POINT FOURTY STINKIN' ONE! Wow. Can he be a weapon in the playoffs.

I mean who would have thunk it? The Rangers have been out of the playoffs for a decade now, and when we got back? We were led there by our pitching. Just amazing.

On the other side of the ball, we didn't exactly destroy Baltimore, but had a decent amount of offense. Double by Davis, home run by Cruz, and six singles accounted for our runs. Andrus & Byrd had two hits each, the rest were all 1fors. The RBI's came from Byrd, Cruz, Pudge, and two by Chris Davis on his double.

It's a lot of fun to be in this race, isn't it?

Well, day one of this series had a major thrashing of Texas by Toronto. Day two was a doubleheader that we swept, but lost Michael Young. So what would happen for an encore on the third day? Well, some good, and some bad.

The good was that we won the game. That gave us the series 3-1, and on top of that, we gained ground on both Boston & Anaheim, as both of them lost their games, too. As of the end of the day, we were now just 3.5 games behind Anaheim, and 2.5 games behind Boston for the Wild Card. That's a pretty good feeling.

The bad was that Josh Hamilton came out of the game, with what was described later as lower back soreness. I spotted that when he ran out the double, he wasn't running terribly hard, and after he did get to second, it took him awhile to stand back up, he was in obvious discomfort. So I wasn't surprised he came out at all - although the TV announcers seemed to be.

Tommy Hunter took the mound for Texas, and while he wasn't lights out like he's been in a few starts lately, he did decently. Certainly enough to get the win, which he got - his seventh of the season. Tommy went 7 innings, giving up five hits (two of which were solo home runs), four runs on a couple of walks. Not exactly dominating, but a decent outing. He did come out with just 86 pitches, which was a low number for seven innings. Not entirely sure why he came out when he did, really.

Chris Davis handled third for this game, but he's not expected to be the regular third basemen while Michael Young is out. That's expected to be a mix of Omar Vizquel & Esteban German; mostly Vizquel.

Offensively, Nelson Cruz had the best night, going 3-4 with two RBI and two runs scored - one of which was on his six inning home run. Hank Blalock also had a couple of hits, and the remainder were scattered amongst the Ranger bats; nobody else had more than one. There was another home run - a solo shot by Elvis Andrus, and a double from Josh Hamilton. But not a lot of sustained power inside innings, as evidenced by the 1-1-2-2 score breakdown for us.

Jarrod Saltamacchia was activated off the DL - he still needs his surgery, but he's being carried as the emergency catcher, and as a pinch hitter - he's not expected to catch again in 2009 unless something goes very wrong ahead of him with Taylor & Pudge.

We're 75-58 with just 29 games to go. If we do well in Baltimore and Cleveland (like sweep both, which is possible), we'd come back home 81-58, and that would guarantee us at least not to have a losing season. But realistically, at the rate we're playing, I'd like to see them do way better than just that. WAY better.

I didn't take as many pictures during the second game as I did the first, but I did get some. Let's start with this one.

Pudge screwing up the chalk lines behind the plate before the first pitch is thrown. Something that was really nice to see in a doubleheader. Truth be told, I figured he'd catch one of the games, but it was great to actually SEE it. He DH'ed in the first game, caught the second.

Brandon McCarthy took the mound for Game 2. When this season started I was feeling good about Brandon. I think most Ranger fans were. I called him the key to 2009. We needed him to pitch well if we were going to have a chance. Through May, when he went on the DL again, he was doing pretty good. 5-2 with an ERA in the 4's. I forget the exact number, but he was decent. Not lighting the world on fire, but doing well enough. Then he went back on the DL, and was there for about three months until yesterday. I don't know about you, but those three months pretty much sapped out any good feeling I had about him early in the season. So when it was announced he was starting in Game 2, I didn't feel good about it. Quite frankly, I figured both games would be big losses. Wrong. Brandon went 6.1 innings, giving up three hits, one run, while both striking out and walking two. In fact, when he walked off the mound in the seventh inning, he got a very nice standing ovation.

There wasn't a ton of action through the first few innings. In fact, no runs scored in the first three and a half innings. Both Brandon McCarthy & Brian Tallet were pretty good about not allowing runs to score. The Rangers had runners in each of the first three innings (Kinsler walk in the 1st, Murphy single in the 2nd, & Kinsler single in the 3rd). None of them scored, although Kinsler did get to third base in the first inning. Likewise, the Jays had a runner in the first (Aaron Hill single) and the second (walk to Kevin Millar), but neither advanced. They were gone 1-2-3 in the third. Hill walked in the fourth, but was wiped out on a double play, which ended up as a 1-2-3 inning, too.

Then we got to the bottom of the fourth inning, and we got this with Josh Hamilton's at bat..

Josh had deposited a ball over the Rangers bullpen for a solo home run to lead off the fourth. It was majestic to watch, one of those long ones that gives you a chance to admire it as it heads out. That wasn't all the scoring in that inning. Chris Davis was up, and at that point, Murphy & Pudge were already on base due to a walk and a fielder's choice. Davis busted ass down the line, and beat a throw on a routine grounder to second. Brian Tallet was late getting to first, which allowed Davis to reach. By this point David Murphy had been on the move, and Tallet at this point made a really wild throw to try and stop Murphy, and it was worse than his failure to cover his base, so it allowed Murphy to score. Was a great moment. The Blue Jays harnessed their inner Bad News Bears in that sequence. Loved it.

We actually ended up loading up the bases again here, but didn't get anything done further, as Ian Kinsler popped out to second base to end the inning with the bases loaded.

The Rangers plated two more in the fifth. Elvis Andrus led off the inning with a double, and on a 2-2 pitch, Josh Hamilton bloody well rocketed a pitch into the right field stands to the left of the wedgie. It got out in a real big hurry. Was a no doubter. Two home runs for Josh is impressive this year. It's the first time he's done that. Coming into this game, he had just nine home runs for the entire season.

I interrupt this game commentary to bring you another picture of Ranger players watching the girls dancing on the dugout. This time it's Derek Holland & Omar Vizquel.

The Rangers added one more run in the sixth when Chris Davis launched a ball onto Greene's Hill in center (which looks REALLY far away when sitting in Section 26). Anyway, that gave Davis some nice numbers for the doubleheader.. Chris went 5-8 with one run scored and four RBI. A good night for a guy who looked really lost when he was sent down to AAA.

Darren O'Day came in, gave up the first run (although not totally by his own hand, it was an inherited runner CJ Wilson allowed to score). CJ Wilson himself seemed shaky again. While not nearly as bad as he was in the Metrodome, he went 0.2 innings, allowing the one runner of O'Day's to score, but gave up no runs of his own.

Frankie came in and threw a perfect inning in the ninth to close it out for his second save of the day. He threw a total of eight pitches in the second game, for a total of 23 pitches and two saves for the day. Not bad work at all. Was really nice to see this twice tonight:

One thing that was NOT good was what happened to end the third inning. I watched Michael Young run down the line to beat out a throw. Nothing special there. Have seen that a ton of times. But when he hit the bag, he did this little hop, which while it didn't seem overly concerning, did seem slightly out of the ordinary. I didn't think anything of it because Michael wasn't grabbing anything, or didn't need help to get off the field. However, in the top of the fourth, Omar Vizquel moved from short to third, and Elvis Andrus was now playing short. Uh-oh. A couple of innings later, it was announced on the radio (I always listen when I'm in stadium) that he had pulled his left hamstring, and was going for an MRI today (Wed) to check it out. There was no concrete word last night as to what might happen, as folks were just reacting to it, but no matter how you shake it, he's out for awhile. Will he return at all in 2009? Dunno, but this has to totally kill any chance of getting 200 hits. Obviously, more info is needed from the MRI today, but no matter how you shake it, he's out. Just two weeks seems unlikely to return from a hamstring problem. Four weeks means he'd come back for the playoffs, assuming we get there. Anything more, forget it, it's 2010 for him. Gotta feel bad for the dude - he's stuck it out here for awhile with bad teams, and we finally get a good one, and he gets hurt right before the finish line. Let's see if he can come back early - but not TOO early, don't want to hurt himself long term just to play in the playoffs.

Let's hope we can hold it together without him. Maybe Josh Hamilton getting it right now is what we need to cover this. Chris Davis at third? Omar Vizquel at third? Dunno.

If this weren't September, he'd be on the DL. I mention that because that will hurt me on my fantasy teams he's on, since I can't DL him. There's no need to DL him for the expanded rosters.

We definitely do not want to be without this picture for too long. I know I don't.

I love doubleheaders. Always have since I was a kid. And I'm not talking about those fake "split" doubleheaders where they clear the place out between games. I mean real honest to goodness two for the price of one doubleheaders. I try and go to every one I possibly can. There was one earlier in the season, and it came the day after my son was born, so I think I would have been put into the hospital myself if I tried going. So I was looking forward to today for awhile. Got in the car and headed to Freebirds for a fillup before heading to the park. Given I'm still unemployed (sigh), I have to conserve money where I can. Then I drove to the game from there, which worked out, as I didn't spend any money on food at the Ballpark. One tip they don't publicize a lot. They have this "designated driver" program, where you sign up saying you won't drink any beers or whatnot at the game. You are put into a drawing for a Rangers jacket each game, and they give you a coupon for a free soda. That's the only thing I got from the concession stands the whole doubleheader. Filling up at Freebirds beforehand will do that. :)

Anyway, I got to the park, and my tickets were at Will Call, so I had no idea where they were going to be. Opened the envelope, and got a surprise. I had seriously awesome seats for the game. I mean, check this out - this is where I was sitting!

I have to confess I wasn't particularly looking forward to the pitching matchups. Dustin Nippert and Brandon McCarthy starting for Texas. I'll talk about McCarthy in game 2's remarks, but I have to say I wasn't thrilled at seeing Nippert. He's done decently overall, but my gut feeling said he was going to be torched. Perhaps it was fallout from the 18 runs last night - who knows. I wasn't thrilled.

The game got off quickly, however. Ian Kinsler popped a home run in the bottom of the first inning. It felt good, and it seemed like the ball clanged around in a sea of empty seats out there in left. I know the start of doubleheaders are always not terribly populated, but it seemed more empty than usual out there. That home run though was pretty much it for power. There was one Pudge double later in the game, but everything else was a single. Not much in the way of extra base hits in this game.

Speaking of Pudge, I was rather excited to see him in person as a Ranger again for the first time in ages. Pudge DH'ed in Game 1, and it was VERY cool to hear Chuck Morgan announce him again. As much as I feel this will be just for 2009, it would be very nice to see Pudge stay on past this season. It just "feels" good for a Rangers fan. Below are some pictures of Pudge in action during game 1. Just because it "feels" good. :)

Anyway, it wasn't all about Pudge. Dustin Nippert had a decent line, but sitting there witnessing his pitching, he wasn't dominating. His line was good, though. Six innings, five hits, two runs, one walk, four strikeouts. Dustin left the game with 99 pitches thrown, and at the time a 3-2 lead.

I have to confess, he did better than I thought he was going to. So good for him. Bad for me. I am confused about one thing. Several reports of the game online refer to the run scored in the fourth by the Jays as unearned, yet all the box scores list it as earned. Anyone reading this have a clarification?

However, after Nippert came out of the game, in came Neftali Feliz. It was cool to see the fans take to him the way they have. He got a huge round of applause, and when he was on the mound? Holy crap! He struck out the side in the seventh inning. He also threw 12 pitches, only one was a ball. It was sensational. He came back in the eighth, and while he threw a few more balls than one (six), he was equally as sensational. In all, Feliz threw two perfect innings. 27 pitches, 20 for strikes. Struck out four of the six guys he faced. Wow. Thank you - thank you, THANK YOU John Schuerholz!

One other nice thing to see was Chris Davis go 3-4. All three were pulled singles to right, but the third one scored the two runs we plated in the bottom of the seventh. It probably should have been an error, put I'm sure Chris will take the third hit, and a couple of RBI's.

Speaking of errors, Marco Scutaro made two of them this game. Which, if I remember right was rather odd, as the radio guys said he had only made four all season previously to that. There was another charged error in the game to Toronto (a fielding error by McDonald), but there should have been four.

Frank Francisco came in and threw just 15 pitches for the save. He allowed one hit, but that was it.

It was hard to get the name Rzepczynski into my iPod Touch when I scored the game. My pod kept trying to correct the spelling, and even then I had to check what I was typing a couple of times. That was one of the harder entries in scoring I've had to do ever. :)

One final remark. It appears that the Ranger players, and Pudge in particular like watching the Rangers six shooter girls dance on top of the dugout. Check out these two pics. :)

Usually towards the end of the year, we always hear about how many players the Texas Rangers have used overall in any particular season. The Rangers are usually towards the high end of that list. Injuries, callups, usually make for a long list, and you tend to forget the guys who are here so quick that they don't even have time for the proverbial "cup of coffee".

Last year I kept track of it, and it worked pretty well, so I'll do it again for 2009. This post will get bumped whenever there is a player who is making his first appearance for the Texas Rangers in 2009. I am going to count guys who get called up, but don't play immediately (or sometimes don't play at all), as they will be part of the 25 man roster officially. So here goes. The most recent additions will be on the top of the list. The original opening day 25 man roster is not in any particular order. The Rangers have one guy in the 2009 original 25 that is making his major league debut (Elvis Andrus), which was the same as 2008 (Kaz Fukumori).

#45 - Craig Gentry (Sep 1 - Major League Debut)
#44 - Pedro Strop (Aug 27 - Major League Debut)
#43 - Ivan Rodriguez (Aug 18)
#42 - Kevin Richardson (Aug 15 - Major League Debut)
#41 - Esteban German (Aug 5)
#40 - Neftali Feliz (Aug 2)
#39 - Dustin Nippert (Jul 7)
#38 - Julio Borbon (Jun 29 - Major League Debut)
#37 - Jason Grilli (Jun 9)
#36 - Doug Mathis (Jun 3)
#35 - Brandon Boggs (Jun 2)
#34 - Guillermo Moscoso (May 29 - Major League Debut)
#33 - Tommy Hunter (May 29)
#32 - Joaquin Arias (May 9)
#31 - Greg Golson (May 4)
#30 - Max Ramirez (May 1)
#29 - Luis Mendoza (Apr 23)
#28 - Darren O'Day (Apr 22)
#27 - Derek Holland (Apr 18 - Major League Debut)
#26 - Willie Eyre (Apr 15)

#25 to #1: Kris Benson, Scott Feldman, Frank Francisco, Eddie Guardado, Matt Harrison, Jason Jennings, Warner Madrigal, Brandon McCarthy, Kevin Millwood, Vicente Padilla, Josh Rupe, CJ Wilson, Jarrod Saltamacchia, Taylor Teagarden, Elvis Andrus (Major League Debut), Hank Blalock, Chris Davis, Ian Kinsler, Omar Vizquel, Michael Young, Marlon Byrd, Nelson Cruz, Josh Hamilton, Andruw Jones, David Murphy.

What was that mess?

It's pretty bad when you score 10 runs in three innings, with a 7 spot, and it doesn't feel like you did it, or it even mattered.

You can try making yourself feel better by saying things like "It's only one loss", and we're only 6 games behind Anaheim, and 4 in the Wild Card, but..

Wow. THAT SUCKED!

Uh-oh. Another well pitched game given away by the bullpen. That's happened a little too much lately. While it's not a true problem I think, the fact that it's happened more than once is a little concerning.

Kevin Millwood started the game in search of his first win against the Twins (!). Period. He pitched more than well enough to win. Six innings, six hits, two walks, and just two runs allowed. Both of those were on a two run home run to Jason Kubel. So Kevin was keeping things well in check. Felt good turning it over to the bullpen.

Jason Grilli came on first, and threw a scoreless, one hit inning of relief. That felt good.

What didn't feel good was what CJ Wilson did. One inning, three hits, one walk, and THREE runs allowed - all earned. CJ was also credited with a blown save, and loss. Good, he was total ass this game.

Offensively, We had a couple of doubles, a Nelson Cruz home run, and a pile of singles. Didn't exactly light it up, as Scott Baker kept us mostly in check. 7IP, 6H, 3R, 6K, 1BB. Their bullpen didn't allow us any movement, but it didn't matter.

Was a pretty deflating feeling in the bottom of the eighth, so there wasn't much fun to be had in the top of the ninth. Another late inning loss. Sigh.

I'm taking a pass on this one, but not for the usual reason. This evening after the game was over, I found that a friend of mine had to go to the emergency room. She had just had a miscarriage a few days before, and had come home after having that procedure done. She had to go back to the ER tonight, and has been worked on all night. It's almost 3AM now, and I'm gonna crash. My mind has been there tonight, plus I'm sure a lot of tomorrow will be spent dealing with fallout of her ER trip tonight. So I'm giving this one a pass - just wanted to say why, it's not a casual bailout.

God bless you my friend, may you be healed both physically and emotionally. You're too young for this kind of stuff.

"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." (1 Corinthians 10:13)

P.S. Scott Feldman was great, wasn't he? Nice to see him getting some love on ESPN (they had him on Baseball Tonight via telephone)

Darnit.

You know, after the game was over, I tried to think of some cool way to say how great this win was. I thought and thought, and couldn't come up with something good. All I wanted to say was "Man, that game felt great. The Yankees lost." This felt better than most Ranger wins against the Yankees, too. I can't quantify that, it just "felt" better.

AJ Burnett was actually quite good. Went six innings, gave up just two hits, and struck out twelve. That's 12 out of 18 batters he got outs on he struck out. However, one of the hits was a three run home run to Ian Kinsler. Then when Burnett came out, his successor gave up another three run home run - this time to Chris Davis - something I'm sure brought a smile to Jamey Newberg. Ian Kinsler followed up with another home run in the 8th. We just overpowered them. Which is no easy feat.

Dustin Nippert was completely ineffective, but was lucky as hell. He didn't make it out the fourth inning, and when he did exit, he had thrown 98 pitches. He also bloody walked seven batters during this time, and I believe only one of them scored. Jason Grilli followed up, and got the win, but deserved it. 2.1 innings of perfect baseball. CJ & Frankie finished the game out, not allowing any runs either.

I listened to the game on the radio in front of the computer, and had the MLB Gameday going too. I used their Twitter integration to chat with others about the game, which was kind of cool. Enjoyed that.

What else is cool is Anaheim lost and Boston lost. Good. Good, Good.

Oh, finally, after last night's game, I wrote that they need to end the Jason Jennings experiment. That turned out to be pretty prophetic, as before this game, they designated Jennings for assignment to make room for Pedro Strop. I usually don't get my baseball wishes answered that fast. :)

As has been my policy for the last few years, I don't write about losses to the Yankees.

I will say this, however.. I think it's time for Jason Jennings to go. It was a nice experiment for awhile. Drive through, please.

I really should know better. I really should. You see, last night my wife got something in from Amazon.com she's been waiting years for. One of her all time favorite TV shows was finally released on DVD. This would be thirtysomething. Anyway, she had the big TV after the kids went to bed, so I was going to watch the game when she was done. I had avoided the scoreboard by not going to ESPN or my Yahoo front page or anything like that. I was good. And then popped up something I forgot about. The Firefox plugin TwitterFox decided to tell me what Victor Rojas was saying. And he said this. GAH! Now I don't blame Victor, I blame myself for not turning off the plugin. I've figured out I need to avoid Facebook when I'm watching a game timeshifted (Hello Hannah), but now I need to turn off TwitterFox, too. Bleargh! So I knew the Rangers won before I started watching any of it. I did watch part of the game, the bits where the Rangers scored, pretty much.

As I've said numerous times before, anytime there's 19 runs scored in a game, there's not going to be a lot of good pitching. For the most part, that held up here, too.

Kevin Millwood had a horrendous first inning, but mostly settled down after that. Total line 5.2 innings, 7 hits, 5 runs, 5 walks, two home runs. Blah.

Jason Grilli. Ugh. Zero innings pitched, 1 hit, one walk. Both scored.

Frank Francisco. One inning. 3 hits, 1 walk, 2 earned runs. Bleargh! Even John Wetteland didn't give us heart attacks quite LIKE THAT!

On the other side... Joba "Fist Pump" Chamberlain.. 4 innings, 9 hits, 7 runs, 3 walks. No home runs, though. He was bad.

Chad Gaudin. 3.2 innings pitched, 7 hits, 3 runs, 3 walks, 2 home runs.

Domaso Marte finished for the Yankes, and went 1.1 innings, not allowing any runs, but that LOWERED his ERA to 11.05.

The best pitcher of the night was Neftali Feliz. Two innings, just one hit, no walks, 2 k's, no RUNS! O'Day also threw a zero on his line score, but he was just 0.1 innings pitched.

That's the pitching. Offensively, the Rangers had 16 hits, the Yankees had 12. The only Ranger to take an ofer was Marlon Byrd. Everyone else had at least one. The guys with multiples were Young (2-5), Kinsler (2-5), Chris Davis (2-4), Elvis Andrus (3-5), and Josh Hamilton (4-6). There were two home runs for Texas. A solo shot in the fifth by Nelson Cruz, and a two run shot that just cleared the wall in right in the 7th scoring two. There were three doubles in the game, but it was mostly singles, as we had 11 of them. It was a lot. The Rangers pounded on Mr. Chamberlain.

Then we had to fight off the inevitable Yankees comeback in the bottom of the ninth. However, since I saw the final score before I watched it, I didn't have nearly the nailbiting that most Rangers fans had. :)

Still, a win is a win, and it's nice to get out of the Bronx with some of those. Let's see what Derek Holland is made out of Wednesday night.

Scott Feldman comes in and shuts down the Rays to restore order to the win column for the Texas Rangers. Scott has been fantastic this year, but if you're reading this you don't need to be told that. He did turn in a performance today that was very cool. He did something a Rangers pitcher hasn't done in ages, and that's strike out eleven hitters. Scott went seven innings in all, and that's 21 outs. 11 of them were K's.

It didn't stop there, either. Darren O'Day struck out the side in his one inning of work, and Frank Francisco had one of his own, too. That's 15 K's out of 27 total outs. Really nice going there.

The Rays were held to just five hits in all. Just one was a double by Pat Burrell, and all the rest are singles. Burrell was the only one with more than one hit.

On our side, Pudge caught the game, and went 1-2 with a walk. Pudge? WALK? What the... He also drove in two of the four Rangers runs (Michael Young had the other two). There wasn't a ton of offense on our side either, but we didn't need a ton.

That's thanks to Scott Feldman, who has to be a serious lock for top of the rotation in 2010. If we insult him by not starting him in the rotation again, he should walk away from the Rangers. :)

A couple of home runs (Young, Byrd), a triple (Young), a double (Teagarden), and three singles weren't enough. The Rangers lost in 10 innings.

I hate writing about those almost as much as I hate writing about Yankees losses. If we go into the Bronx this coming week and are bad, I'll have an easy time with my updates. :)

One positive, Michael Young had another three hit game. That brings him to 159 hits with 39 games left. One hit per game gives him 198, I think he can pick that up easily enough and get to 200. :)

We've had decent luck against Tampa Bay starter Scott Kazmir - or at least my memory tells me that. So I was kind of surprised when I watched this game and he was the Scott Kazmir that "Scott Kazmir" says Scott Kazmir should be. Not that one who was just an average pitcher.

Against Texas on Friday, Scott pretty much shut down the Rangers, holding us scoreless through seven plus innings. That was finally stopped when Taylor Teagarden hit a home run off of him in the 8th to lead off. That was followed up by RBI's from Marlon Byrd & Andruw Jones. Jones' RBI I don't understand - I missed it live, in that his box score shows no hits, and no sac fly. Not sure how he was credited with his.

There wasn't a lot of Rangers offense. Six hits in all, and three of them from Michael Young (2 1B, 1 2B). Byrd & Andrus singled, and there was the Teagarden home run. But when Kazmir was pitching like that, there wasn't much to go around.

Dustin Nippert took the mound and pitched like a lot of Rangers pitchers in late August - "meh". Five innings, seven hits, five runs (four earned) two walks, and three strikeouts. The pen was pretty good (nothing allowed), but the runs against Nippert were all that the Rays needed for the win.

Well, Thursday was my 44th birthday, and I headed out to Arlington for my tradition of attending a game on my birthday. I've done that as long as I can remember. I've mentioned this here before, but if you didn't know I go on my birthday. If they're not in town, I go on the closest calendar day to August 20th. I have to confess when they signed Pudge, I didn't want him starting on Wednesday night. I wanted him starting on Thursday for the first time, so it would be my birthday game. That didn't happen. But I got to see him in the dugout! Wheeeee!

I did get to see Derek Holland in person, and he didn't seem to be "on" this game. He struggled in places, and while he still got the win, and didn't allow a ton of runs to score, it wasn't the smoothest outing I would think. Overall, his line was 5.1 innings, 83 pitches, seven hits, no walks, 3 k's, and just one run allowed. The reason it was just one run was in thanks to Netfali Feliz. In the sixth, Holland loaded the bases, and was pulled by Ron Washington. In came Feliz. This was something I also wanted to see, and while he didn't hit 100, there were several 97's and 98's, and watching him warm up, it really looked like Walter Johnson. I thought Feliz' movement in warming up really really looked like the old pitcher for the Washington Senators, Walter "Big Train" Johnson. Willie Eyre and Jason Jennings also tossed soreless innings onto this game, but the big moment was the second pitch that Feliz threw. With the bases loaded, he got Joe Crede to hit a squibber over to Michael Young, who stepped on third, and then threw to first for the inning ending double play. Just felt then like it killed the Twins. From that point onward, it was all smooth sailing for Rangers pitching.

The Rangers hitting was quite good, too. In all, we had seventeen hits. As I've said many times before, that many hits leads to a lot of things like "Every Ranger starter had at least one hit". Which is what happened. They all had at least one. We had three guys with three hits (Borbon, Young, & Blalock). Borbon chipped in with his first career major league home run, a pull job down the right field line, just to the left of the wedgie. In all, there was a lot of extra base hits. We had three doubles (Andrus, Young, Borbon) and four home runs (Byrd twice, Borbon, & Cruz). That Borbon was even here to get the shot when Cruz came back from the DL is a testament to how hot Borbon has been since first coming up recently. I'm glad he's sticking around.

Hank Blalock had three sharp hits, and he's been batting worse than Chris Davis was when he was sent down. Makes you wonder what's going on there.

The multiple home runs was a great, and we almost had six. Ian Kinsler upper cutted one that went WAY WAY up - over the foul pole high, but just to the left of the pole. The other one was a ball that Michael Young hit, that bounced off the top of the left field wall, and back in play. There was a video review of the ball, and man, it just missed being another home run by literally an inch or so. So we had four homers, but could have quite easily have had six. Nice to see the offense going.

The Rangers also turned three double plays, which I'm sure helped. :)

We head out on the road to Tampa, New York, & Minnesota to close out the Metrodome. That will be hard trip, and if we can do it without losing any more ground to Anaheim, we could be in good shape. New York will be the hardest, as they're doing quite well at the moment.

One last thing about Borbon. I don't think he should be wearing #29. That number should be a plaque hanging in left field with the numbers 26, 34, & 42.

The Minnesota Twins ruined the return of Pudge Rodriguez to the Rangers lineup. Oh, he was officially added to the roster the day before, but this was the first time (the real) #7 played in a game in about seven years or so. He got massive ovations, made some plays behind the plate, and was great with the bat, too. Pudge went 3-4 with a double, a run scored, and an RBI. It was a great return for #7. When we got him via a trade the other day, I theorized that he's here for the remainder of 2009, and that's it. If he plays like this, they could take a real look at him going forward as the backup, and trade one of the kids, but that's wild speculation, and said in the rosy feeling of the return of Pudge. That's a discussion for later.

Kevin Millwood took the mound, and with the departure of Pidente, he's now got more career starts than the rest of the starting rotation does combined. Kevin Millwood has 368, and the other four (Feldman, Holland, Hunter, & Nippert) combine for 91 starts. So Kevin has FOUR TIMES the combined starts of the other four. He didn't pitch like he was that far ahead of the others. 5.2 innings, 113 pitches, seven hits, four walks, and five earned runs. Bleh. He was done in by the recent problem the Rangers have - a meltdown inning. We gave up four in the sixth. I admit, when it started going south, I fast forwarded through it on TiVo. I didn't feel like watching that.

Offensively, we had no home runs, but we did have some other power. Two doubles (Byrd, Pudge) and a triple (Byrd again). Elvis Andrus also stole a base, and we had a bunch of singles to account for our four runs.

But the story of the night, even with the loss, was the return of #7 to the catching duties for the Texas Rangers. As much as I can't see it happening, it would be nice if he never left again. I'd really like that.

I'm taking a mulligan on this game, no time to write, about to head out the door for church, and have too much going on when I get back to write.

Although it was really REALLY nice to see Pudge take the lineup card out to home plate. Was a great moment after it was announced he was a Ranger again.

I'm taking a mulligan on this one. No time to write.

Before the Red Sox won their world series a few years ago, I used to love going to Red Sox games. Primarily because the games were usually good. It wasn't a blowout one way or another, the games were well pitched, well played, and I usually enjoyed them. Then the Sox won the World Series, and their fans became equals on the "jerkoff" scale with Yankees fans, and made it no fun to go to the Red Sox games. Oh well. Had I gone, this game would have been one of those ones from the past. 4-3 game, well played, well pitched, and one I did enjoy watching on TV.

Dustin Nippert took the mound for Texas, and he did well under the baking August heat (why day games in August - WHY?) Dustin went six innings, allowing six hits and three walks. A bit too many, but it didn't really hurt him - he only allowed two runs. Actually, as I look at the box score, it doesn't seem *THAT* impressive, but live, it seemed better than the line. Doug Mathis followed up and allowed just one hit, but it was a solo home run, accounting for Boston's third run. Beyond him, our two headed closer followed. CJ Francisco pitched two innings, allowing just one hit. Also struck out five of the six batters faced, which was nice to see, after the fiasco on Friday night.

Offensively, we didn't have a ton either - with only four runs, there wasn't a ton, but we did have eleven hits. We had a couple of solo home runs. One by Michael Young, and another by Taylor Teagarden, which appeared to bounce off the corner of the new video board ring in left field. We also had three doubles.

We had a couple of double plays, and... HECK WITH IT..

WE TOOK OVER THE WILD CARD LEAD WITH THIS WIN! GO RANGERS!

Holland again! 6.2 innings pitched, seven hits, two runs, three stikeouts. He actually kept the Sox under control. The two runs he allowed were two solo home runs (Bay, Martinez). He's starting to feel to me like Cole Hamels did for the Phillies last year. Man, he's good.

The big story for me this game was the speed on the bases. Elvis Andrus & Pedro Borbon were running all over the place. The two of them had a combined seven steals, and Ian Kinsler also had one. The eight steals sets a Rangers franchise record now for number of steals in a game. It was almost like videogame baseball, where you jack the running speed up to max on your guys, and push down the arm strength of the opposing catcher. Varitek had no hope. A friend of mine who is a Sox fan says it's been that way all year with Varitek - he can't throw anyone out, apparently. But MAN was it nice to see these guys run all over the Red Sox.

Ian Kinsler was back in the game, but wasn't batting leadoff (Borbon was). Kinsler homered in his return to the lineup. He was also hit in the head with a pitched ball later in the game - not something that looked good at all, but at least it was't Hiroki Kuroda of the Dodgers.

Overall, the Rangers had 12 hits. Just two were extra base hits (the Kinsler HR, and an Andrus triple). Everything else was a single. So not a lot of power, but way more than enough to hang a seven spot on the Boston pitching staff.

But the important part was that we beat the Red Sox, and are back to just half a game out in the Wild Card race.

WHAT THE ..............

P.S. Shut up, Dave.

I didn't get to see any of this game. It started at 11AM, and by the time I realized it was on, it was mostly over. Normally I'd TiVo delay that, but since I forgot it was on so early, I saw the score in the middle of the game, and decided there was no point in watching then. :)

Scott Feldman got his eighth road victory of the season, and his 12th overall. That's 12 wins in mid August. At that rate, he could quite easily get to 17. I can't recall the last time the Rangers have had a pitcher with that many wins in a season. Anyway, Scott went 6 innings, seven hits, two walks, and six strikeouts. One run allowed - pretty solid outing for sure.

Hamilton keeps making moves offensively. 4-4 with a couple more doubles. His average is now up to .260. Andruw Jones also had a double, and Elvis Andrus homered. David Murphy had the last RBI on a sac fly.

As I didn't see this one, I'm not saying a lot, but it's nice to get out of there with a series win, altough I thought we should have swept Cleveland, tell you the truth. We come home to play Boston for the Wild Card lead in a three game series just half a game behind Boston.

GO RANGERS!

Edit: I looked it up. The last time someone had that many wins was Kenny Rogers in 2004, who had 18 wins. Kevin Millwood was close in 2006 when he had 16, though.

Tommy Hunter does it again. 7.2 innings pitched, 98 pitches thrown, six hits, no walks, five strikeouts, and NO RUNS! Tommy looked awesome again, and wow, is it refreshing having this much quality pitching from young guys. Always we had to grow our own, and man, 2009 makes it feel like we've finally got the message across. It's exciting. Man, it REALLY is exciting.

Offensively, Josh Hamilton led the way with three of the nine overall Ranger hits. He definitely appears to have found his groove again, right around the time he said he was coming off his ADD medicine. Josh had two doubles, and two RBI's in the game. Pedro Borbon also doubled, and the rest of our hits were singles. The other RBI's were pretty spread out (Blalock, Vizquel, & Andrus).

But this night was about the pitching. Tommy Hunter was really great, and CJ Wilson came in and threw 1.1 innings of scoreless relief, not allowing his one interhited runner to score.

All was good this game. Kind of amusing though that this is the third straight game the Rangers have been involved in where one team was shut out. It's also the second straight game with a 5-0 score, although not in the same direction. :)

Squeee indeed. :)

Well, this game was pretty much defined in the bottom of the third, when Dustin Nippert couldn't get anyone out. Cleveland scored five runs that frame. That was also all the scoring for the entire game.

Neither team was exactly pounding the ball. Of the six hits Cleveland had, only one was anything but a single (it was a double). Of the seven hits Texas had, only one wasn't a single (it was a triple). But enough of them came together in the third for Cleveland to push across five runs in one inning .

Dustin went six innings, despite that, and managed to strike out ten Indians in just six innings, so that was good. He only walked two, so overall he wasn't too bad. Except for the third.

When your team loses 5-0, and the other pitcher doesn't pitch a one hitter or something like that, there's not much to say in recap. Not unless you're getting paid to write about baseball, in which case you make the loss stories a bit more padded. heh :)

Last time Derek Holland pitched this way, I saw Hannah Baugh squeee herself into a fit of excitement. If Holland does too many more of these, poor Ms. Hannah might have her head explode! And then Derek will feel bad.

Seriously, most Ranger fans don't know what to do with repeated awesome pitching like that. I mean this was fantastic. I was talking to my wife about it when it was happening, and found myself referring to his stuff as "Nolan Ryan like". It was impressive, to be sure. His total line:

Nine inning complete game
Just 96 pitches
Three hits (all singles)
One walk
Eight strikeouts

It was fantastic to watch. I mean WOW. When I watch games in a hurry, I normally fast forward through the Rangers in the field to get to them batting. This time it was not that way, I wanted to watch the pitching.

I think I can stop saying things like "Derek Holland on paper won't beat John Lackey", because now we feel he can beat him. I'm not going to act shocked in my commentaries when that happens!

Not that Holland needed the help, but he definitely was helped out by the Angels in the field. They had three official errors, and at least one more that should have been. Here's a summary of their gaffes:

• On an infield hit by Blalock, John Lackey & Robb Quinlan got caught up going to cover first, and neither got there, and Blalock got an infield hit.
• In the same inning, Bobby Abreu muffed a simple catch in right, which directly led to two runs scoring.
• There was a catcher inference call against Anaheim.
• A ball in center was misplayed by Gary Matthews Jr for a double
• A throwing error on a Pedro Borbon stolen base

Shutting out the Angels 7-0 and also by the score of 11-6 (with four in the first inning) is a statement, I think. It's nice to go there and win 2-3. If we could just beat some other team this reguarly. :)

For some reason I don't even feel like getting into the Rangers offense this game. We scored seven, had a few home runs. We've sen that before. We haven't seen this kind of regular pitching from a Ranger guy in recent memory. It's exciting!

Squeee indeed, Hannah!

I wasn't able to see any of this game, although I did hear the Rangers scoring on the radio when I was driving around. Took a trip with the wife and kids to a restaurant we had never been to before. Was good, but not really worth the time and drive.

The Rangers still have a problem with Jered Weaver. In the past he's shut us down a lot, and this game was no different. In fact, other than the fifth inning, we weren't able to do much of anything.

The fifth had a two run home run by Hank Blalock, which accounted for all our scoring. There wasn't a ton of hitting, either. Six hits in all, spead out over four Rangers. Weaver went into the eighth inning, throwing 100 pitches, five hits, the two runs, and eleven strikeouts. Millwood wasn't bad, either - 6 innings, also only two runs. He had a few too many hits (nine), but they didn't seem to affect him too much.

Eddie Guardado followed, and gave up just one hit, but it was a big one - the game winning home run to Erick Aybar. Sigh.

I'll say this again about the Angels. When you lose to them, at least you don't have to see the stupid rally monkey.

After a day in which the Rangers cut loose one of their bigger "name" starting pitchers for what essentially amounts to him being an ass, we took the field in Anaheim.

We came in four and a half games out of first place. Which isn't insurmountable, but when we were in first place by about five not all that long ago, you got a bad feeling. We played pretty awful against Oakland, despite winning the last game before coming to Anaheim. So you kind of got that feeling of dread that we were going to lose the series and come out seven games out or something.

So it was quite a nice feeling when we went up 4-0 in the first inning. Josh & Tom were talking about Josh Hamilton saying he was coming off his ADD medicine that he believed it was impacting his play on the field. And of course, while they were talking about that, Josh hit a three run home run to right field. That set the tone for the game. Despite the Angels scoring six runs, and only losing by five, four of their runs didn't come until the seventh inning. We pretty much dominated the game. Four runs in the first, a single run in the second and third, and three more in the fifth put us up 9-1. We tacked on additional singles in the 8th and 9th.

Most of this came via the longball. In all, we had five home runs. Hank Blalock also had a solo home run in the first too. Then came the fifth. We had three home runs in the fifth - two of them back to back. Taylor Teagarden was first, then Omar Vizquel and Michael Young went back to back. Omar's was his first as a Ranger, and his first since something like September of 2007. He was probably helped by that tiny wall by the right field foul pole in Anaheim. Funny video of him doing the arm muscle flex in the dugout afterwards. Enjoyed that. A lot.

That wasn't all for Omar Vizquel. He went 4-6 and had some great D in the field. The more I watch him, the more I start to get a grasp of what he must have been like in his prime in Cleveland. Wow. I'd like to keep him around for next year, but I don't see that happening.

Scott Feldman was quite good, too. While his line shows four earned runs, three of them came in the seventh. And they were inherited. It's like Scott should have stopped after the sixth. He was stellar, and then couldn't get anyone out - left the game with nobody out and the bases loaded. So that blew his quality start, but overall, despite the numbers, he pitched really well. Good to see, especially with the departure of Padilla, we'll need guys like Feldman to stay consistantly good if we make a run at October.

Good to see a nice start to the series. Man, would it be some sort of major confidence and morale boost to leave Anaheim sweeping the Angels. I don't think that's going to REALLY happen, but boy, would it be nice.

Go Rangers!

Well, we salvaged the last game of the series. The Rangers won 6-4, and Tommy Hunter was way better than he had been the last outing (the one I was at, of course).

But to be honest, after so much gone wrong this series, I don't even feel like writing about the win. Not a great feeling heading to Anaheim. You just feel like the Angels are going to bounce back from losing to us all year, and bury us.

Oh, and the A's released Jason Giambi after the series was over.

After the last couple of games, with CJ Wilson blowing a save in the ninth, then being shut out, I didn't really want to watch this. And I made a good time choice. We lost again.

Bah.

The only good thing to say about this game is that Anaheim lost too. That's about it.

I was going to write about how Dustin Nippert was great in a spot start.

There was the freakin spectacular debut of Neftali Feliz. I mean wow.

But all I can think of now to write about this game is this..

SHIT!

Thanks CJ. Grumble...

It figures. The Rangers play four against Seattle. They win three of the four. Guess which one I attended in person? Of course, the loss.

Sunday was a bounceback day on many accounts. Scott Feldman bounced back from his disastrous start a week ago and pitched well. Seven innings, five hits, two runs, 4K, 2BB, and 101 pitches. Got the win. Barely (more on that later).

Frank Francisco bounced back from the DL to pitch a perfect inning of relief.

Our power bounced back, as we had three home runs, accounting for all four of our runs.

Unfortunately, some guys bounced onto the DL - Ian Kinsler being the most notable.

But, in the moment that will make Jamey Newberg the most excited, Neftali Feliz was called up. He didn't make his major league debut yet, but he was active and available. In fact, there was a mini gaggle of transactions before this game.

* 2B Ian Kinsler placed on 15 day DL, retro to Jul 29
* P Matt Harrison moved from 15 day to 60 day DL
* P Jason Grilli placed on 15 day DL
* P Neftali Feliz purchased from AAA
* P Frank Francisco activated from 15 day DL
* P Warner Madrigal optioned to AAA

Feldman came out after seven with the game tied 2-2, but before the eighth, Saltamacchia got his two run home run (off the right field foul pole) to give the Rangers (and Feldman) the win.

Was a nice comeback, and a good way to hit the road for awhile. A jaunt through Oakland, Anaheim, & Cleveland should be OK, given how well we've played Anaheim this season so far. Keep your fingers crossed.

Well, this was the (somewhat) annual Texas Rangers Hall of Fame induction game. I say somewhat, as recently, it's not a guarantee that everyone will get in. I was there for several of them in the past, and after the second year, I thought "Wow, at this rate, there won't be any really top notch players left to induct before too long. A couple of years ago, the team recognized this, and scaled it back to a similar deal with the National HOF. You need a percentage of the votes cast (which for the moment does not lie with the fans). So that's good, because we'd be down to electing Mark Clark.

One of the alumni was Scott Sheldon. When he walked onto the field, Chuck Morgan announced him as "infielder, outfielder, catcher, pitcher Scott Sheldon", which appeared to prompt Scott to point up in Chuck's general direction. That made me chuckle. :)

So I watched the ceremony, which is always enjoyable. It's great to see some of the old timers, and not so old timers come back. Always great to hear Chuck Morgan call Rusty Greeeeeeeeeeeeeer. I had brought a friend who was hoping that Steve Buechele would be there, but alas he was managing in A ball. I did not witness Toby Harrah play, that was before my time as a Ranger fan. Way before my time, considering he came with the team from Washington DC. I have respect for what he did, and his speech was cool, but I don't have a first hand connection to him as either a player, or his brief tenure as a Rangers manager.

Ruben Sierra I knew, though. While again, I did not witness him play his first go around, I did the second time from 2000-2003. His story when he returned in 2000 was quite impressive, and I know what he did the first time around, so yeah - I was more invested in Ruben Sierra. That the team brought up his son (who is really shockingly a spitting image of Ruben Sr, it's amazing) from A ball as a surprise guest at the ceremony was quite cool. I do have to confess at being surprised at how broken his English is, all these years later. He was highly emotional, and it was hard to hear him sometimes due to the combination. But it certainly felt sincere.

It was a great ceremony as usual, you can read the official writeup on mlb.com here. The official link also includes video of both Toby Harrah & Ruben Sierra, so you can hear what I mean about Ruben's speech. You can also check out all the photos I took from the game on my site here.

The actual game played by the 2009 version of the Texas Rangers wasn't nearly as good as the pre-game. Tommy Hunter came out and pitched like Mark Clark (OK, I'm dropping his name twice in this commentary). Five innings, seven hits, five runs, three walks, one home run. It was fairly ugly. Granted, he gave up a home run to Ken Griffey Jr, which is not a shameful thing, but still. He was all over the place. Really high pitch counts, full counts, just not good. I did really enjoy seeing Ken Griffey Jr. back in the ballpark again.

A shame about Hunter, as I was looking forward to the pitching matchup. Felix Hernandez held up his side of the bargain. Seven innings pitched, six hits, two runs. He did have four walks, and was vulnerable in the first two innings. But we let him off the hook. We had a chance to score in both the first two innings, but couldn't follow through. I even said that to the friend I was there with to see Buechele. Said if we let him off the hook two innings in a row, forget it, we're done. We were. We were never in the game.

Nelson Cruz' home run in the fourth was a bit of excitement. In fact, Cruz had three of the six overall hits the Rangers had. We were pretty much shut down for sure.

There was the entertainment of some guy running onto the field. However, he was stupid. He ran out and just stood there in left. If you're gonna do that, you're going to jail anyway, so you might as well run around a bit more than that guy did.

I'm now 1-3 in games I actually attended this season. The one was opening day.

The Rangers won a game that was delayed rather a lot in the middle by rain. Something like two and a half hours. To be honest, I didn't watch most of the game. It was on, but I was caught up in trade deadline discussions, so while the game was on, I was flipping between the Rangers game, and the talk on MLB Network as well as Baseball Tonight. I was a trade deadline junkie this day. :)

Vicente "Swine Flu" Padilla started the game for Texas, and went six. Six hits, three earned runs. One of those "technical quality starts" (as I call 'em). He was OK. Gave up a two run home run in the first inning, which is where most of the runs he gave up came from. That was the only power he gave up - the other five hits were all singles. Jose Lopez had the home run, and had three of the nine Seattle hits.

Offensively, Taylor Teagarden had a solo home run in the fifth. I point that out first, because he just missed a grand slam in the second (or third). Hit to the track, was an off the end of the bat shot - he "just" missed it. Darnit. Marlon Byrd however, made up for that with a three run shot in the bottom of the fifth. This was well timed, because at this point, it was obvious there was going to be a major rain delay.

And yeah. I was sitting at home. By myself. And I did the birdman flap. I'm such a dork.

Anyway, as the wind started blowing around and we were being treated to multiple shots of trash cyclones around the park, the rain started coming down. In the middle of a Michael Young at bat in the seventh, with the count 3-2, they couldn't take it, and called a rain delay. The rain delay was interesting for a couple of counts. I got to watch one of the "Under the Lights" episodes. The one with the travel in New York & Boston. I hadn't seen that one before, so I enjoyed that. They also showed the fireworks show on TV, as they shot 'em off during the rain delay. That's happened to be before. Some years ago I was there for a July 4th game, and there was a three and a half hour rain delay, and they shot off the fireworks in the middle. Something about curfew on fireworks.

Anyway, when the game started again, Michael Young took one pitch for a ball, and walked. But we had no more offense after the rain delay. In fact, Byrd's home run sealed the scoring for Texas. Jason Grilli allowed a run in the eighth to make it a little more interesting, but CJ Wilson closed it out for a 5-4 win. It was a long game. In fact, according to the box score (see the MLB Game Recap link above), the rain delay was two hours and eighteen minutes, which was eight minutes longer than the game (at 2:10).

We're three games behind Anaheim now (who also didn't do anything at the trade deadline), and just 1.5 behind Boston for the Wild Card. It's August 1st as I write this. The trade deadline has passed. I think at this point, you can realistically start talking about playoffs, and not have it be a "Hey, that's too soon" kind of thing. Go RANGERS!

P.S. I really like that we didn't deal Derek Holland. Let's hope that Holland holds up his end and shows us why we shouldn't have sent him away.

In the top of the ninth inning, this happened, and I don't think any Rangers fan really wanted to see it..

Derek Holland had done a lot to get to that point. In the ninth inning when this happened, he had allowed just two hits, and no runs. He walked just one batter, and STRUCK OUT TEN! He was seriously impressive, and on a night when there was mucho talk about him being put in a package to send to Toronto for Roy Halladay... I'll wager he kept himself a Ranger by pitching that way. If he was just "eh", he likely would have been moved. That's just a gut feeling. I'm writing this actually at 5:15PM on Jul 31st, and the trade deadline has passed now. But Derek Holland was pitching like Roy Halladay on Thursday night. He was just lights out. That Warner Madrigal allowed a run to score is a crime. That should have been a complete game shutout. I wished Holland was allowed to stay in there. Oh well, he didn't. But that's the story of the game. Derek Holland - WOW. Three hits by the Mariners in all. Very impressive.

It overshadowed the fact that there was a major power output by the Rangers, and the fact that our pitching got more talk than the home runs. Something else unusual for Texas. We had five home runs. Blalock. Salty, Byrd, and two by Michael Young, who has become a power machine in the last week or so. Young is on quite a tear, he had three hits again, which I believe is three or four in the last week. Impressive numbers. Nelson Cruz also had two doubles, so we had a lot going on with the bats. But it is quite an accomplishment when our starting pitcher's performance overshadowed what is the standard Rangers story of power.

Also, and I can't resist. When I first saw the M's reliever Chris Jakubauskas, I admit to a childish response. I looked quickly and thought it said Jackass. Sorry about that.

Well, that a big steaming pile of....

I mean, I should have heeded this warning, but I didn't. I actually watched part of this mess.

Taking a mulligan. No time to write today, too many things going on. Really nice to see Eddie Guardado chirp at Jim Leyland after a minor beanball war broke out.

http://www.rangerfans.com/images/eddiechirps.gif (Thanks to Jamey Newberg & Drew Shepard for that pic).

I also missed seeing the entire game, as my wife and I were watching the series finale of Battlestar Galactica, which had just come out on Blu-Ray on Tuesday. Since the kids were born, we don't get a ton of time just to ourselves, so I chose that over watching another Rangers game. :)

I don't think anyone expected Tommy Hunter to be the person to finally stop our 2009 slide against Detroit. If you're reading this, you know that we were 0-6 against Detroit this year going into Monday night's game.

But he was. I'm running out of time to write about this, but he was impressive looking out there.

Nelson Cruz & Michael Young both had really impressive home runs to almost the same spot in the ballpark.

Michael Young had three more hits - now at 123 for the season. At that rate, he'll end up with 318 hits. :)

Nice to get the win, and even better that the Angels lost, so we're now just 2.5 games back behind them. That's the same amount we're behind Boston in the wild card standings, too.

Kevin Millwood started the game, and you felt good about it, based on his performance this season. Felt like we'd be able to take the game and the series heading back home. Kevin went out there, and threw two innings, allowing a single hit. Struck out two. Then that was it. He was out after two innings, replaced by Dustin Nippert. At the time, you didn't know what was going on, but later in the game, it was announced that he was out with tightness in his left gluteus muscle. Doesn't sound like any fun.

So Nippert followed up with a pretty good performance. Nippert went 4.1 innings, and allowed just a single hit, two walks, and one run. In fact, all the Rangers pitching was pretty good. In all, the Royals got just four hits.

In fact, for the most part, the pitching was pretty good. The Royals trotted out there Sidney Ponson. Capt Aruba pitched like the guy that was with the Rangers for awhile. Six innings, five hits, NO earned runs. When you get that from Ponson, you thought - uh-oh. Perhaps they were going to outdo us. The game after all was scoreless through six innings.

Then we hit the seventh. Rangers led off with a double, a single, and steal, a fielding error, a couple more singles, you get the idea. We plated three in the top of the seventh, which turned out to be all we needed. The Royals scored one in the bottom of the seventh against Dustin Nippert, and another in the bottom of the ninth against Willie Eyre, but that was it. We also had a four spot in the top of the eighth, which was highlighted by an Andruw Jones home run.

Ian Kinsler had a fielding error, his seventh of the season in all.

In all, every Ranger starter had at least one hit except for Elvis Andrus. Michael Young had another three hit game, he's been on fire lately. In all, he has 120 hits for the season, well on page for another 200 hit season.

Coming home.

One of the other young pitchers for Kansas City stepped up and kept the Rangers mostly in check. It wasn't a dominating performance, but Luke Hochevar went seven innings, gave up three runs on five hits. One of the runs was unearned, but the big deal with him was that of the 21 outs he recorded, 13 of them were strikeouts. The Ranger bats were definitely flailing against Mr. Luke. Whether or not he was helped by the strike zone? Well, that's a job for Questec. :)

Anyway, it didn't stop there. Joaquim Soria got a two inning save, and of his six outs, three of them were strikeouts. So that was sixteen strikeouts by Ranger batters. We had three guys (Hamilton, Jones, Blalock) who struck out three times each. Three more guys (Cruz, Teagarden, Vizquel) who struck out twice. Marlon Byrd also jumped in the pool once. Only Ian Kinsler & Michael Young did not strike out. That was pretty ugly up there.

Offensively, the big deal for us was a first inning home run by Michael Young. That's about it. In fact, Michael Young had three of our six hits. He pretty much *WAS* the offense. Nelson Cruz had a double, and there were singles by Blalock & Byrd.

Derek Holland was meh. 4.2 innings, seven hits, four earned runs. Actually, "meh" is too good for that. He was "Mark Clark".

Not a good night for us. But so far it's better than recent years in Kansas City have been this series. Normally we would have lost all the games, so 1-1 after two is an improvement.

This was a good old fashioned pitcher's duel. Zack Greinke for the Royals against Scott Feldman for the Rangers.

Greinke has been getting a lot of hype for a CY Young award, and you could see why. He was masterful. Seven innings, three hits, one earned run, three walks, and TEN strikeouts. Actually, three walks doesn't fit with "masterful", but it felt that way anyway. Greinke made one mistake. Hung a ball to Marlon Byrd which he hit over the wall for a solo home run. Speaking of Byrd's home run, did you catch the fan in the stands in the red Rangers shirt doing the Byrd dance? That made me laugh. :)

The Rangers were pretty much shut down - we had only four hits all night. A single by Davir Murphy, doubles by Elvis Andrus (which should have been an error) & Hank Blalock, and the home run by Byrd. That was IT. Most everyone took an ofer. But it was enough.

It was enough due to Scott Feldman, who was brilliant. EIGHT innings (a career high), four hits, three walks, two strikeouts, but ZERO runs. He left with 110 pitches thrown. Had he not had that many pitches, he might have gotten the chance for the complete game - he was looking that good. CJ Wilson threw a scoreless ninth for the save, allowing just one hit.

Our pitching was freakin' fantastic. Wow. We win our fifth in a row. Didn't pick up any ground on Anaheim (still 3.5 back there) or Bostson (2.5 back there). We did pick up a game over Seattle (who was shut out) - now three games up on them.

Does anyone remember May 2, 2004? That was the last time the Rangers swept Boston at home (I believe). It's also the date of the famous SWEEP SWEEP SWEEP chant that just dominated the entire stadium - we have Hanks' Homies to thank for that. That was a major highlight, and while I don't believe the same thing happened this time (I didn't get to see/hear the game, more on that later), this is something I thought needed to be brought up from five seasons ago. :)

I mean, we swept the Boston Red Sox, before the series started, I believe the team with the second best record in the AL. That's seriously impressive, and as I wrote about in the last game's commentary, something that will probably serve us well, should we happen to be fortunate enough to meet up with Boston in the playoffs. Anyway, about this game...

I didn't see it. I got burnt by not checking my TiVo. The TiVo will record the ESPN feed for a game before the FSSW feed, because ESPN has a lower channel number. Since ESPN is blacked out, I got three hours of ESPNNEWS while the game was going on over on FSSW, not being recorded. Grrr.. Normally I pick up on those and fix it, but I forgot to look for this game. I just saw highlights.

Clay Buckholz, one of the "untouchables" for the Red Sox started, and got hit - a little. Not a lot, he wasn't awful, but six hits and two walks for three earned runs in four innings is a bit "meh". That was all our offense, however, as despite ten hits, we only pushed across three runs.

But it was enough, as Dustin Nippert, making a spot start for the suddenly flu bitten Vicente Padilla, got the win. Went 5.2 innings, giving up five hits and two walks - but just one earned run. Came out after throwing 94 pitches. He was followed up by Doug Mathis, who threw a 3.1 inning scoreless outing for a long save - his first of the year.

Kinsler had a home run, Marlon Byrd had a double, but otherwise, it was a power outage, as everything else was a single. Even the Sox didn't have a lot of power. Six hits for them, only one wasn't a single (it was a solo home run).

But a sweep of the Red Sox. We're closing in on the trade deadline, and we're just 3.5 games out of first place in the AL West, and just 2.5 games back behind the Red Sox in the wild card race.

It's exciting, man. I wonder who we'll move to bring in a piece before next Friday. You get the feeling something is going to happen. Well, OK, maybe I do and you don't. :)

Yet another game that proves the axiom that you have to play the game, and can't rely on the on-paper matchup. Because this game seemed like an easy made win for Boston. At least it did for me. Josh Beckett, who has all kinds of accolades, topped mostly by his performance as a Marlin over the Yankees a few years ago. The guy is good. Real good. Tommy Hunter is a decent enough pitcher, but let's face it. He's not Josh Beckett good.

Which is why the following lines are that impressive:

Beckett: 8IP, 7H, 4ER, 1BB, 7K, 104P
Hunter: 6IP, 4H, 1ER, 1BB, 2K, 85P

I mean, I'm picturing the old picture of "Dewey defeats Truman" here. I was really impressed with Hunter in this game. I remember when he first came up that I thought he'd be one of those "one or two starts, never heard from again guys". Nice to see myself wrong there.

Our offense wasn't exactly on fire either, but we had enough to get the job done. Two doubles (Jones & Kinsler) and five singles were all we got. But this game wasn't about our offense.

It was about Tommy Hunter beating Josh Beckett. Dropped the Red Sox into second. Good job Tommy. Lets see more of that!

This game was (mildly) billed a faceoff of two old Atlanta Braves pitchers. Kevin Millwood, who was with them less (1997 - 2002), and John Smoltz, who was with them for a lot longer than that (1988 - 2008). Given Smoltz is in that tail end of his career time, and Millwood is not, you'd expect that Kevin would have the upper hand. He did, although not right away.

The game started off fairly well pitched with a 2-1 lead by Boston holding up going into the bottom of the sixth inning. Then the wheels seriously fell off the Smoltz wagon, and he didn't survive the inning. It was longball time in the bottom of the sixth, which means the Sonic Slam contestant on TV won an additional $200 on top of what they had won for the first one. :) Michael Young, David Murphy, & Jarrod Saltamacchia all homered off of Smoltz. Murphy's was a two run shot, the others were solos. That accounted for the five spot the Rangers put up in the bottom of the sixth. It was also the end of our offense for the night, but it was more than enough. We did also have three doubles to go with the three home runs this evening, but the homers were the big story.

Kevin Millwood did a good job too, even though his pitch count was a bit too high. He only threw six innings on 111 pitches. He did get the win, as he gave up just six hits and a walk for two earned runs. A quality start for sure.

Eddie Guardado followed up with a scoreless frame. Darren O'Day gave up the other run (unusual for him), and CJ Wilson closed it down for his eighth save.

This game dropped Boston into a tie for first, and while I don't particularly want to help the Yankees, you have to like the fact we beat Boston. That can only be good if we meet up again later, like say October.

This picture is pretty much what everyone will care about for this game.

I mean you can talk about the first ever two sac bunts by Saltamacchia in his career. There's several other small things you can talk about. There was another home run by Ian Kinsler - the first at bat of the game, and it's cool that he got another home run on the last at bat to win the game.

But come on. Dogpile! That's all we really care about. Even kind of erases the down feeling from almost being swept.

DOGPILE!

0-16 with men on base, and 0-7 with men in scoring position. That's pretty ugly. No wonder we can't score. We can set up good, but we can't deliver.

That's pretty much the whole story. In fact, our only run came on a Nelson Cruz solo home run. That's it. Scott Baker was quite good. Eight innings, six hits, just the one solo home run, and eight strikeouts. A pretty good performance.

Scott Feldman wasn't as good as that, but he wasn't bad. Six innings, five hits, three earned runs on five strikeouts. He deserved better. Sigh.

Feeling flat. Meh.

(This is a short commentary, as I only have a couple of minutes to update before vacation bible school starts at church shortly).

Well, that was annoying. The only reason I'm writing was because I took the annoyed two line sentence stance I do for two of the last three games before the All-Star break.

The game started off pretty good, with a Josh Hamilton home run right over the wedgie that would have made the right field foul pole in Fenway Park proud of the "ball curve" path it took. Went most of the way up the stairs there, too - a pretty nice poke. In fact, Josh did pretty well overall in the game. He went 3-3 with 3 RBI's and a run scored.

He was, however, the only Ranger with more than one hit. He was also the only Ranger who got anything other than a single. He was the only Ranger who got any RBI's at all - Josh drove in all three.

However, it wasn't enough as Vicente Pidente was rather hittable. He did stay out there a long time - seven innings. But in that time, he gave up eleven hits. I suppose the only thing that kept it from being worse was the fact that he didn't walk anyone. The big blow was a three run home run by Jason Kubel in the third. Which actually was the close of the scoring. Neither team scored any more after the top of the third inning.

Pidente settled down, and put up zeroes during innings four through seven. But the damage was done.

Further damage was done when you look at the scoreboard and see that Seattle and Oakland won. Fortunately, Oakland was playing Anaheim, and the A's won, so we didn't lose any ground on first place, but it tightened up a bit below us.

I'm not going to say much, as I'm pressed for time, and I want to write this before I forget.

Well, the AL won again. No major shock there. It seems to happen all the time.

I really enjoyed the Presidential video before the game. I didn't think I would given the subject (real life people), but I ended up enjoying it.

Nelson Cruz didn't play in the game, but he had his moment the night before in the Home Run Derby.

Michael Young made a play in the field that looked like he'd been playing third for 10 years.

Josh Hamilton went 1-3 with an RBI. Michael Young also went 1-3.

Neither had any major impact on the game, except for perhaps Young's play, which I think saved a run at the time.

When it was announced that Nelson "Sail Around the World" Cruz was going to be in the 2009 Home Run Derby, I don't think anyone expected much out of him. I mean look at who he was playing against. Ryan Howard, Albert Freakin' Pujols, Prince Fielder. Not that Nelson Cruz is a slouch - he's having a great power season. But come on, he's not Ryan Howard or Albert Pujols. I think just about everyone EXPECTED Pujols to win the thing before it started.

Nelson came out, and showed some power in the first round. He tied Prince Fielder for most in the first round with eleven home runs. He also seemed to love the "Big Mac Land" sign in left field. First, he hit the thing, making a quite audible bang. A few later, he hit a ball right over the sign, and then the next swing after that one he hit it WAY above the sign, up into the fourth and upper deck. Quite a titanic shot. They only said it went 440 ft, but it looked a heck of a lot longer than that!

He had some that were quite impressive, and I enjoyed seeing Cruz perform. Obviously because I'm a Rangers fan I liked that, but I think I would have enjoyed that performance had I not known him ahead of time.

In round two, Nelson only had five home runs, but it was enough to give him second place after the second round, putting him in the finals against Prince Fielder. Nelson seemed a little out of gas, although when he did connect, it was good. Check out this chart of where all his hit balls went:

There's a video montage of Cruz's home runs via this link over at mlb.com. Stupidly, they don't allow you to embed video remotely, or I'd do that. Anyway, the ball that hit the Big Mac sign was his second home run. The one that went over the Big Mac sign was the eighth home run (roughly 1:34 into the video clip), and then the titanic shot was right after that at time mark 1:39.

Again, I liked seeing him get as far as he did, and I don't think there's anything bad with him second. Was a nice showing for him on the national stage.

Now that's the nice-y stuff. Here's the complaints...

1) TOO FREAKIN' LONG! - Nelson Cruz didn't come up to bat until the show was already about twenty minutes long. They had this silly thing first where someone came out, and pointed where he wanted Albert Pujols to hit a home run - and he tried. Twice. Didn't get it. Pujols took like a dozen balls before he swung it seemed. Wow. I don't really have a problem with this in theory, but given the problems this event has with being peceived as too long... Waiting 20 minutes to actually start is stupid. Perhaps this could have been after it was over, or inbetween rounds 1 and 2 or something like that? Come on.

2) TIME SLOT - This is more a TiVo/DVR thing, but.. Does anyone believe it will stay within it's time slot of two hours? Come on - this hasn't ended in under two hours in like, ever... Even before it started, I padded it by an hour, and you know what? It didn't even fit. My TiVo recording ran out (to record something else at 10PM) when Fielder was batting in the final round. Fortunately, I immediately flipped over to my iPod touch and the MLB At Bat app, which was showing the derby live streamed. I was able to see the end of it that way, but when the Derby doesn't fit within a three hour allotment of time (one of which was a grant from me), that's just STUPID. If I remember right, they finished the first round just a few minutes before the two hour mark. Good lord, that's nuts.

3) Chris Berman: I know a lot of people dislike Chris Berman. I like him a lot - but for football. I've never been a fan of his baseball commentating. Even saying that, I've always kind of liked him in the HR derby. But not anymore. I think it's time for a change - his shtick needs to go. I think they should put someone else in there. But NOT Joe Morgan. I could do another entry on why he needs to be replaced, too. ESPN has enough guys on their roster, they could stick someone else in there. Put John Kruk there, we could see the Randy Johnson / John Kruk footage every year. :)

4) Talking over at bats: I believe it was Joe Mauer this year, but it seems there's always a player that is up at bat, and the announcers are busy talking to some baseball player or exec or something during that player's Derby atbat. But they don't talk about the guy at the plate - they're talking about anything BUT him. While I'm not a Twins or Joe Mauer fan, if I was one, I'd be pissed they weren't talking about my guy, and talking about anything else. That kind of stuff should be between rounds, not DURING them. Shut up! What would be nice would be using the alternate language feed TV stations almost never use to let me hear what's going on in the stadium, but shut off the announcers.

I'm undecided about ESPN's home run tracker thing. The "put a trail on the ball" as it flies out of the park. I kind of thought that the NHL tried that some years ago with "Superpuck", and it went away when the real fans started a revolt over the idea. I expect the same thing will happen here. If they try bringing it in on their regular coverage, I might have to have a stronger reaction.

On the positive side, I am so glad they stopped having some sideline reporter accost the player when they come out of the box. They always asked them stupid questions like "What did it feel like when you hit home run #4?" I mean come on - who cares? That was auto skip stuff on the TiVo. At least it's gone - last night they just sent a kid with Gatorade and a towel, which is what it should be.

Overall, I think the derby is fine. I know a lot of people rag on it, but I think it's just minor tweaks and it can be OK. Does anyone remember the last home run derby that wasn't led by Chris Berman?

And for a laugh, check out this link, which is a drinking game based on the 2009 Home Run Derby. Made me chuckle for sure.

Well, that was annoying. I didn't think games 1 & 3 would be topped for annoying losses.

I was wrong.

Darnit. This was the same way we lost the first game in the series, more or less.

Here's the bottom line. Kevin Millwood was great through six. Stunk up the joint worse than any pitcher the Rangers have ever had in the seventh. Lost the game, 4-1.

Made me mad.

That's pretty much it.

This is good old classic Texas Rangers baseball. Much has been made of the 2009 edition being built on the classic baseball axiom of "pitching and defense". That much is true, our pitching and defense is improved this year. But Friday night's win was pretty much the old fashioned way of doing it. We homered our way to the win.

It's ironic that we win where 100% of our runs were accounted for by home runs on the day that Nelson Cruz was added to the All-Star roster (replacing injured Torii Hunter), and the night we heard that Cruz was going to participate in the home run derby.

It got started in the second inning when Hank Blalock hit a ball way out over the right center field fence. You kind of saw Ichiro making a half hearted jog in the general direction, so you knew it was gone before the ball was seen on TV.

The next inning was a three run shot by Michael Young. This was an opposite field job, which Ichiro came within inches of making a spectacular steal of the home run ball, but it landed a mere inches past his glove. This home run gave us the lead back - we were down 2-1 at that point. Nice for Young to get some numbers going again. He's got 106 hits at the moment just slightly past the halfway point. As long as he stays on the field, 200 shouldn't be a problem again.

The third and final home run was by Nelson Cruz. It was a titanic shot into the upper tank in left field. It was WAY up there - you don't normally see home runs hit up there. Perhaps Seattle fans do as they see more games in that park than we do, but I can only recall a shot by Arod going up there awhile back. But it was an absolute no doubter of a shot, even Nelson stood there and watched for a bit.

Scott Feldman started the game, and had a pretty good outing. Six and two thirds innings giving up seven hits, one walk, and just two earned runs. Not a bad outing. Derek Holland followed up on him, and technically allowed two earned runs, but htey scored on a hit off of Jason Jennings. Shame.

Frank Francisco came in and pitched a scoreless inning of relief to get his fifteenth save of the season.

Overall, a nice win. Hopefully we can win out in Seattle and go into the break on a strong note. We remain a half game ahead of Anaheim for the division lead, and Seattle is now 4.5 games back.

Tommy Hunter got screwed. He pitched six innings, allowing just four hits. No runs, three walks. 104 pitches. He was quite good. He matched Felix Hernandez very well. Felix went eight innings, three hits one run.

It was a spectacular pitching matchup. In fact, the one run we only had was on a wild pitch after a double steal. Definitely a manufactured gift run. The only three hits we got were all singles. Two of them were by Hank Blalock, and the other was Michael Young. That's it. That was the sum of our offense.

So to come out of that in the late innings with a 1-0 lead was quite impressive. The fact that we could win the game with so little offense was quite surprising.

So the three run home run that CJ Wilson gave up in the bottom of the eighth was particularly annoying. When the ball was hit, all I could think of was "Shit!". That's pretty much my one word review of this game.

SHIT.

Well, this game was really about one thing. Well, two.

The most important one was the fact that the Rangers took over sole possession of first place again. This win was a big deal, as we went into Anaheim not solely in first place, and left with sole possession of first. That's a big deal.

However, the sexier thing was the fact that Andruw Jones had a three home run night. He had one in the first, one in the third, and one in the fifth. Only four RBI's though - two of them were solo home runs. Those weren't the only home runs, though. Two other Rangers had them - Taylor Teagarden & Marlon Byrd. So this was a big power game. Nice that it was us with the power instead of the other way around. We also had a couple of doubles, so seven of the 12 hits were extra base ones. That's a nice display, for sure.

Josh Hamilton & Elvis Andrus took ofers, but everyone else had at least one hit. Three guys had two, so it was nice offensive display to leave in the mind of the Angels as we left town with the lead.

Vicente Padilla had a good outing. Six innings, and just one earned run. A few too many hits (eight), but it didn't damage his line. Six innings of one run ball is always a good thing. Jason Grilli, Eddie Guardado, & Darren O'Day came within one walk (Grilli) of throwing three perfect innings of relief. Something really nice.

Speaking of Darren O'Day, I was hearing some love for that pickup on XM Radio's MLB talk channel this afternoon, so that's nice to hear.

Boy, was this nice to come out of Anaheim the way we did.

Again, I refuse to call them the Los Angeles Angels. They're in Anaheim. Sorry Moreno.

I think pretty much everyone figured that John Lackey was going to last more than two pitches, and he'd be the good pitcher he really is. Last night was certainly the chase there. At least for awhile. Through the first four and two thirds, Lackey was putting up zeroes. We had a few chances, but he always danced his way out of trouble. Then came the fifth inning.

Elvis Andrus tried bunting for a single, but hit it poorly, it went straight towards the pitcher, so he was thrown out. After that, Ian Kinsler struck out swinging. Looked like another Lackey style inning. Then, as Josh Lewin said, the wheels came completely off. Seven straight Rangers reached base. After two outs! Here's a rundown:

1. Single by Michael Young
   
2. Single by Josh Hamilton
   
3. Home Run by Andruw Jones (on a two strike count, if I remember right)
   
4. Double by Hank Blalock
   
5. Walk by Marlon Byrd
   
6. Walk by David Murphy
   
7. Wild Pitch, scoring Blalock
   
8. Single by Saltamaccha, scoring Byrd & Murphy
   

After that, John Lackey was pulled from the game. He was relieved by Mark Bulger who stopped the bleeding in that inning. That was a six run outburst, all after two outs in that inning. Most impressive.

Overall, our offense managed fourteen hits. Only one guy took an ofer, that being David Murphy. But even David managed a walk, and scored, too.

Pitching for us was led by Dustin Nippert, who looked quite different with that beard. Also, he appeared to be wearing a rather thick necklace, which may have been new. The reason I think that is that he had a big tag of some sort on his left shoulder. It was either from his uniform, or the necklace. It was gone after the first inning. :) Anyway, Nippert was making his 2009 debut, and wasn't terribly great. He didn't survive the fourth inning. Gave up seven hits and a walk for three runs overall. The run output wasn't horrible, but seven hits in less than four innings is not. He was "meh". I've seen worse lines, but was really far away from even "just good".

That forced our pen into action early. Derek Holland threw two innings of relief, and allowed just a single hit. He also allowed a run, but it was unearned. In what would have been his final batter, Saltamacchia dropped an easy popup in front of the plate. Holland was relieved, and Jason Jennings had some issues getting guys out (he walked two more, loading the bases before getting out of it). Anyway, Holland was quite good. Two innings, 19 pitches, no runs. The rest of the pen only allowed a single run, and that was from Frank Francisco, who gave up a solo home run in the bottom of the ninth. While Jennings didn't allow any runs, he had some major control problems, and probably should have had a few runs on his book the way he pitched. Darren O'Day & CJ Wilson looked good, too.

The first game of the formal second half of the season put us back into a tie for first place with Anaheim.

I don't think anyone expected the Rangers to beat the Angels every game between now and game 162. However, for some reason this loss seems bad. Probably because of the way that Kevin Millwood pitched. Or more to the point did not pitch.

Kevin's been great this year, and has been chronicled already, should have been on the All-Star team pitching roster. This game however, was not of the same calibre. Kevin did toss five innings, but during those five innings, he gave up nine hits and three walks for a total of all nine earned runs. Was a stink job. It lowered his record to 8-6, and kept him from having 10 wins before the All-Star break, something of a goal I think everyone had for him. Still, he's doing well overall, and provided this isn't the start of a trend, it can be overlooked. Jason Grilli & Doug Mathis (who I just found out a couple of days ago switched uniform numbers in June) followed up and threw scoreless relief.

Offensively, the big night was by Josh Hamilton. Josh returned to the lineup for the first time in awhile and went 2 for 4 with a double and a single. Struck out twice, too. Ian Kinsler got a hit again for the first time in about two years with a home run in the seventh inning. it felt good, but you got the impression it was "little too late".

So we lost the game. The only positive thing about losing in Anaheim is that you don't have to sit through the stupid rally monkey nonsense. Although, as bad as the Rally Monkey is, it at least isn't just assinine. Which is a word that describes this Angels fan. Check out this jackass on Youtube. I wouldn't go there and insult him in his comments, as that would be as bad as what he does. Just vote his video one star.

Scott Feldman led the way to a sweep of the Tampa Bay Rays and a continued tie with Anaheim for first place. Scotty was quite good, going six innings, allowing just three hits and two runs (only one was earned). He did have a few too many walks (four), but gave up no longballs, and pretty much kept Tampa in check.

In fact, the three hits that Feldman allowed were all singles (Crawford, Burrell, Gross). Our bullpen (Jennings, Wilson, Francisco) all pitched a perfect inning to hold the game and grab the win. Really nice pitching in this game. Hopefully we can keep it up when we hit the road on Monday.

Offensively, we didn't have a ton going on either, just eight hits in all. Which is better than what Tampa got, but isn't an onslaught like the previous game. David Murphy was by far the best in this one with three of the eight hits. It was a singles brigade, with just two doubles (Young, Salty) being the only hits that weren't singles. Despite the number of hits, only three guys took ofers (Kinsler (again), Blalock, & Cruz).

Was one of those "just enough" games for the win and the sweep.

When we came into this game, I wasn't looking forward to the pitching matchup. Not that I didn't trust Derek Holland to do a good job (well, OK maybe I did a little), but I knew David Price. I remembered him from the playoffs and World Series last year, and was expecting him to shut us down. Which was something we didn't need as we seem to be just getting going again after a slump.

Much to my surprise we unloaded on Price and the Rays. Price was just destroyed, and the most telling stat of all is he allowed more walks than outs recorded. Five walks in just one inning and a third. Three hits, five walks, and six earned runs. Yeah, that was pretty awful. In all that, only one home run, but it was a big one - a three run shot to Andruw Jones. I do have to admit to being surprised by that, as I figured Price was going to keep us contained. Epic fail there.

On the flip side, Derek Holland was OK. Six runs, seven hits four earned runs. Most of the damage there was the longball. Derek allowed a solo home run to Jason Bartlett in the second. However, the one that skewed his pitching line was the three run home run to Dioner Navarro in the fifth. Take those out, and it wasn't too bad, but you can't base a pitching line on "just take out those two guys".

The Rays used three relievers. The first one (Lance Cormier) also didn't fare too great, although not nearly as bad as Price. Cormier went three innings, and gave up four hits and three earned runs. One of which was a solo home run to Nelson Cruz.

Chad Bradford was next, and didn't give up anything, so naturally, he was in for the shortest time, just two thirds of an inning. The last reliever was Jeff Niemann, who didn't give a home run, but did allow three more runs (on six hits).

Our offense was extra base oriented. Four doubles, a triple, and two home runs accounting for half of the 14 hits we got. Elvis Andrus & Ian Kinsler took ofers, but everyone else was on the board from the starters. David Murphy & Nelson Cruz led the way with three hits each.

Overall, a nice win. Sweep coming up on Sunday night perhaps?

Yesterday was Tommy Hunter's 23rd birthday, I believe. I know it was his birthday, not sure of the number, but that's really irrelevant. He started the game for the Rangers, and looked pretty decent last time out. So he took the mound on his birthday (with his family in the stands), and threw a pretty decent game this time out, too.

He went 5.1 innings, throwing 90 pitches. I missed when he came out of the game, so I'm not sure of the situation, but the one runner he left on base didn't score. Didn't seem like a huge jam from the boxscore, but I missed that part of the game. Anyway, Hunter allowed just three hits and one run. He also walked three and struck out five. Not exactly dominating numbers, but definitely good enough for the win, which was his first in the majors.

That was held up by our bullpen, who backed up Hunter with 3.2 innings of no hit, shutout relief. Jennings & Wilson held it for Frank Francisco who bounced back from his meltdown in the return to the closer's job. Frankie threw one inning, allowed no hits and no walks, striking out one for the save. Nice to see this kind of pitching. Wish it would have been more consistent in June.

Offensively, we didn't have a ton going on. While Tampa Bay only had three hits the whole game, we didn't do a ton better. The Rangers had just five hits. All five of our hits were against Tampa starter Scott Kazmier. Their bullpen was as good as ours. However, it was enough. No Ranger had more than one hit, they were scattered, however, there was some power hidden in there. We had two doubles (Byrd, Cruz), and the big deal was suddenly power stroke heavy Hank Blalock. Hank hit a two run home run out over the center field wall in the fourth inning, putting us up at the time 2-0. Both teams added a single run in the fifth, and that was the end of the scoring.

Bit surprised that our offense is still in low gear, but the win was enough to tie us for first place with Anaheim again. Feeling good about that, as I'm sure most of us are.

To quote Jamey Newberg: Smoaklahoma! Here he comes. September callup? :)

I seem to have developed a pattern of updating series after they're over, doing all the games at once. I need to get out of that. By the time I get to the third one, my mind has a hard time coming up with something unique to say about the final game. Such is the same here. We won, but all I can think of to write about was how Frank Francisco blew the save, and then we won on a walkoff home run in the bottom of the ninth.

One other thing worth mentioning: Julio Borbon got his first major league hit - and RBI at the same time. Also, from the TV coverage, they didn't show the ball going back into the dugout - that usually gets shown for some reason.

Well, for the first time in a couple of years, I headed out to the Rangers game to retake the pictures for my seat selector feature here on my site. First done about ten years ago, it's something I've always had fun with, but it is a heck of a lot of work. Once I get the pics all sorted out, I'll update my online feature, and post a story about it.

Anyway, when that was over (I started at 5:10PM and finished at 6:48PM, downed 60oz of Gatorade, and two bottles of water during all of this), I sat down to watch the Rangers game. It's only my third game of the season so far, but I always like just sitting in the last row of the upper deck with my Palm to score the game and my headphone radio. I enjoy those. If the park wasn't so far away, I'd probably go to more. Anyway..

After an insanely long first two innings (an hour), I came to the conclusion that I'd be there for awhile. The Rangers scored three in the bottom of the first, and then gave them right back in the top of the second. It was 3-3 after two. Neither pitcher had much of anything on the mound, and both escaped some situations that would have made the three a much larger crooked number on the scoreboard.

Joe Saunders is a pretty decent pitcher, but not here. Before the game, one of the radio guys (get well Eric!) said that Saunders was something like 0-5 with an ERA in the 12's in our ballpark. This game didn't help. Saunders was hit pretty hard, giving up eight runs on five walks and six hits in just 3.2 innings. He was pretty bad. In fact, in the first inning, I really thought we were going to score six or seven and get him out of there with less than an inning pitched, but he escaped that.

Our offense was propelled by the home run. We had five of them in all. Four off of Joe Saunders. Kinsler led off the game with one. Marlon Byrd had a two run shot later in the first inning. That felt good, as a lot of ours have been solo home runs lately. What felt better though was the three run home run Byrd also had in the fourth inning, which was followed up by a solo shot by Nelson Cruz. David Murphy also added a solo shot in the seventh. The home runs accounted for seven of our nine runs.

Pitching wise, I have to say that Scott Feldman was pretty pedestrian, bordering on awful the first two innings. He completely failed in the shutdown inning, he just looked bad. Which is what makes innings three through six more impressive. After 57 pitches in the first two, Scott settled down, and pitched extremely well in 3-6. He needed about 60 pitches to get through the other four innings, and allowed no more runs. At one point he retired a ton of guys in a row - I forget how many. In fact, had his pitch count not been at 116 after six innings, he probably would have come back out - he was looking QUITE good.

Problem is our pen made the game seem closer than it really was. Going up 9-3 in the ninth, CJ Wilson coughed up a couple of runs. One was unearned, but still. 9-3 would have felt a lot better than 9-5, even though both resulted in a win, and us getting back to just one and a half games out of first.

Still kind of bummed at how far we fell in June, but the win helps ease that a little.

When Anaheim came into town, I think most Rangers fans weren't particularly looking forward to it. We started the month up four and a half games, and the Angels came into town now up a game and a half. That's not a particularly fun thing when you factor in the sluggishness the Rangers have exhibited the last few weeks. I saw the inbound Angels as something bad. They're not firing on all cylinders either, but right now they seem better than us, and I wasn't thrilled with that mindset.

Game one didn't help most Rangers fans. They dropped it 5-2. Our offense was mostly flat again. Granted, we had eight hits, and three of them were from Marlon Byrd. Outside of the Birdman, just five hits. Two of them were home runs, however. Byrd & David Murphy went back to back in the third inning, but that was the only two runs we got.

Pitching wise, Pidente was more than flat. He wasn't very good. Five innings, five earned runs on ten hits and two walks. Throw in a home run for good measure, too.

The only really positive thing to take out of this game was that our bullpen was great. Four guys combined for four innings. Only two hits and one walk were allowed, but no runs.

But at the end of the game I had a really bad feeling.

Derek Holland started this game, and pitched the way you'd think a first year starter should. Pretty horrible line. 5.2 innings, thirteen hits, one walk, seven runs allowed (six earned). The only thing really good was the fact that he struck out eight guys in his time out there. But he was hit around pretty good, that was the reason the Rangers lost this game.

Offensively, there wasn't a ton going on. Rangers managed only six hits. Two doubles and a home run (Chris Davis again). That was about it.

I've seen uglier games by the Rangers, but it just felt like it should have been a whole lot worse. The Padres set a season record with sixteen hits in a game. Figures it'd be against us.

There is not a ton to say about this one.

The Rangers managed just one hit. Was a bloop single by Michael Young early on. That was it. San Diego starter Chad Gaudin had what appears to be the best start of his career. He went eight innings, gave up just the one hit. He did walk two, but struck out nine Rangers. The only Ranger to not strike out was Elvis Andrus. Pretty bad when the best highlight you can think of is who didn't strike out.

Tommy Hunter was called up to make the start, and was a hard luck loser. He went 6.1 innings, giving up just the two runs. One was a solo home run. But I felt bad, he pitched pretty well, he was just seriously upstaged by Chad Gaudin.

Well, I was actually going to go to this game. Given I'm unemployed now, I was going to head out to the park and retake the pictures for my seat selector feature on the site. So I left Garland at 4PM. I wanted to be there when the gates opened, so I can get pictures of all the sections of the park. I have a pretty good drive to the Ballpark (about 33 miles or so - you can see it here). I get to about Jim Miller & I30 in Dallas, which isn't very far at all, and the traffic just stopped. This was at like 4:15. Flipped on KRLD, and they said it was like 45 minutes to an hour JUST TO GET to the Mixmaster in Dallas. Screw that. For me to do what I wanted to do would require me to be ready to roll at 5PM. I've done the "take a picture of every section in the ballpark all at once" twice before, and it takes just about all of the two hours you have from gates open to game start. So I turned around and went back home. Too much traffic. Stupid Arlington not paying for Dart. I want a high speed rail line that takes me to the Ballpark.

Anyway, I watched it at home in HD, and for the first three innings, I was regretting not sticking it out to watch the game. The Rangers just destroyed the Padres pitching, and Walter Silva in particular. Granted, Silva was weighed down with some stupid fielding (two balls muffed in the infield, and a doofus catch by Gwynn in right which looked like me in little league), but he only actually allowed one unearned run. Problem was Silva allowed eight EARNED runs in his 2.1 innings pitched. They just teed off. Everything was falling in, going the right way.

Chris Davis went 1-3 this game after going 4-5 last night. That raised his average to .210. He did walk again, which is good. Of course, he struck out twice. Sigh. Our offense was in gear. In all, two doubles, a triple, two home runs, and a pile of singles. One of the home runs was David Murphy, and it went upper tank in right. The other one by Blalock led off an inning that we left the bases loaded on right before that. Darnit - one batter too late for the grand slam. Michael Young & Nelson Cruz took ofers, but everyone else had at least one hit.

Elvis Andrus had the biggest numbers hit wise. He went four for four with two RBI's and a run scored. His triple in the fifth was one of those no doubters to the area right in front of the Rangers bullpen. Triples are ALWAYS nice to see.

Our bullpen kept things in check. Jason Grilli, Willie Eyre, & Doug Mathis all pitched perfect innings. Most impressive.

While I did miss seeing that game, I do have to say that when the game was over, I was already home. That's a great payoff for missing the game. :)

First off, this game outlasted me. When it went to extra innings, I turned it off. I was falling asleep, and not the short nod-off you get on the sofa on a late game. This was a full fledged "I'm passing out for good for the night" kind of fall asleep. So the last thing I saw was a 6-6 tie. Funny thing is right before I stopped watching, Josh Lewin made the comment that the Diamondbacks / Rangers game was the last game going in the majors for the night. :)

Scott Feldman got the start, and got a technical quality start. Six innings, four hits, one walk, and three earned runs. Didn't exactly light the town on fire, but his line isn't that awful, either. His big mistake was a two run home run to Mark Reynolds in the first inning. That was 2/3 of his earned runs right there. We ran out six more pitchers besides Feldman. CJ Wilson, Jason Grilli, & Eddie Guardado threw scoreless innings. Darren O'Day gave up a single run, and Frank Francisco & Jason Jennings gave up two runs. Frankie's was worst, because he only pitched one third of an inning. Jason Jennings I didn't see at all, as I was asleep at that point. O'Day & Francisco gave up home runs for their runs. Francisco was another two run home run to Mark Reynolds. Reynolds had a good night.

Not nearly as good as Chris Davis, who is desperately in need of a few of the nights he had tonight. Chris went 4-5 plus a walk. He struck out once, but given how often he's been striking out lately, one in a game is a serious improvement. They said on TV that Davis was the first Ranger to have a three hit game on the road trip, and it came in the last game of the trip. Unfortunately, Davis' average after the 4-5 night was just .209. He needs several more of these - I really hope he turns it around, as he's a great hitter when he's not striking out at a rate that makes the slider down and away to Juan Gonzalez result in fewer strikeouts. Slider down and away to Juando was a sure fire strikeout, but nothing at the rate that Davis has been doing. So I'm hoping last night is the end of his major season slump so far. That they've stuck with him this far into it is proof the team likes him, but he needs to work it out pretty soon. I can't imagine they'll stay with him forever.

Funny thing is that as many pitchers as the Rangers ran out there (seven), the Diamondbacks had more. They ran nine pitchers out there in the twelve innings. Arizona starter Jon Garland threw six, but then no other Diamondback pitcher threw more than a full inning in relief. Chris Davis & David Murphy had back to back home runs in the 12th. Davis' capped his 4-5 night.

A nice win, even if it came real late, and I was out cold for the night when it happened. I actually learned of the final score of the game from the Dallas Morning News. The real newspaper, not the website. That doesn't happen much anymore. :)

This was a pretty darned good pitcher's duel. Vicente Padilla vs. Dan Haren. After the last five games previous to this, it was quite the surprise. Actually, that wasn't the surprise. The real surprise was that we ended up on the winning side of that.

Both starters went seven innings. Pidente gave up six hits, two walks, and just one run. Haren gave up four hits and a walk for two runs. However, as in most games like this, our hits were well placed. We had just four of them. One double (Teagarden), and three singles, but we got two runs out of it. Haren also struck out eight, so we weren't exactly lighting it up. But it was just enough.

Ours came early, with a single run in the second and the third. The run off of Padilla came in the fifth. There's not a lot to add about this one because the pitching was quite good.

Padilla keeps doing this, and his trade value will be sky high in July. ;)

OK, that was annoying. I have time to write about this, but I'd just spend a couple hundred words saying "That sucked". So that's all I'm doing for this one.

Taking a mulligan on the San Francisco series. Ran out of time, and I don't feel like writing about a series sweep loss several days after the fact. :)

Taking a mulligan on the San Francisco series. Ran out of time, and I don't feel like writing about a series sweep loss several days after the fact. :)

Taking a mulligan on the San Francisco series. Ran out of time, and I don't feel like writing about a series sweep loss several days after the fact. :)

Figures. The Rangers play the Astros six times each year. This year they lose only one game. Guess which one I went to? That's right, the one they lost. Since I don't really feel about writing in detail on this one, I'll go for a few bullet points:

• Vicente Padilla seemed sluggish, even though he technically had a quality start
• Chris Davis still strikes out too much, he should have been pinch hit for in the 9th
• We made some noise in the bottom of the ninth, but couldn't bring it home
• Row 37 of Section 117 is really dark, given how far back it is under the overhang
• Darren Erstad in left? Man the Astros must be hurting.

I spoke with an Astros fan for a bit who was wearing a rainbow Astros jersey. Addressed myself as a Phillies fan, so we could talk some old Houston / Phillies rivalries. :)

On to San Francisco....

Two big things happened in tonight's game. If you're a real Rangers fan, you knew about them already, but just the same..

• Pudge Rodriguez became the all time #1 catcher with most games caught in the majors. Nobody else has caught more than Pudge. That's an impressive number. First.
• Omar Vizquel tied Luis Apricio for all time hits for a player from Venezuela.

Those two are impressive feats. That Pudge did it in Arlington was as Josh Lewin called it "a gift from the baseball gods". I was there with my wife the game that Pudge played his last as a Ranger. The applause for him on June 19, 2009 was just as great as it was on September 29, 2002. I also included a picture from his last game as a Ranger here. Seemed to fit, as opposed to using the picture of him I saw in an Astro uniform. :)

The actual game itself seemed kind of "meh" other than the walkoff when compared to the stuff above. Matt Harrison came off the DL and pitched OK. Salty & Nelson Cruz had home runs. Kinsler stole two bases. Even Omar Vizquel stole one! The two new pen additions (Jason Grilli & Darren O'Day) tossed a few more shutout innings.

The walkoff was a bloop hit down the left field line. Was your usual fun walkoff win. But even this pales in comparison to me to the events of the rest of the game. It was just major for me. Only thing that would have made it better is if Vizquel also broke the record at the same time. But since he merely tied it, he'll now have a chance to beat it back in San Francisco where he played for awhile. That will be nice for him, I'm sure.

Kevin Millwood continues to roll along in his attempt to play 2009 like he played when he was with Cleveland. Another strong outing of seven innings, just four hits, three walks, six strikeouts, and more importantly just a single earned run. Which came on a fifth inning solo home run by Pudge. Millwood looks really great, and you have to start wondering if he'll get consideration for the All-Star game. I mean in mid June he's 7-4 with an ERA of 2.62. He really does seemingly deserve consideration for the All-Star staff. That will seem quite weird, having a good Rangers pitcher in the All-Star game. If he does get in, you know it will garner more attention for us, as the announcers will go on about "The Rangers? Pitching?" To that, Jason Jennings followed up with two scoreless innings of his own to cap the victory.

Offensively, the Rangers were led by Ian Kinsler, who had two solo home runs - one in the first and one in the second. He also had a third hit (single), and scored on that hit, too. Nice night for him, after being in a slump for awhile. Kinsler wasn't the only one with home runs. David Murphy also had a solo home run in the third. The three home runs were half of our runs. Michael Young also had a couple of RBI's in the game, and Marlon Byrd had one, too. The hits were not very spread out. They were mostly bunched at the top of the lineup. Five of our nine hits were from the first two batters. The other four were from the fifth and sixth place batters. So nine hits were from four batters. The other five took ofers. The win was nice, the balance was not.

This officially claimed the silver boot for the Rangers for another season. I like playing the Astros, but does anyone really care about the boot? Outside of when we play the Astros, you never hear about it.

This was one of those "growing pains" games for Derek Holland. Most Rangers fans expect him to be great, but he is 22, and there won't be games. Actually,it wasn't totally awful, but the line wasn't particuarly great, either. Five innings, five hits (not too bad), four walks (bad), and a home run. Derek gave up four earned runs in his five innings, which is certainly not good.

The Dodgers also tacked on two against Eddie Guardado in his 2/3 of an inning. He seems to be way more inconsistent this year. There's still outings where he was good like he was in 2008, but the 2009 version isn't nearly as automatic. Certainly he isn't "everyday".

Darren O'Day's ERA is 0.82. Just sayin'... ;)

Offensively, I wanted to start with Ian Kinsler. His slump continues, with his batting average now at .260 after a 0-4 game. This game featured just six hits from Ranger players, two of them from Andruw Jones, everyone else just one. In fact, the only run of the game came from the only hit that wasn't a single, that being Jones' fourth inning solo home run.

There's no shame in losing to the team with the best record in baseball, and it's not like they were run over like roadkill, either. They played well as a team in the two losses, but you'd rather see 2-1 than 1-2 for sure.

I've seen the lights go out on Arlington
I saw the Lone Star State laid low.
And life went on beyond the Galleria,
They all bought bright Leuxes-
And left there long ago.

They held a concert out in Arlington-
To watch the Ballpark lights blow.
They turned our power down,
And drove us underground-
But we went right on with the show...

Feldman & Wolf were rolling on now..
Lookin like a classic pitcher's duel
Then the right field lights went out
We sat and waited
For lights that never came...

We sat at home for hours
Watching Rain Delay shows
The fun was going away
I wanted to hit fast forward..
And we lost all hope of the game

When finally out of nowhere
The lights in right just turned right on.
The players took the field
All the pitching was lost
Both teams ran out the bullpens.

Homer by Kemp
Doubles by more Dodgers
Ran the score up three to one
Guardado, Grilli, & O'Day,
Even Moscosco couldn't help
The Rangers lost the game!

I've seen the lights go out in Arlington-
I saw the ruins at my feet,
You know we almost didn't notice it-
We'd see it all the time on Randol Mill Rd.

They burned the churches up in Oak Cliff-
Like in that Spanish Civil War-
The flames were everywhere,
But no one really cared-
It always burned up there before....

I saw the lights go out on Arlington-
I watched the mighty skyline fall.
The boats were waiting at Ray Hubbard,
The union went on strike-
They never sailed at all.

They sent a carrier out from Norfolk-
And picked the Yankees up for free.
They said that Queens could stay,
They blew the Bronx away-
And sank Manhattan out to sea....

You know those lights were bright on Arlington-
But that was so many years ago...
Before we all lived here in Texas-
Before the Mafia took over Mexico.
There are not many who remember-
They say a handful still survive...
To tell the world about...
The way the lights went out,
And keep the memory alive....

First off, I didn't see hardly any of this game, as we had a few friends over to watch Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Was a lot of fun, and a friend bought some of my favorite (Blonde) beer, which I haven't been able to find lately around me.

The Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles swept into town, bringing with them the overall best record of any team in baseball. They finished the game with the same condition, but not before being shown that the little ol team from Arlington can play with them.

Vicente Padilla, coming off a stint on the waiver wire, didn't allow anything, although he was all over the place. Threw just five innings, but also 108 pitches. Walked three, gave up four hits, but more importantly, no runs. One wonders if he pitches really good between now and the end of July he'll get moved. I don't think anyone thinks Padilla will be wearing Texas in 2010, so it could make sense.

He was followed by Jason Jennings, who threw three innings of scoreless relief, and Jason Grilli (who I expect won't stay long either) who threw a scoreless inning, preserving the shutout.

Offensively, we got some runs across the plate, which has been a problem the last few games. We had nine hits in all. Three doubles (two by Teagarden), a triple (Byrd), a home run (Blalock), and four singles. I missed all of it, just saw highlights on Baseball Tonight. But it was nice to get some runs across.

But more importantly getting a dominating win against one of the big boys. That was very cool.

A lot was written about how the 1-0 win in Arlington is a rare occurrence. It is. You almost never see the Rangers win 1-0 at home. If there's zero in the score like that, the other number is frequently a nine or something like that.

But not this night. Kevin Millwood was quite good again. While I didn't get to see the game, his line looks impressive. 7.2 innings pitched, five hits, no walks, and NO RUNS. Kevin left with 105 pitches thrown, which is below his usual workload for 2009. Still, you can't argue with the results.

Darren O'Day & CJ Wilson both threw two thirds of an inning, also giving up no runs. Wilson gave up a hit, but that was it. The Blue Jays scattered their six hits, with only Aaron Hill getting more than one.

On our side, it wasn't great to see us shut down offensively again, but thanks to our pitching, the one run we got was all we needed. The Rangers actually had fewer hits than Toronto did (five to their six). David Murphy was the only Ranger with two (one a double). The other hits were by Chris Davis (double), and singles by Chris Davis, Jarrod Saltamacchia, & Nelson Cruz. The lone run actually was driven in by Marlon Byrd, who had a sac fly in the second.

Overall, an extremely impressive game. I wish I was out there for it. Would have been great to see!

Wednesday night's game was rained out, and for good reason. There was some really heavy rain going through the Metroplex. From the looks of the storm and the radar, there was enough to get the family into the bathroom. That's an adventure with two adults, a four year old, a newborn, and two cats in a single bathroom. Got pretty humid in there by the time we got out.

Anyway, the Rangers game will be made up as a doubleheader on September 1st. Provided my new job allows it, I'll be there. I love doubleheaders!

Not much to say about this one.

The Rangers were shut down pretty darned good by Brian Tallet. We managed just two hits. A double by Brandon Boggs, and a single by Chris Davis. That was it.

Meanwhile, Ranger pitching was pretty bad. Combined, they went nine innings, giving up 12 hits, 9 runs (eight earned) with four walks. Meh. It was even a group of names you go "Huh" to for the most part. Mathis, Moscoso, Guardado, & Grilli.

That's enough about this one. It stunk.

Scott Feldman had probably his worst outing as a starter in 2009 on Monday. Funny thing is if you look at his numbers (six innings pitched, seven hits, two walks, four earned runs), they're not that awful. Not great, but not Chan Ho Park or Mark Clark level of pitching. Still, given how well he has pitched this season so far, it seems pretty bad.

Jason Jennings followed Scott and gave up a few himself in his two innings. Four hits, two runs.

Offensively the real damage for Toronto was done by one guy. Adam Lind. He had two two run home runs, each coming after a walk to another Blue Jay. Take Lind out, and things would have been a whole lot different.

The Rangers runs came on a bunch of singles, mostly. Only David Murphy had anything other than a single; he had two doubles. The Rangers did try a suicide squeeze, and it was suicide. Elvis Andrus missed the bunt, which hung out Marlon Byrd to dry coming home. :)

I missed a decent amount of this, as my mother in law who had been staying with us was going home in the morning. Still, it was a loss. Meh. :)

Vicente Pidente comes back from his being placed on waivers, and going unclaimed. I don't think anyone thought he'd start plunking Red Sox, but you always wonder, eh? Anyway, he was pretty good on Sunday afternoon. Seven innings, four hits, four walks, and two earned runs (three overall). Just 99 pitches for the namesake of the Padilla Flotilla. While I never thought he'd be gone this past weekend, one has to figure he's definitely done after 2009 here, if not traded by the end of July. Padilla did help himself out a bit by picking off Kevin Youkilis from second early on.

Offensively, we got to Daisuke Matsuzaka pretty good. In the 5.2 innings he pitched, we hit him for 10 hits and five earned runs. No Ranger walked, and eight struck out, so he wasn't totally awful, but still. That's a decent showing against one of the Sox' better pitchers. Three doubles, a triple, and two home runs powered the Rangers offense. The highlight was Nelson Cruz almost getting a cycle, just missing the single. Cruz & Murphy both had good days with three hits apiece. Michael Young & Omar Vizquel each had two.

Darren O'Day & CJ Wilson followed up with scoreless innings. Really liking O'Day.

We did it, we came out of the Yankees/Red Sox road trip with a 3-3 record. Not bad at all. Obviously you want to go 6-0, but realistically that's not happening. I think most everyone is satisfied with 3-3 against those guys. Shows we can hang, which might be useful if this first place thing carries us into October.

Sorry for the brevity - it's 3AM, and I'm tired. :)

Wow. There's not much to say about this one. Jon Lester was freakin' fantastic! I've seen many good games pitched in my years watching baseball, but Lester on June 6, 2009 was one of the best. Through the first six, he was untouchable. I mean it was stupid how badly he made the Rangers hitters look.

Michael Young finally broke it up in the top of the seventh when he had a good, clean, double to the monster in left. That was the only hit the Rangers got until Michael came up again in the ninth and singled. Our only run was a sac fly by Andruw Jones in the ninth, scoring Elvis Andrus.

Yeah, the Sox scored a bunch of runs, Derek Holland and Mr. Anna Benson didn't look that good, but who cares? This was about Jon Lester. Once the game got through the sixth, I wanted to see him throw a perfect game against the Rangers - that would have been quite something to watch, and I think most people at that time were thinking he could.

After going 1-2 in the Bronx, I don't think anyone was looking forward to Boston too much, because you could quite easily see another repeat of a 1-2 series, to come home 2-4. We'd then hear all the pundits (Randy Galloway mostly) whine about how we couldn't beat the good teams. They'd have a point mind to some extent, mind you, but I wouldn't want to hear all of that.

So with some trepidation (and no HD feed) on Friday night I sat down to watch the Rangers take on Boston. Kevin Millwood was taking on Brad Penny. Penny's OK, but not someone to be totally afraid of. And the Rangers weren't. At least not right away. This was a pretty good pitcher's duel through the first four innings. Neither team could get past the zeroes that the starters were putting up.

Until the fifth. The Rangers hit Penny for several runs, (five in all), after a play that Julio Lugo probably should have gotten to. Had he done that, I expect that most of the runs that inning would have never scored. I'm speaking of the three run home run that Ian Kinsler got shortly after Lugo's missed play (which had a visual response from Penny on the mound). The Rangers plated four in the top of the fifth, and that was pretty much all they needed, despite tacking on an additional run in the sixth. That was it from us scoring wise, we were up 5-0 after six. We actually didn't have a ton of offense. Just eight hits in all, three of them by Chris Davis, who seems to be getting more hits, even if he's still striking out way too many times. There was also two hits by Marlon Byrd, and one each by Kinsler (his HR), Saltamacchia, & Andrus. One Davis' hits was a double, but everything else aside from Kinsler's homer was a single. So the fifth was well timed.

Turns out we didn't need all of them anyway. Kevin Millwood was pretty good yet again, going seven innings (plus three batters in the 8th) on 117 pitches. Seven hits and four walks, but allowed just one unearned run. We had no double plays, so this was a case of Millwood getting out of it himself. He really deserves more than 5 wins at this point. He's been way better than his record indicates.

One down, all we need is one more of the remaining two games and we'll have a 3-3 road trip. :)

As has been my policy for the last few years, I don't write about losses to the Yankees.

However, I will say this. It was very cool to see Nelson Cruz' dad in the stands getting quite excited about his son's home runs. They need to bring him to every game, and make him a staple like they do with the old guy in the hat from Seattle. :)

The Rangers took a page out of the Yankees' old playbook this night. That's run up the count on the starting pitcher, and get him out of there.

Andy Pettite started for the Yankees, and was out after five innings, and 104 pitches. In fact, the Rangers scored all their runs off of Andy. He was not his classic self, giving up seven hits and an astounding six walks in five innings for those four runs. Did strike out six, though - otherwise it probably would have been a lot worse. It's a good thing the Rangers got to Pettite, because they couldn't get anything done against the bullpen.

The same went for the Rangers' bullpen - they didn't give up any runs at all, and the ones the Yankees did get were pretty few anyway. Scott Feldman started, and is looking better and better each time he pitches. 6.1 innings, five hits, three walks, and five strikeouts for those two runs the Yankees got. The second run was a solo home run by Jorge Posada in the final inning Feldman pitched, so he was quite good the whole night. Couple of double plays helped out Scott, too.

The Rangers offense was all singles, although Elvis Andrus stole two bases; Kinsler was caught stealing, too. Kinsler was also picked off first, too. That's always embarrassing.

It's always nice to beat the Yankees, but I was disappointed none of the three games from the Bronx were in HD. You'd think at least one of them would be to show off the new stadium. I was kind of disappointed by that.

As has been my policy for the last few years, I don't write about losses to the Yankees.

Taking a mulligan again as my son came home from the hospital with momma on Sunday. :)

(I'm making this a short recap, as my wife gave birth to our son on Thursday, and don't have more than five minutes to do three game updates).

When you score 14 runs, an article usually becomes most about who got what offensive stat, etc, etc, etc. I didn't see this game at all (again at hospital), but I did get to see the game on that "condensed game" feature MLB.TV has - you basically see the entire game in eight minutes. All they show you is the out, or the hit, or the run - so I did sort of see it all, just not in the normal way. :)

Four doubles, three home runs, and ten singles was quite a barrage. Three guys with two hits, three guys with three hits. Only one guy with an ofer from the starters. Some nice defense, it was a game that was never really in doubt, even though we didn't score anything until the third inning and were actually behind 1-0. You just felt it. Granted, I knew the final score before I watched that "condensed game".

Great pitching - Nine innings combined, five hits, only one earned runs, and four walks (three in the first inning).

We go for the four game sweep on Sunday. In the words of the Hammer.. Sweet!

(I'm making this a short recap, as my wife gave birth to our son on Thursday, and don't have more than five minutes to do three game updates).

Scott Feldman continues to show that he should have been in the rotation since the first game of the season. Six innings, two earned runs. Our pitching has been great!

A couple of doubles and six singles are all we got, but it worked. Led us to five runs, which was enough.

Four double plays helped, too. ;)

Oh hey, did I miss something? Where'd Cordero go? Didn't get either save in the DH.

I actually started watching this game on the TiVo when I got home from the hospital, but I fell asleep in the second inning. :)

(I'm making this a short recap, as my wife gave birth to our son on Thursday, and don't have more than five minutes to do three game updates).

I would have been at this DH, except I was at the hospital with my new baby and my wife. I think I would have been literally attacked if I even suggested going, let alone actually going to this game. Which pains me as a baseball fan, as I freakin love doubleheaders.

Anyway, three home runs by the Rangers are all that was needed to get by the Oakland A's in the first game of the DH. Nelson Cruz had 3 RBI's himself, and Tommy Hunter went 5.1 innings, giving up 7 hits, three walks, and three earned runs. Not terribly effective, but "OK". He was called up for this start, and was sent back down inbetween games of the DH.

As has been my policy for the last few years, I don't write about losses to the Yankees.

This game started with a really long rain delay. Was about two and a half hours or something like that. I knew it would happen, as I was out driving to the airport, and there were some quite freaky looking clouds - and cloud colors. Some were quite scary looking, but the actual rain I personally ran into wasn't much - although I saw on news coverage that it was hailing at the Ballpark.

The game finally got started around 9:30 or so, and Kevin Millwood took the mound. We have a habit of giving up runs early to the Yankees. We always seem to be in a perpetual state of playing catch up against them. Not tonight. Millwood put up a zero in the first, and we plated two (Hamilton & Cruz) with a single to right in the bottom of the inning. That's always a nice feeling, being up on the Yankees.

Speaking of "feelings".. I'm a little surprised Teixeira got booed as much as he did. I figured he would get some booing, but he got more than I anticipated. A-Fraud however, got rather lustily booed - surprising as he hasn't been here in six years, you'd think it would die down a bit, but his personal dramas probably continue to stoke that fire. Tex however, answered it by going titanic on a home run ball hit into the upper tank in Home Run Porch.

In the bottom of the fourth, we plated another run on a Chris Davis home run. Chris is doing pretty well with home runs this season. Unfortunately, he leads the universe in strikeouts. I mean it's really ugly how many he has. Still, a home run onto Greene's Hill is always nice to see for the home team.

Kevin Millwood ran out of gas early in this game - he ran into trouble in the sixth where the Yankees scored a couple of runs in the top of the sixth on a double by Matsui, & a single by one of their scrubs.

The Rangers came back in the bottom of the seventh to counter the two runs Kevin gave up in the sixth. However, Millwood was out of the game by then, so he got a no decision. Our two were fairly non exciting runs. One on an infield groundout, and another on a sac fly. Still, two runs are two runs, and they gave us the lead.

The scoring was capped off by another home run by Chris Davis - two in a game. That one I missed, because at this point I was starting to fall asleep. They did the seventh inning stretch at midnight. :)

THE RANGERS HAVE THE BEST RECORD IN THE AMERICAN LEAGUE! 27-18 (.600) Only the Dodgers have a better record in the NL, too. Second best record overall. That's way better than what I thought we'd be doing this year. Feels good.

As has been my policy for the last few years, I don't write about losses to the Yankees.

Wow. Just wow. Brandon McCarthy threw a complete game shutout on the road, which means nine innings. He did give up nine hits, but I don't think anyone really cares about that. He's never even gone past the seventh inning as a start before this game, and he nailed it. Scattering nine hits, it was a most impressive performance. This is the guy we thought we were getting from Chicago a few years ago.

The power stroke was still here. Had home runs from Josh Hamilton, Ian Kinsler, & Jarrod Saltamacchia. Four doubles jumped into the pool too. Every Ranger had at least one hit, except for pitcher Brandon McCarthy. However, Josh Hamilton made up for that, getting three of his own.

I don't know what else to say about this. It was Brandon McCarthy's game from front to back. Good for him. And good for us, too!

What's cool is we ended the trip at ..500. Can never complain about .500 on the road, really.

Scott Feldman looked OK this game. Not great, but OK.

Brian Moehler did NOT look anywhere near OK.

And Nelson Cruz? Well, he seems to have found it again.

Scotty F was pretty good again - looking like a solid starter again after some shaky appearances in the bullpen. 6.2 innings pitched, three earned runs on five hits. Two of the hits were home runs, and accounted for all three of the Astros' runs. The first one was somewhat controversial, as they had to go to a replay for Tejada's first inning home run. They appeared to get the call right to me, but I was hoping it would be reversed just the same. :) Darren O'Day, Eddie Guardado, & CJ Wilson combined for 2.1 innings of scoreless relief. Only one hit between them (Wilson). CJ got the save as Francisco was just off the DL, and I believe I recall hearing that it was to not give Frankie two straight nighs after just coming back from the DL.

Brian Moehler was NOT that good. He gave up three home runs. Two of them to Nelson Cruz, who raked this game. Nelson was 2-4, but the two were both home runs. One was a titanic shot in the fourth. Was one of those ones in Houston where if the ball gets too high, you couldn't see it on TV. Even in Hi-Def, I couldn't see where that ball went. Disadvantage of Houston's park - balls are too easily lost in the windows. Two innings later, Nelson Jacked a solo home run off of the walls in left center for a home run. Right after that - the next pitch in fact, Hank Blalock also homered. He went back to back with Cruz - something nice to see. At that point, we were up 6-1. Feeling good.

Cruz' power was nice to see back, as he was missing that for awhile. Hopefully it sticks around into the next series at home with the Yankees.

Michael Young & Ian Kinsler both sat for different reasons. Kinsler was just given his first day off of the season, and Michael Young was still hobbling a little.

Nice defensive over the head catch by Omar. Also enjoyed his throwing of the cap to the ground as he went to make the play.

Well, Vicente Pidente went on the DL on Friday, and while I don't think anyone was jumping up and down because of that.. They probably (well, Jamey was) jumping up and down over the fact that Derek Holland was making his first major league start. I think it's a safe bet to say that Padilla won't be here next year, and some of the stud kids probably will get a very real shot at the slot (maybe not #2, but a rotation spot for sure).

So we send Derek Holland to the hill to start the game. Derek has that Tim Lincecum look to him - kind of the "Hey, wait a minute - is this guy legally allowed to drink?" (Elvis Andrus isn't, actually - hehe). Anyway, Holland looked very much as advertised through five. I mean, he took a shutout into the sixth inning. He gave up a three run home run to Lance Berkman in the sixth - which is no shameful thing, Berkman's a good hitter. But it ended his outing just one out away from a technical quality save. That would have been a nice chestnut in his cap for his first major league start. Still, a pretty impressive outing for first time out. He's supposed to get one more start - if it's anything like this, it might be hard taking him out. Wonder if Pidente will get moved in July if our kids are still smokin then.

Jason Jennings followed Holland, and gave up the other two runs that Houston got. Two hits and a walk led to those two runs. CJ Wilson, Darren O'Day, & Frank Francisco (fresh off DL) got work, and Frankie with the save.

Offensively, we were led by home runs again. We had three of 'em. One by Elvis Andrus in the fourth, another by Jarrod Saltamacchia (two run shot) in the sixth. Other than the final home run by Nelson Cruz, it was nine singles. Three by Elvis Andrus, who went 4-5 with an RBI, and two runs scored in this game. Michael Young was also on this game, going 3-4. So the left side of the infield accounted for seven of our twelve overall hits. Nice going guys.

But, as I said, the game was won by a Nelson Cruz home run to right. It was impressive power, as he was jammed inside, and still jacked the ball over the right field fence for the winning run.

That's one up in Houston, a place we win fairly regularly at.

Taking a mulligan - as I write this on Friday, it's my last day of work, and I have a ton of other things to do.

Sigh. 0 and the last few seasons in Detroit. What the heck?

Taking a mulligan - as I write this on Friday, it's my last day of work, and I have a ton of other things to do.

One really cool thing was the triple play we turned in the fourth inning. I had to replay that a few times on my TiVo. Don't see triple plays very often.

But other than that, the house of horrors contiunes in Detroit.

Well, you knew that wasn't going to last forever. However, I was hoping it would last a little longer. The Rangers went into one of their house of horrrors on Tuesday, and were facing former Marlin great, Dontrelle Willis.

The same Dontrelle Willis that while he's been a player on the motor city team has won exactly ZERO wins. The same guy that was put on the DL earlier this year with an "anxiety disorder". The same guy who we should have torched. We didn't. The D-Train picked this game to get it back together again. Willis threw 6.1 innings, gave up just one hit, no runs, with two walks and five strikeouts. Man. I was expecting to hit this guy up for like six runs in about 2.2 innings or something like that. Instead we got the one from Florida. Figures.

The only hit the Rangers got was a single by Michael Young to right field. That's IT. No other offense to talk about at all.

Pitching wise, Brandon McCarthy labored for sure, but wasn't totally awful. He did have a technical quality start, going seven innings, giving up three earned runs (four overall). Few too many hits though (nine) during his time. But he wasn't that bad, really. Our very recent vintage offense should have picked that up. It didn't. It was totally run over by the D-Train.

Oh well. There's Wednesday night with Matt Harrison going against Justin Verlander. Hope that one goes better.

Wow. Who would have thought this? A series sweep of the Angels, and a complete homestand sweep (where it's a real one, not just 2-3 games). Who would have thought that we'd be in first place, four and a half games up on the Angels? Now, it's no September party, but man - it's been awhile since it's been this fun watching Rangers games. 2004 was the last real time, and that lasted into September, but one gets the feeling this is different, because of the good pitching we've been getting.

Speaking of pitching, this was a great game for that. We had four pitchers combine on a five hit shutout of the Anaheim Angels. Scott Feldman started, and went six, but didn't get the win. That was because Jeff Weaver matched him. No runs were scored until the bottom of the seventh, so Feldman got a hard luck no decision. Jason Jennings, Eddie Guardado, & Darren O'Day followed with three innings of one hit (Jennings) relief. Was the kind of pitching we're used to seeing thrown against us, not for us. Interesting that O'Day got a four out save, and that Wilson wasn't used. I wonder if Washington really doesn't trust Wilson anymore, or if he was just not available. At the least it shows how good of a pickup O'Day has been.

Offensively, there wasn't much going on - as we were shut down by Jered Weaver for quite a long time. Weaver did get the complete game loss, but through six he was great. In all, he threw eight innings, giving up all three runs on six hits and three walks. In the seventh, David Murphy had a sac fly, scoring Hank Blalock for the first run of the game - and the only one that was really needed. We plated two more in the eighth after Omar Vizquel led off with a triple. That triple was a great moment, and makes you wonder why he isn't still a starter with someone. Oh yeah, he's not gonna hit 350 and steal 75 bases, but man he can still play. Anyway, after the triple, two doubles to left by Ian Kinsler & Marlon Byrd accounted for the other two runs. We didn't have a whole lot of offense, just six hits in all, but four of them were extra bases (triple, three doubles) - it was enough.

Monday is a day off, then we head on the road to face Detroit, who is in first place in a fairly weak AL Central. Who would have thought that the six division leaders right now would be Toronto / Detroit / Texas & New York / Milwaukee / Los Angeles. Well, OK, the NL isn't as much of a surprise (except the Brewers) I guess, but it is a surprise in the AL.

You know, something I want to add. In the middle of this game my daughter came out to see me after attempting (and failing) to take a nap. It was such a good day that I decided on the fly to just up and take her to the playground near our house (which also gave mommy a break, but that's not why I did it). It was a beautiful day, my daughter just lit up like nothing else you'd ever seen when I suggested going there, and we spent some time playing with other kids - it was beautiful. As much fun as it is to have your baseball team play good, it doesn't even come near the fun of watching my four year old get so excited about playing with me at the playground. Don't forget that, Ranger fans. I quite willingly chose to stop watching this game to go play with my kid. I'm reminded of Psalm 118:24 here. It's also good when things are bad as a pick me up, but it REALLY felt good to me when I thought of it driving to the playground.

This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

I picked a heck of a game to get back into this with. Earlier in the afternoon, I plowed through the ten previous games I had skipped after deciding to take a break. As you recall, I lost my job back on the 6th, and wasn't quite in the mood to write about baseball. I wanted to wait till I got to a moment that I felt like writing about. So I wrote a little about the games I skipped (as my new schedule page kind of forces me to have an entry for each game). The rain delay was fortunate, as it gave me just enough time to finish after the game had actually been going on for only 10 minutes.

Early on, Vicente Padilla gave up a run in the first, but it was on an uncorked wild pitch that allowed Chone Figgins to score. That was a dumb run - Padilla's body language even implied he knew that run shouldn't have scored. A pitcher can't always control runs scoring, but one scoring on a wild pitch that far outside really was his fault. Still, it was just one run. Then we get to the bottom of the first, and I have to say, it was quite entertaining...

John Lackey was making his first start of the season, having been on the DL. The first pitch he threw was behind Ian Kinsler's back. Which Ian didn't flinch over. Usually pitches like that garner some sort of response, and I don't mean a retribution kind of thing. A flinch, a dive, something. Nothing, he just stood there. Then the second one plunked Kinsler in the ribs, prompting an immediate ejection from home plate umpire Bob Davidson. I actually laughed at that - of course Lackey & Mike Scioscia came out and argued, but when has an ejection ever been reversed? The deed was done, and it did seem a bit fishy that he was that wild - Lackey's a really good pitcher. Still, my first thoughts lept to - "OK, here comes their bullpen, which is strapped", and of course you then think of what happens tomorrow if their starter gets torched, too. :) As a Rangers fan, you love Lackey being ejected. As an overall baseball fan, well, it might have been harsh, but Lackey pitching that way did seem fishy. Perhaps it's the beanball war the two teams have had creeping in there. Either way, it kept Lackey off the mound in Arlington, which is always rough for Texas.

Kinsler ended up scoring after a sac fly by Josh Hamilton in the bottom of the first. The following inning, the Rangers scored two on a single by Jarrod Saltamacchia. The Angels scored two in the top of the fourth on two separate singles. The Rangers countered in the bottom of the fourth with two of their own. One on a single, and the other on another sac fly by Josh Hamilton. What's the point of running all the scoring together like that?

Well, of all the RBI's in the game, they were all singles, except for the sac flys. In fact, for both teams combined, everything was a single, except for a double by Nelson Cruz. 17 of the 18 combined hits were singles. A definite no power game, that's for sure.

Vicente Padilla had a real Weeble outing. Why? He wobbled, but he didn't fall down. He really looked like he wouldn't get out of the fourth, then put it together, and threw four more shutout innings. In all, Pidente tossed eight innings, giving up three runs on ten hits (with three walks). There probably would have been fewer walks, but there was a definite pea sized strike zone this game. Wasn't just Pidente, either, all the pitchers were being squeezed. CJ Wilson came in and got the save, because Frank Francisco was placed on the DL.

But the bottom line was that the Angels bullpen threw nine innings. That will probably hurt them somewhere soon, if they don't bring up some fresh arms to counter.

We've now won six games in a row, and are three and a half games up in first with a 22-14 record.

WHERE ARE ALL THOSE WHINERS ABOUT HOW WASHINGTON NEEDED TO BE RUN OUT OF TOWN NOW?

Yeah, that's mostly Randy Galloway I'm talking about. I mean what can you expect from someone who has the following quote on his Myspace page? "I love the fact that i can run anyone's name in the ground and there's nothing they can do about it." Yeesh - tells me he's more interested in writing about himself, than the sports or people.

The Rangers had a seriously hard problem getting the final out of the game. Going into the ninth, we were up 10-3. Got two quick outs, and then couldn't get anyone out. After there were two outs in the ninth, Derek Holland, Darren O'Day, & CJ Wilson all pitched. CJ finally got the last out, but it was't easy - the go ahead man was on base, we just couldn't seal the deal. Fortunately, we finially did, but it was touch and go for sure there.

Kinsler was the big charge, leading with two home runs. Andruw Jones had a home run, and Josh had his third home run since coming off the DL on Tuesday.

Kevin Millwood broke his streak of going at least seven innings in each game he started this year. Today's game he was just six. Had nine hits and two earned runs. Few too many hits, but it didn't result in a lot of runs, so that's good.

The Rangers definitely continue to look good. If we're gonna make a real charge at winning the AL West, we have to beat the Angels, and while it got hairy in the ninth, we looked good this game.

First place, two and a half games up. While there's miles to go, it is a good feeling just the same.

(This commentary is short, due to playing catch up on nine games of commentary at once).

Matt Harrison was freakin fantastic again! Probably not as fantastic as before when it was a complete game shutout. But he did pitch a complete game. This time, he gave up two runs, and it looked like he was going to lose. Nothing more annoying than a complete game loss. If you go all nine, you're likely going to win.

However, Matt left the game after the ninth, down 2-0. And a Rangers offense that was totally ineffective against the Mariners came up in the bottom of the ninth. Hank Blalock led off with a solo home run to right - a rather titanic shot to make the game 2-1. OK, feeling good, but we still have more work to do. A few batters later, Chris Davis came up, and jacked a two run home run to walk off with the win! That's two nights in a row with a walk-off. That had to feel good for the Rangers, given how ineffective they were aginst Felix Hernandez all game.

(This commentary is short, due to playing catch up on nine games of commentary at once).

Let's face it. There's a bunch you can talk about with this game. But all anyone will want to talk about is the fact that we got a walkoff win at home against a division opponent.

Going into the 10th, we had given up a run, and I figured that was it - we usually lose extra inning games in the 10th. However, we plated two of our own in the bottom of the 10th to win the game!

Josh Hamilton did have his second home run in two games - a nice thing to see given how few he's had up to this point. And Elvis Andrus tripled - always fun to watch triples!

(This commentary is short, due to playing catch up on nine games of commentary at once).

Josh Hamilton returned to the lineup on Tuesday night, and went deep. He's had a power outage most of the season, but hopefully the reason he was on the DL for awhile helped that, and he can start raking. Josh wasn't the only Ranger to homer. Chris Davis also did that, and Kinsler, Byrd, & Saltamacchia all doubled.

Our offense was pretty spread out. Every Ranger had at least one hit, with both Kinsler & Young getting three. The big damage was the bottom of the seventh where we plated six. Josh's two run home run was in there. Was nice to see that.

Scott Feldman continued in the rotation, and looked good. 6.1 innings pitched, just one run on four hits.

(This commentary is short, due to playing catch up on nine games of commentary at once).

Vicente Padilla went a second straight game giving up just one hit. That kind of snuck out of nowhere. He started off the year weak, but has really come on strong the last couple of starts. Seven innings, just one hit and one run. Looked pretty good out there. Maybe, just maybe, with multiple starters pitching well? Let's not get too ahead of ourselves.

Offensively, it was all about the power. We had nine hits. Five of them were for extra bases. Two doubles (Vizquel & Davis) and three home runs (2 by Blalock, & one by Chris Davis).

The game was tied through four at 1-1, but then Rangers popped it open with a four spot in the fifth, tacking on single runs in the seventh & eighth. The Sox didn't really have a chance this game, we kept on top of 'em pretty good.

(This commentary is short, due to playing catch up on nine games of commentary at once).

Kevin Millwood wasn't as dominating as he had been at times this season, but he certainly pitched well enough to win. He went seven innings (again), giving up just three runs. A good outing.

However, former Ranger prospect John Danks was better. Six innings, just one run. Fanned 10, something that always helps.

The Rangers didn't have any power this game. Only one hit was for extra bases, a double by Nelson Cruz. Everything else (six of 'em) were singles.

The White Sox also had just seven hits in the game, but placed theirs better.

(This commentary is short, due to playing catch up on nine games of commentary at once).

MATT HARRISON WAS FREAKIN' FANTASTIC!

Now THAT is the Matt Harrison I think people were expecting. Matt threw a complete game shutout. Nine innings pitched, 111 pitches, just four hits, and NO RUNS. Holy crap was that great! Man, if we can only get this kind of pitching regularly.. It'd be scary how good we could be with our offense.

MATT HARRISON WAS FREAKIN' FANTASTIC!

Oh yeah, four doubles and seven singles, but who cares?

MATT HARRISON WAS FREAKIN' FANTASTIC!

(This commentary is short, due to playing catch up on nine games of commentary at once).

Brandon McCarthy was the old Brandon McCarthy (4IP, 7ER).

Chris Davis hit a home run in the fifth.

The Rangers scored three in the ninth, in a "who cares now" kind of fashion.

Meh - this game sucked.

(This commentary is short, due to playing catch up on nine games of commentary at once).

In a game where all the offense was over by the end of the fourth inning, you find good bullpen numbers on both sides. Both teams' pens gave up no runs. All the runs were by the starters, who also pitched fairly decently.

Scott Feldman, making a spot start went six, gave up four hits and two runs. Dan Giese went 5.2 innings, giving up eight hits and three runs. Decent pitching, if not dominant.

Elvis Andrus had a home run in the first inning, then all the other four runs in the game came in the fourth inning. Cruz doubled, but for the second game in a row, the offense was mostly singles.

(This commentary is short, due to playing catch up on nine games of commentary at once).

This game for the most part was one I thought was going to be one where you'd chalk it up to Padilla being a hard luck loser. He was being bested by Erik Bedard. Padilla went eight innings, gave up just a single hit, and one unearned run. That was it. Bedard went 7. Gave up just one run (his was earned), and the game went into extra innings tied 1-1. I'm no fan of extra innings (unless I'm in attendance, than give me 30!).

However, the Rangers unloaded in the top of the 10th, scoring six times to totally take the game away. It was capped by a grand slam by Jarrod Saltamacchia. The Rangers offense was surprisingly small. We did have two doubles, and two home runs, but we also had 12 singles.

Nice to see a big inning like that.

(This commentary is short, due to playing catch up on nine games of commentary at once).

I was planning on doing this when my son was born in three weeks, but...

I found out yesterday that my job I had for the last 16 and a half years is going away. Not just me, but the whole company I was working for. Done - for those of you that didn't know, I worked for 3D Realms, the folks who make Duke Nukem videogames. I have until next Friday at work, then I'm out. I'm working on a few things, but right now, I have to say I have zero desire to write about the Texas Rangers.

I WILL be back, but for right now, my head is a in a place where I can't begin to bring myself to write. Sorry about that, gang. Given I have a kid coming, and I'm going to be out of a job, I want to put out the tin cup. If you are in an ability to help out, I'd really appreciate it if you could send a few bucks my way - but please understand it will not affect anything , but when you're desperate, you have to do what you have to do. Thank you for visiting.

The donate button is to your right on top of the menu. Thanks.

Early on, this game was what you thought it would be. 2009 Kevin Milwood vs Felix Hernandez of the Mariners. You figured it would be a low offense game. And it was, for awhile. The first three innings were quick, clean, and devoid of runs.

Until the top of the fourth when Hank Blalock doubled in Michael Young and then Marlon Byrd singled in Hank. That put us up 2-0. Feeling good. Started feeling even better when in the next inning, Michael Young homered to right, scoring Elvis Andrus. OK, we're up 4-0. With the way that Kevin Millwood is pitching in 2009 so far, you're feeling really good about that.

Then the old Rangers Kevin Millwood showed up for the bottom of the fifth, as he gave up two home runs. A solo shot to Russell Branyan, and a three run job to Franklyn Gutierrez. Kevin wasn't exactly awful there, but giving up all four runs you get right away was a bit disheartening.

However, Chris Davis came to the rescue, and reinforced Texas' point in this with another two run home run (scoring David Murphy). That put us up 6-4. Seattle picked up their final run on a fielder's choice by Ichiro.

The Mariners made it interesting in the bottom of the ninth. They put two on, and Ichiro was up, something you never want to see happen. Fortunately, Frank Francisco got him to pop out to center field, ending the game.

Frankie got a four out save. He got his eighth save, which ties him for the overall MLB lead with Heath Bell of the Padres. Speaking of numbers like that, going into today's action, Kevin Millwood leads all pitchers with 45.1 innings tossed. That leads Zack Greinke by just one third of an inning, and Roy Halladay (44), Dan Haren (43), and Josh Johnson (42). At this rate, Kevin will vest his 2010 option by July. :)

The play that most people are talking about was the really extremely good play by Elvis Andrus in the ninth. It was quite amazing to see, and made you think of a ton of great shortstops from the past. Not the least of which was the guy who is currently Elvis' backup, Omar Vizquel. It reminded me of a do or die play from 2001 in Seattle that caused an epic, major level meltdown by Lou Piniella. This one had a minor meltdown, but man was it a play for the year end highlight reel. If you didn't see it, you will want to check it out here. The clip has the Mariners' announcers, so they were not surprisingly skeptical of the call, but what the heck, gotta get some go your way some time. You could also check out this mp3 of Eric Nadel's call, too (thanks to Jamey Newberg for the mp3) :)

The Rangers started off this game in a way that would make Ricky Henderson proud. Ian Kinsler homered to start the game. We went up 1-0 quickly, and never relinquished that lead.

To be honest, I wasn't sure it would hold up, as the 2009 edition of Matt Harrison hasn't been near as impressive as the 2008 edition was. However, Matt held it together pretty darned well on Sunday night. In front of a national audience (this was on ESPN), Matt showed why he was considered a big piece of the Mark Teixeira haul. Matt threw just five innings, but had an elevated pitch count (100), hence his early exit. However, he didn't allow any runs on six hits and no walks. Wasn't dominating (too many pitches), but did what he had to during his time out there. Get the pitch count under control, and this would have been a rather spectacular outing. Matt was followed up by Jason Jennings, who gave up the lone run that the Sox plated. Darren O'Day came on after that, and continued to show that he was a good, solid pickup. Usually waiver claim pickups are "meh" at best - otherwise why would the original team let them go? However, O'Day has been quite good for us. Something nice to see. CJ Wilson finished up with a scoreless inning. Overall, some really good pitching from the team from Arlington.

Back to the offense. We had five single run innings. There was the first, with the solo home run by Kinsler (his ninth). We also had three doubles in the game and a bunch (nine) singles. Not a real power game, but enough to score a single run in the third, fourth, fifth, & sixth innings.

This was all against former Ranger farmhand John Danks. Danks went just 5.1 innings, gave up 10 hits and 5 earned runs. Walked one, struck out three. This is not the line that fits with the commonly held position that the White Sox got the better of the trade that brought Texas Brandon McCarthy. Even with the five earned runs in about five innigs, Danks' ERA is just 3.81, so he's not like this all the time, but we have a habit of roughing up "good" pitchers in Arlington. Still, Brandon McCarthy has pitched pretty well in 2009, so the pendulum might be swinging back our way in the "Who got the better of the Danks / McCarthy trade" question.

This puts us back at .500. Let's see if we can get on a roll. I got really tired of playing the "dance with the .500 line" last year. I don't really want to do that again in 2009.

I've fallen into a bad habit lately in skipping large parts of Rangers games via TiVo, because they get down early, or are playing crappy or whatnot. I decided to score this game, as I wanted to force myself to pay attention. So what happens? Rain delay to start the game. Then four other delays. In all, 2 hours and 27 minutes of delays spread out over multiple occasions. The last one was just 12 minutes, and one was over an hour. What a mess. I actually almost went to this game. When it was first delayed, I almost hopped in the car and drove out. I would have gotten there before it started, but it was still raining pretty darned hard in Garland, I didn't want to drive in THAT.

Anyway, Brandon McCarthy started, and looked pretty good. He went five innings, giving up just three hits and one run. No walks, which is very good. The only reason he came out of the game, was rain. In fact, he went four, and there was a delay. They came back and played the top of the fifth (I presume to get it game legal), and McCarthy pitched that, but the game stopped again, and he was done. Shame, as he probably could have gone awhile more, he exited with just 68 pitches over five innings. Pretty good.

Luis Mendoza came in, and proceeded to stink up the joint, despite the smell of rain. He actually got two quick outs in his inning, then gave up a hit, a walk, and a rather painful hit of Jermaine Dye. Then a grand slam to AJ Pierzyqeiosdfgok (how the heck do you spell that?). Sigh. At that point, it put the A's back in the game, as they had been down 9-1 before that slam.

Eddie Guardado gave up the other run. Darren O'Day continues to look like a great pickup, it's a look we haven't had from a pitcher in ages. The closest I can think of would be Mike Venafro, and even his sidearm wasn't as pronounced as O'Day's. Feldman played with sidearm for awhile, but has pretty much gotten away from it.

Fransisco finished up with a perfect inning for the save.

Offense wise, we did all of our scoring in the third and fourth innings. Three in the third, and six in the fourth. The three in the third were a three run home run by Hank Blalock, which finally put Tom Grieve on the board for the "home run call" game. The six runs in the next frame were pretty much due to the five doubles we had that inning. Nobody went hitless in this game, although Michael Young was the last to get a hit.

There was a really nice play by Omar Vizquel, who has played pretty darned well during his time here. Doesn't look like a guy on the back end of his career, tell you the truth.

Jose Contreras does, though. 0-4 with an 8.31 ERA now. I wonder if we'll get him next weekend in Chicago.

Well, that was disappointing. It was a loss. Of course it as disappointing.

Early on, Scott Feldman looked like the really good version of Scott Feldman. That one that seemed he had earned a spot in the rotation after the way last season ended, but Scott got shafted in favor of Mr. Anna Benson. Anyway, with MAB on the DL (shocker, I know), Scott got the start. He was lights out early on, was perfect through three innings, I believe. He ran out of gas in the sixth though. The three runs he gave up were all at the end. This is probably due to him not being stretched out enough. But before he ran out of gas, he looked pretty good, hopefully he can stick here, and we don't have to put MAB back out there.

Derek Holland came in, and immediately gave up three runs - the three that were charged to Feldman, and gave away what should have been a Feldman win. Oh well. The inning after that, Derek gave up the fourth and deciding run. Darren O'Day and CJ Wilson came after that, keeping the White Sox off the board, but..

We couldn't come back on this one. All the Rangers runs came off of starter Mark Buehrle. And they were in the first three innings. The first run was a Michael Young home run; that was the only homer of the game. Young also had a double, as did Andruw Jones. Elvis had a triple. But we couldn't put it together against the Chicago bullpen, which pretty much kept us in check late.

That's a bummer, as I really wanted us to win. While we're playing the "dance with .500" game again, it's better than "dancing with "the .350 winning percentage" game like we've done in the past.

I'm not writing about this, I found out last night a relative has colon cancer, and was given a timeframe to live. Not the kind of news that makes you want to write about baseball. Sorry folks, taking a pass on this.

If I feel better later, then I might go back and say something, but I just don't feel like it right now.

Well, we have our first rainout of the season. I was watching, and saw them go into a rain delay. First, FSS showed some good Rangers rain delay programming. They showed the Chuck Morgan episode of "In My Own Words". The old footage from the Grand Ol Opry is definitely worth the price of admission. :) Then the FSS people had some epic fail by putting on friggin POKER. The stupidest thing ever on television. Like that's a substitute. I switched over to watching "Time Warp" on the Discovery Channel. Tonight's episode featured Metallica, which was a rather entertaining subject. If you've never seen Time Warp before, it's a show where they record things at like 1,000 or 2,000 frames per second, and play them back in regular speed, so things go stupid slow. Some of the things they do are quite amusing (like putting six airbags inside a car backwards so all the windows blow out, filling a pressure cooker with food, and blocking the pressure relief valve. Then watch it in slow motion. Most of their videos are restricted on Youtube from embedding, but I found one about water. Check it out below (in HD, too). You really should check this show out.

Oh, the Rangers game? It was rained out after awhile. Did they make it up tomorrow, when I would have called work and taken a vacation day to go to the doubleheader? Noo.. They scheduled it for May 29th. That's bad for me, because it's the day my son will likely be born! Darnit - I love doubleheaders!

Anyway, here's the Time Warp video (if you're on a feed reader, you'll need to hit the site most likely)...

There's more Time Warp videos available here (including the Metallica stuff, which was really cool).

Finally, the Rangers come home after what seemed like a longer road trip than it really was. I saw some of the game, but not most of it. Tonight was the next night in the set of dominos that is getting my house ready for my son, who should be arriving in about four weeks. I spent most of the evening after dinner putting together the crib - the same one our daughter used, and it's all done up nice, looking forward to that (which will cause a large break when it happens, as I won't update for awhile then).

The Rangers were very efficient with their offense tonight. They had just five hits the whole night. They were all singles. Hank Blalock had two, and Michael Young, Nelson Cruz, & Salty had one each. But it was enough, as we plated five runs for the win.

On the flip side, Kevin Millwood pitched another great game. He went eight innings, hanging in just long enough to get the win. Our final run came in the bottom of the eighth, when he was effectively (if not technically) done. He really should be 4-0 at this point, but he's 2-2. This game felt like it was going to go the way of his losses, actually. Fortunately, he came in with the win. Kevin tossed 121 pitches in his eight innings, gave up just four hits and two walks for the two runs. He's looking like the bulldog, and his 2010 option should vest easily if this keeps up.

Speaking of Kevin, has anyone noticed he looks more like an old school scruffball baseball player since he's grown in that beard? Has a more "mean" look to him that way, I think.

Chris Davis got ejected from the game for calling balls and strikes. Home plate umpire Eric Cooper was calling a lot of high strikes, and while the TV coverage didn't have the tracker to check, it seemed a lot were close. Davis grumbled a few times, as did some others (Kinsler and Andruw Jones had visible signs of annoyance). Cooper though seems like that kind of umpire that likes to argue back, and that never helps things. There were called strikeouts to end the second, third, & fourth innings for the Rangers. Just seemed like a lot.

We're back to .500 with the win. That puts us 2.5 games behind the Mariners for the division lead. SEATTLE?!?! There's two more games this month, be nice if we can win both of them, and finish 12-10 for April. Not stellar, but given our previous Aprils, it's a definite improvement. Speaking of improvement, Vicente Pidente needs to show some. He's been outpitched by Brandon McCarthy so far this year. Eek.

It's only game 19, and I'm already in that "Oh Crap! Starting pitching has us down 4-0 in the second, time to hit FF on the TiVo!" mode. That's not good this early in the season. However, after that, Matt Harrison got it together, and stuck around. All the Orioles runs came in the first two innings. After that, Matt Harrison stuck around for five more innings, making his final line fairly respectable. He ended up going seven innings and throwing 112 pitches, seven hits, four runs, one walk, three strikeouts. Not all that bad, given how the game started. Darren O'Day, CJ Wilson, & Frank Francisco followed up with two innings of shutout ball. There was just one hit, by Frankie. In all, not bad.

On the other side, we had an odd stat. The Rangers had ten hits. However, just by five players, who had two each. The five Rangers were David Murphy (2x singles), Michael Young (double, home run), Hank Blalock (single, double), Marlon Byrd (2x singles), & Taylor Teagarden (2x singles). Not a ton of power there, it's mostly singles. But it was enough to get the job done. A single run in the fourth, two in the fifth, three in the sixth. Michael Young's home run at that point didn't give us the lead (we were still behind 4-3 then), but it was an emotional home run, as you felt the game was in our hands at that point.

David Murphy is looking up. After 19 games, his batting average is .100. Which is fairly pathetic, until you realize it was .000 after 17 games. So maybe he's figured out his bat again, and we can get him involved, which might be needed if Josh Hamilton is going to miss any length of time.

Not a ton to say about this one. Nice to get out of there winning three out of four games.

Early on, it was looking pretty good for the Rangers. We were up 2-1 after two, and then went up 5-1 in the top of the fifth. But that was about the end of the good times.

Before we get to that, I do have to single out David Murphy. Murph was batting an ofer 2009 up until this game. He had a really great day, even though he went just 1-3. That one was a solo home run in the fifth inning. That his first hit of the year was a home run had to be good for him. What wasn't good was that it game in the 18th game of the season. However. That wasn't it for good news for him. He had two outfield assists. One at third base, and another at the plate. I forget which order they came in, but after one of them, he came up in the fifth and hit his home run. He had to be flying.

Murph wasn't the only one with a home run. Chris Davis & Hank Blalock also had home runs. Those home runs accounted for all five Rangers runs. An old story, for sure.

Also early on, it looked like Brandon McCarthy was the good version. The Orioles were held to just one run through four. Not lights out, mind you, but one through four is a good number to be working on. However, the wheels fell off in the fifth. McCarthy allowed three runs in the bottom of the fifth to let the Orioles back in the game. We were still winning at that point (5-4), but Jason Jennings fared no better the next inning, giving up three more runs (plus a bonus run in the bottom of the eighth). Meh on that.

Sigh. Oh well, I had forgotten this series was four games after the Saturday night game. I thought we were going for a sweep this game, but that didn't happen.

I'm already spoiled by HD. None of the games in Toronto and none in Baltimore are in HD. Bummer.

I didn't get to see any of this game when it happened - Saturday was a big day for my family, we had friends from church over to help paint the bedroom of our second kid, who will be arriving in about 4-5 weeks now. By the time we were done with that, went out to eat, came back watched a movie, and took one of them back home, I was wiped out. Because of that, my commentary on this game will be short.

I did put on the Rangers game, but I already knew the score, so I just watched the Rangers score. Plus, since all of our runs (but one) came in the first three innings, it was done quickly. That was fun, because it was a ton of home runs accounting for five of our six runs. The highlight was definitely Ian Kinsler, who jacked two home runs off of Mark Hendrickson. Hendrickson gave up all the runs, although one was unearned. The home runs were a two run shot by Kinsler, a solo shot by Kinsler (to lead off the game), and solo shots by Chris Davis & Andruw Jones. As the home runs increased the Baltimore fans were bringing more boobirds, too.

Pitching wise, Scott Feldman started in place of Mr. Anna Benson. Feldman should have been in the rotation to start the year, I think, and he made a case to stay. Only went five innings, but could be a "not stretched out" issue. Five innings, just one run on four hits. He was followed by Derek Holland, who from the linescore looked impressive again. Three innings, one hit, one run. It was a solo home run to Baltimore, their only home run of the game. CJ Wilson followed, and showed why he's not the closer anymore, and finally, Frank Francisco did finish it off for his fourth save of the season so far.

Salty went 2-4, raising his batting average to .260. Nice to see him come around the last few days.

If I wasn't so wiped out tired, I probably would have watched the game, but I'm glad I got to at least see the high points. We go another win today in Baltimore. Brandon McCarthy goes for his third win of the season, which would be three times more than he got in 2008.

The Rangers were held off by Japanese import Koji Uehara for most of the game. From what I gather of him, he's not a dominant strikeout kind of guy, but early on, he was punching out Rangers at a pretty good clip. In all, he went 6.2 innings, striking out six Rangers - although most of them were in the first couple of innings. Four hits, two runs, he pitched pretty good, certainly well enough to deserve the win. However, his bullpen didn't hold it for him.

But before we get to that, Vicente Padilla continued to pitch "meh" in 2009. He went the same length as Uehara, 6.2. However, Pidente had seven hits, three walks, with a home run four all four runs the Orioles would get. His season ERA is 8.27. Definitely not good. It feels odd, as you kind of felt (via that gut feeling sort of thing) that he was going to be significantly better than this. He certainly has time to turn it around and be OK, but wow, this is not a good start to the 2009 campaign.

Our pen was pretty good, we had four relievers combine for 2.1 innings, giving up just one hit and two walks, but no runs, the most important stat. One of the relievers was Eddie Guardado who pitched to just one batter, and walked him. Darren O'Day was in this game (with his own uniform), too!

Back to bullpens. Baltimore's did not hold it for Uehara. First, Jim Johnson gave up a run on four hits, which is surprising that it was just one run. However, the big blow was the home run by Michael Young which gave the Rangers the lead, and the eventual win.

Offensively, it was mostly a singles game. We had 12 hits in all, just three extra base ones. The aforementioned home run by Young, another home run by Hank Blalock, and a double by Saltamacchia were it for extra base jobbers. Elvus Andrus & Josh Hamilton both took ofers. Kinsler, Young, & Blalock each had two hits, everyone else had just a single hit. Expect Salty. He had a good night, going 3-4, and raising his average from like .180 to .239. His offense has struggled a lot, much in the same way that Gerald Laird's did when he was finally told "the job is yours, don't worry about your offense". I hope Salty comes around, he seems to have the Blalock "wild, big swing and a miss" going on right now.

But was a nice comeback - hopefully we could sweep in Baltimore, we certainly need it.

I'm taking my first mulligan of the season (there will probably be a big one in a month or so when my second kid is born) for the Toronto series. There's a lot going on in my personal life now (in prep for the kid), and with work at the same time, so I need to give up these games and catch up by cheating. This page is here as a placeholder.

Bummer, as I wanted to talk about Derek Holland, the Darren O'Day uniform thing, but I need to give myself a break. :)

I'm taking my first mulligan of the season (there will probably be a big one in a month or so when my second kid is born) for the Toronto series. There's a lot going on in my personal life now (in prep for the kid), and with work at the same time, so I need to give up these games and catch up by cheating. This page is here as a placeholder.

Bummer, as I wanted to talk about Derek Holland, the Darren O'Day uniform thing, but I need to give myself a break. :)

There is a fun link to Darren O'Day wearing the wrong uniform number here on the mlb.com site.

I'm taking my first mulligan of the season (there will probably be a big one in a month or so when my second kid is born) for the Toronto series. There's a lot going on in my personal life now (in prep for the kid), and with work at the same time, so I need to give up these games and catch up by cheating. This page is here as a placeholder.

Bummer, as I wanted to talk about Derek Holland, the Darren O'Day uniform thing, but I need to give myself a break. :)

I know there was more to talk about, but the only thing that mattered was the walkoff home run. We won the game on the second pitch of the bottom of the ninth. Michael Young won it. Prompting these. I mean, really - do we remember anything else? I don't.

We needed this heading out on the road. If we had not won this, it would have been a mighty bad way to hit the road against a division leader.

You hear the term "hard luck loser" a lot if you hang around baseball enough. Last night was one of those nights. The guy wearing 33 on his back for the Rangers definitely qualified. Kevin Millwood threw a nine inning complete game. Gave up just five hits and allowed only two runs. Struck out three (walked three though). By all accounts a great game, one definitely deserving of a win. This should have been Kevin's third win of the year already. It wasn't.

That was because of Zack Greinke of the Royals. He also threw a nine inning complete game. Problem is while he allowed more hits than Millwood did (7 to Kevin's 5), he also struck out 10 and allowed no one to cross the plate. The pro writers will have an eloquent way of saying this in their reports.. "Greinke was friggin awesome!" I mean what else needs to be said really? He dominated the game totally - we looked mostly stupid at the plate. Only Blalock managed more than one hit. Of our seven, only two were extra base hits (one double by Salty, a triple by Blalock). In fact, Hank's triple led off the inning, and he was stuck there, never scored.

As much as you feel bad for Millwood, it was a totally masterful and dominant performance by Greinke. Definitely deserving of praise from this Rangers fan.

What is it with Kansas City. Even when they're at the lowest of the low (which was most of the time), we have problems with them. This is a team that until this year teams are supposed to beat easily, and we're constantly losing to them. Is it the time in Surprise? Who knows. But it happened again.

After the "Good Karma" of Kinsler's 6-6 cycle, it pretty much did not carry over. Kinsler himself went 2-4 for this game (with a walk), which was better than most everyone. Hank Blalock went 2-5, but Elvis Andrus led the way from the 9 hole with a 3-4 night. No runs or RBI's, but he was the only Ranger with three hits. Blalock, Byrd, & Salty each had solo home runs which accounted for all three of our runs.

David Murphy came in as a replacement, and took another ofer. He remains ofer 2009. That's a bit disturbing. If it doesn't turn around soon, it might affect his playing time or his spot. In another odd move, Michael Young was pinch hit for by Omar Vizquel. I'm not sure I understand that one.

The pitching, however... Matt Harrison is not looking in 2009 like he did in 2008. This game was well, ugh. Five innings and six earned runs on eight hits with four walks. Two of the hits were home runs. Bleh. Willie Eyre, who was just called up to help the pen was no help. 1.1 innings, giving up three runs on four hits and two walks. Josh Rupe was even worse. 1.2 innings, three runs on six hits and a walk. Eddie Guardado finished up, and actually threw a scoreless inning, which REDUCED his ERA to 11.25.

The pen has been pretty bad to start the season, and we haven't had much of a chance to test Frankie. If this keeps going for too much longer, there probably will be some big bullpen changes.

Where the heck do you start with this one? After a dismal several games, the Rangers finally kicked it into gear, and appeared to be pissed off that they had lost several in a row, and really took it out on Baltimore. Not nearly as much as that 30-3 game against them in Baltimore, but this felt just as good. The reasons for the good feelings were several:

• First off, Ian Kinsler's cycle. Any time a player gets a cycle, it's cool. No way to not feel good about your guy getting one. Ian had 13 total bases in the game.
• Ian Kinsler also going 6-6 in a nine inning (technically eight since we're at home) game. Couple that with the cycle, and it's something that hadn't been done since the 1800's I believe (cycle with 6-6 in a nine inning game).
• Marlon Byrd going 5-6. If it wasn't for Kinsler's 6-6 cycle, this would have been a bigger deal for sure.
• Nelson Cruz missing two grand slams in the same game by about 5 feet. He jacked one that looked like a sure second slam late in the game, but it just missed getting over the wall. Darn.
• Nine of our eighteen hits being extra bases (five doubles, two triples, and two home runs)
• Three stolen bases, something that is becoming a big part of the Rangers offense.

I mean, how can you be a Rangers fan after this game and not feel good about it? OK, if you wanted to, you could say that Young & Salty had ofers. With all the offense, it seemed odd that any of our starters would have an ofer, let alone two of them. We were 9-20 with RISP.

But the heck with the negative, it was just fun to watch. Mr. Anna Benson actually got the win, but he was not all that great. Good enough for a win, but definitely not great.

As I sit here to write this, I can't think of anything else to say except, "That was badass, wasn't it?"

Enjoyed the win, enjoyed the Kinsler performance. Did not enjoy the TV post game interviews. Are the Rangers trying to get people to not watch post game stuff? Mike Ogulnick & Jim Knox are both "turn to something else" people. I never watch top of the second stuff - when Knix in the "Fox Box". It's an immediate skip.

In a turn of events that I thought at the time probably made Randy Galloway pretty happy, the Rangers bullpen blew the game again. I figure he was just waiting for them to get home, lose a couple, and go "See - I told you so". That's part of the reason why I never listen to him on the radio. I think if we actually won the World Series, he'd complain about it. Anyway...

Brandon McCarthy pitched OK. Wasn't lights out, but was decent enough. Enough that you didn't feel afraid with him out there. Six innings, five hits, three earned runs. Technical quality start, but the fact that he didn't embarrass himself or the team is major progress for the man that wears Mike Schmidt's old Phillies number on the back of his Rangers uniform. CJ Wilson got back on the horse, and threw 1.2 innings of shutout ball after his debacle the previous game. Frank Francisco came in during the eighth and played four out closer. He wouldn't have gotten the save, but the idea was we win it in the bottom of the ninth. That didn't happen, and we went to that very very scary land. Rangers extra inning baseball. It's enough to make you think that Michael Jackson is a good babysitter. Eddie Guardado came in to pitch the 10th inning, and he pitched like CJ Wilson did the previous night. 2/3 of an inning pitched, four earned runs on four hits (one of which was a home run) and a walk. Not good. Warner Madrigal mopped up with a scoreless final out, but the damage was done. We were down in extra innings. Not good.

What got us there offensively was pretty good. We started off the game early with three solo home runs. Michael Young, Nelson Cruz, & Chris Davis all hit home runs off of starter Alfredo Simon in the first inning plus. Simon then left the game with some sort of injury. He also took with him the Rangers offense. That was it for our offense through four relievers who shut the Rangers down from innings two through nine. Nothing. Seems to be a recurring theme at the moment. Usually teams like getting into other teams' bullpens. Not us in 2009. When we get to the bullpen, we are usually done. We weren't able to piece anything together until the 10th inning. At that point we were down 7-3. We did manage to get two runs across, and loaded the bases too for Josh Hamilton. The stage was set, and we didn't deliver. Extra inning loss. That's bad enough, but we had managed to get an offense going there. Just not enough to get over the hump, which was fairly annoying.

Also, Omar Vizquel's deke in the field was quite smooth. Enjoyed that.

Michael Young was 3-4, raising his average to .355.

David Murphy is still struggling, his average is a donut still.

Sigh.

At least we had three home runs, including the titanic shot by Chris Davis.

Sigh. We're better than this. Not April, guys. Stop it with the crap in April!

Gah!

I was going to write about how good Millwood was this game. He looked great. Seven innings of four hit, shutout ball. No walks. Looked really great out there. Then CJ Wilson came in and blew it. Couldn't do anything out there. Officially charged with just three earned runs, although six were allowed in all. That was just awful. Nothing good to say there.

Josh Hamilton & Ian Kinsler's home runs were wasted. Funny thing is we were mostly shut down, too. Last game we had just two hits. This game we had just five. Four of them were extra base hits, and we were efficient again, having just five hits and four runs.

But the bullpen!

Well, after the 15-2 fiasco, I wondered what the Rangers would do. More of the same, or bounce back. Well, they did neither. They were further shut down. It seems odd to say that when they scored more runs than the previous game, but we were totally shut down, despite actually scoring three runs. That, in and of itself was a miracle.

The Rangers had just two hits all day. But they were very well placed hits. The first one was a solo home run by Hank Blalock that actually put us in the lead, making you feel good. However, it didn't last long, the Rangers gave up two in the bottom of the second. The Rangers didn't get their lone other hit until the fifth. We had a walk and a couple of errors which loaded the bases. Josh Hamilton singled, scoring Chris Davis & Elvis Andrus. And that ended the Rangers offense for the day. That was it. The bizarre line of three runs on two hits. There's nothing else to say about our offense, as that was the extent of it.

Great throw by Elvis Andrus doing the Jeter move from deep DEEP short (even shorter than Jeter), and only missing Gerald Laird by half a step. Any other catcher, it would have been an out, and been a season highlight. Great play.

Pitching wise, Matt Harrison made his first start of the season, and was "eh". Had moments where he looked good, and others where he didn't - pretty standard for a guy his age. 5.2 innings, nine hits and five walks (not good, really) for all four earned runs the Tigers got. Not a lot to say except that he only gave up three doubles, and no home runs. CJ Wilson & Jason Jennings looked good out of the pen (for their 2.1 innings). Jennings in particular struck out Cabrera & Ordonez, a good bit of pitching itself.

Comerica Field during the day there looked freakin fantasic in high definition. :)

Well, the Rangers are no longer the only undefeated American League team. They were defeated quite soundly. Kris Benson punches his ticket for the "Passable in Spring Training, but smeg all in April" award for 2009. That was just bad. Oh, we'll probably see stories by professional sports writers about how it wasn't as bad as the line looked (5IP, 10H, 8R, 7ER, 2BB, 3K, 2HR), but there's no beating around the bush. That was bad. Madrigal & Rupe were no better, go look up their lines. I'm only writing one bad line today.

The only really good thing was a home run by Nelson Cruz in the 9th, which Eric Nadel got REALLY excited about. :)

Who would have thought that I'd get to use the sweep graphic in the first series of the year? I'd say nobody. For the first time in thirteen years, going back to our first championship year of 1996, the Rangers have started off the season 3-0. That year, they went 7-0 to start the season on the way to their first ever playoff appearance. One fun little note about the 1996 team. I didn't remember this until I looked it up, but the first two series there were three game sweeps of both the Red Sox & Yankees.

Anyway, to the mound this day was Brandon McCarthy. A guy a lot of fans are essentially saying "Come on, man - this is it. NOW!" in terms of his pitching with the Rangers. By all accounts he's supposed to be better than he was the last few years since he got here from Chicago. I think just about every Rangers fan wants him to do good, if even at a minimum you go "But... John Danks!" Anyway, McCarthy went out there and did something important. He didn't embarrass himself, or the team. Not stellar, mind you - but passable enough. Five innings on 105 pitches, only four hits, but did have four walks. Two of those hits were home runs. One good thing was seven strikeouts. Looks like he was burned by the longball. Take those away, and it would have been a pretty decent outing.

Can't say the same for Scott Feldman. Scott, only went 2.1 innings, but gave up five hits, and two more home runs for a total of four earned runs.

The funny thing is before this, we just utterly destroyed Carl Pavano, who probably won't have a job anywhere anymore. That is if this pitching keeps up, coupled with what Joe Torre said about him in his Yankees book. Six hits, three walks, NINE EARNED RUNS in a total of just one official inning. He was out in the second, but never retired anyone. Thirty nine pitches, and twelve batters faced. Nine of them got on base, and all of them scored. I mean. WOW, THAT'S BAD! I actually missed this stuff, as I thought the game started at 2PM, when it started at 1, so I missed the first couple of innings. Bummer, those were the best ones.

Of course, the flip side of that horrendous performance by Carl Pavano (who now has an ERA of 81.00) was that our offense was really in gear. First off, with this being the series finale, and a day game after a night game, we got the rest of our position players in the game. Andruw Jones & Omar Vizquel started this. Jones' first game as a Ranger was pretty good. 3-5 with an RBI and two runs scored. One of his hits was a double. To that, we had three doubles in all, Marlon Byrd & Ian Kinser got their first home runs of the season, and there were eight singles. Kinsler & Jones had the most hits with three. Young, Byrd, & Vizquel had two hits each, and our batting averages for the starting lineup are looking pretty darned good (except for Chris Dais, who is hitting just .091 for the season so far).

Was a good way to set outselves off for the road in Detroit. Funny comment on the radio, they said there was a big sign in the Rangers clubhouse about "no red on the road". Rut-roh. :) This game starts something odd, it was the first of four consecutive day games. All three games in Detroit are day games. That seems quite odd. It's not like this is Wrigley Field or anything, Detroit is not a day only town. Unless it's a "It's cold there, and playing in the sun is warmer" kind of issue.

mlb.com started with the headline, "Rangers Cruz to 2-0". Silly headline aside, it's a good point. Nelson Cruz had a great game. He had two titanic home runs - including one into the upper deck, and made a freakin' fantastic catch in right field. He went 2-4 with 3 RBI's, and two runs scored (when he batted himself in twice).

Nelson & Elvis were the only guys with two hits. In fact, hits were scarce overall, we had just nine of them, but made 'em work for our eight runs. Speaking of Elvis, he christened his career pretty nicely with a solo home run that went into the Rangers bullpen in the 6th inning. It won someone on TV $200, and it ended up with CJ Wilson. Another good one was a triple by Josh Hamilton, and we also had our usual gaggle of doubles (three of them). In fact, only two of our nine hits were singles, seven were of the extra base variety.

What was especially cool about Nelson Cruz & Elvis Andrus was how HUGE their smiles were in this game. Elvis' was understandable - first major league home run, but Cruz was nutso smiling, especially after that big catch of his. It was quite refreshing to see that much smiling in a game.

Bit of a scary moment when Jarrod Saltammachia had to come out of the game with what was described as lightheadedness.

Pitching wise, it started off with Vicente Pidente looking like he was going to match the performance of Kevin Millwood from opening day. While he did get the win, and battled, he didn't have dominating stuff outside of the early part of the game. In all, he went 5.2 innings, giving up four hits and three walks for three earned runs. He was let down a bit by a couple of errors behind him. There was a third later on when CJ was pitching. All of them were the same - they pulled Chris Davis off first base via a wild throw. They were Elvis, Michael Young, & CJ Wilson doing the throwing. Only one lead to a run, it was an unearned one on the ledger of Jason Jennings, but you don't like to see that many errors, even if two of them didn't lead to anything.

Frank Francisco came in and got his first save of the season. Eddie G also had a short appearance. The pitching wasn't as crisp as it was opening day, but it was great to see the win. Even greater to see the players wear the red T-shirts and red caps. It did kind of make the "home white/blue" uniform look like the old 90's red uniform, even if it wasn't. :)

Here we are again, folks. It's the first game of the 11th season of Rangers baseball since I started this site in December of 1998. There was a lot to look forward to. The new scoreboards, Dubya throwing out the first pitch, a feeling that this season might be the best since 2004, plus just the usual opening day "good feeling" you get by attending Game 1/162.

So I take off from Garland at 9AM, hit Starbucks for a big cup of coffee, since it's a bit on the nippy side. Throw on the talk show on the XM 24/7 talk channel for the ride out, which was surprisingly easy, but given the time I left, I'm not surprised at the lack of traffic, even when I got to Arlington. On the way out to the park, I was so overwhelmed as I thought about how good my life is in general, I had to turn off the radio and give thanks to God for the day, my life, and the beauty I saw on the drive out (there's some nice side views of things I think). Anyway, when I got to the park I was right next to the stadium, came in, and was surprised at how windy and cold it was. It was fine if you were in the sun, but in the shade, wow it felt cold. I had a walk around the park, picked up a program, and checked out various things. Looked at the new scoreboards at point blank range, watched some batting practice, had a lot of fun just watching people and all that. One thing I thought was funny, although I don't really know why was in the new scoreboards. Two games were postponed before I got there, and both of those games were shown on the new scoreboard with two stormclouds. When I saw that, I actually laughed, I enjoyed that.

I got to my seat, and phoned in to home to see what was going on there. That phone call wasn't really meant for here, but one part was so cool, I had to relay it. My wife told me that about 20 minutes or so after I had left my three year old came running to Mommy with a really sad look on her face, saying "MOMMY! DADDY FORGOT HIS TICKET!" She had Rangers tickets in her hand, but what she found was two of the tickets we had for the exhibition game on Saturday. I had taken them out of my wallet and put 'em on the counter when I put the ticket for today's game in my wallet. It was a real heart melter when my wife told me how upset my kid was that I forgot my ticket. I considered it further evidence of God's love for me. I see it in so many places these days.

After we had the usual awesome opening ceremonies. They were enhanced with the new video boards, showing some cool enhancements to the national anthem. We had the huge flag, balloons, the B-1 bomber flyover, player announcements, and to top it off, George W. Bush. No matter what you think of the man's politics, there's no denying his love for baseball, and that's quite refreshing to see. Heard him on the radio later in the game, and it was great - his command of current Rangers stuff and other baseball minutiae is quite impressive. It was all awesome, and the final flavor of all was the red uniforms. It was a spectacular opening ceremony. Loved it - another bangup job by Chuck Morgan and his crew.

Then we get to the game itself. Kevin Millwood takes on Cliff Lee. The 22 win Cy Young guy goes against the Rangers and their "Ace". Never really felt we had a good shot to win this one, was definitely another of those "on paper" matchups. However, the pitching was backwards. Millwood pitched like the Cy Young guy. He faced the minimum through the first three innings, and just just two over the minimum through the first six. Was helped out by two good double plays. In fact, the only run the Indians got all day was in the seventh, when he seemed to be starting to run out of gas, gave up two singles, and uncorked a wild pitch, allowing the lone run to come across. But his line was quite impressive. Seven innings pitched, just five hits, one run, one walk, and five strikeouts. Tossed something like 115 pitches, and it was a nice feeling seeing that from Rangers #33. CJ Wilson & Frank Francisco both followed with perfect innings, one strikeout each. Our pitching was very crisp.

The defense was pretty darned good, too. Michael Young made a couple of hardcore third base plays - it was as if he had been playing there for a long time, he handled the hard ones quite nicely. Elvis Andrus made a really good defensive play in the game too. He had some nice range to get to the ball, that quite frankly, I don't think Michael Young would have gotten to. And of course, it didn't take long, after that play we got "Elvis is in the building" on the new ribbon graphics. First game. :)

That brings us to the offense. It was the major league debut of Elvis Andrus. It was the cause of some consternation with Michael Young moving to third, but on this game, it was all good. Andrus was great on defense, and he got a double in his first major league at bat. He only went 1-4, but it felt like he was better than that. Probably rose coloured opening day glasses there, but it still felt great.

The rest of our offense was pretty good too. In fact, every starting Ranger had at least one hit, except for one. Chris Davis took an ofer, but everyone else had at least one hit. In all, the Rangers had fifteen hits. Of those hits, six of them were extra base ones. We had four doubles, including two by Ian Kinlser. We also had a big three run home run by Hank Blalock, and a solo shot later on by Jarrod Saltamacchia. The power was good. Blalock's home run was NOT a no doubter, you had to wonder, as the right fielder did keep going back, so you thought it could get caught; but it wasn't. Ian Kinsler looked fantastic, jacking two doubles, getting two RBI's. On several Ranger players, but particuarly noticable on Kinsler & Young, the Indians were shading their outfielders way over to the right. Kinsler's mostly a pull hitter (not all the time, but a lot of the time), I wouldn't have thought they would give him a wide a hole has he got in the left field corner. Our guys had the sticks going. Of the eight players with hits, just two (Byrd & Andrus) had one hit. Everyone else had two or more. It was a nice attack, and moreso that it came on Game #1 at home.

As I said, the game was freakin fantastic, it was a wonderful day (Praise God for that), and the defense and pitching were right up there with the offense. It was a heck of a day to start the season, that's for sure! I'm not going to write the crap you read everywhere about "It's just the first, don't get too excited". But it's hard to NOT get excited after a first game being so good. I was quite glad I got this shot of the winning line of players next to the Opening Day 2009 logo. Really nice to see that :)

Oh, and Candyce, here's the only picture I got of Josh Hamilton all day. Sorry about that. I didn't take many game pictures at all, once the game started, I was more interested in watching it than documenting it. :)

Saturday was the final exhibition game, it was in Arlington, and I attended with my wife and kid. It was a lot of fun, and I won't write much about this, because most of my attention was with my family.

I wrote a lot about the scoreboards and the place itself yesterday, but i wanted to put a marker on my site for the game.

A couple of game comments I remember.. Being disappointed in Elvis dropping a popup, which led to a couple of unearned runs. Enjoying the "Home Run" graphics on the new scoreboards. Thinking Kris Benson was struggling more than he needed to be.

Overall, I really wasn't there for the game, I was there to spend time with my family, and check out the scoreboards. From the seventh inning onwards, I spent my time in the kids park in center field anyway, so I missed the winning run the Royals got off of Madrigal. I was quite frankly more interested in watching my kid play games in center field than I was in the game. That's a new feeling for me, perhaps I'm finally growing up.

The Rangers took the first of two Texas exhibition games against their most played spring foe, Kansas City. KC came north with Texas from Surprise with us to Frisco. I didn't see or hear any of this game, as it was not available anywhere. I suppose I could have gone out to Frisco to see the game, but I was busy with family stuff. Which will always win out over a baseball game.

Had I been there, I would have wondered with everyone else why Vicente Padilla came out of the game early on. He exited after just two pretty good innings. Two hits, one earned run, and that's it. Out. That's the kind of line you have in game 5 of Spring Training, not game 35. It was said he had stiffness in his forearm. After the game, they didn't seem to be too concerned about it, but you never want to see that kind of thing with your #2 guy in his final spring appearance.

Brandon McCarthy followed him, went four innings, giving up just three hits and a run in what I assume was the rest of the time Padilla was going to be out there. Turnbow, Jennings, & Strop followed, and did not allow any more runs.

Offensively, we had nine hits in all. Nelson Cruz & Elvis had two hits each, the rest were scattered. Four of the hits were doubles, five were singles. Not a ton of power, but we still had a bunch of doubles as per usual. More than enough to win.

Something I didn't pick up on right away was something that was buried in a Rangers Press release. yesterday, the Rangers published a list of food changes to the ballpark.

It's the fact that the Rawlings Grill (formerly Friday's Grill) is gone. There's no restaurant up there anymore. It's now been replaced by what I believe to be additional seating for the "All You Can Eat" seats. Here's the relevant text from the press release:

The All You Can Eat section has been expanded to about 2,100 seats and will be located in the Home Run Porch and the space formerly occupied by the Rawlings All-American Grill. This package is now available for every home game.

I have to say I'm a bit surprised by that. I'm not surprised that the All You Can Eat thing has been expanded, it's actually a decent value, even if you don't gorge yourself and get an "average" amount of food. But to completely eliminate the restaurant is a different thing. I enjoyed that up there, and with the Gold Club behind home plate being restricted by where you sit, there's no "common restuarant" anymore. The Rawlings Grill was a good value. The Gold Club (assuming you were in there) is somewhat overpriced (and they don't do common things like refills on your soda, or they're not supposed to anyway). There is the Diamond Club, but that's a ritzier kind of place, it's not a quickie burger joint kind of thing like Rawlings was (or Fridays was before it). I wonder if the place was cutting into profit of ballpark food. Or I could be looking too deep, and Rawlings wanted to cut their sponsorship deal in the economy.

Who knows, but the fact that the Rawlings restuarant is not there anymore did come as a bit of a surprise. I'm going to Saturday's exhibition game, and I'll be taking pictures, so I'll get a look at what it looks like, and post something here.

In a game that had the number three all over it, the guy who wore uniform number 3 didn't even play. The Rangers won the game 9-3, which was three times the runs the Royals got. They had three innings where they scored three runs each. The backup guy playing third base ended up the Arizona portion of spring with a .333 average. Backup outfielder Craig Gentry had a three bagger. Adam Fox had a three run home run for a game total of three RBI's. As a bonus there, his surname has three letters in it. Josh Rupe had three flyouts in the game. The Rangers had three players hit doubles. Scott Feldman got the win - his third of the spring. The game time was two hours and THIRTY THREE minutes. There were only three umpires in the game (OK, I'm reaching now).

And so ends the Arizona portion of the spring training schedule. Just two more games left, and it starts for real. There's an exhibition game in Frisco on Friday night, and a game in Arlington on Saturday afternoon that I'm going to with my wife and soon to be four year old.

This last Arizona game featured a drubbing of the Royals by a 9-3 score (no more 3 lines, I promise). Scott Feldman started the game, and accoring to all the press, it will be the last time he starts for awhile. Mr. Anna Benson had better not be a flash, as I really wanted Feldman in there in the rotation from the getgo. Feldman went four innings, giving up just three hits and one earned run. Josh Rupe threw two innings, giving up one run, and the remaining three pitchers (Turnbow, Guardado, Wilson) only gave up one run - it was Wilson, and it was an unearned run. So our pitching was pretty good this game.

Offensively, Michael Young ended the Arizona portion of spring with an 11 game hitting streak, which gives him a .349 batting average. That's pretty good, hope that carries over to April, we'll need it. Three doubles, a triple, two home runs, the power was going. This is the time of year when you go "Eh, I don't want to write about this one, it doesn't count anyway, let's get going".

I'm surprised I wrote as much as I did. :)

Due to work concerns, I was unable to listen to any of this game until about the middle of the seventh inning, when almost all the scoring was done. At that point, the game was tied 4-4, and the only real excitement I got to hear was Andruw Jones' home run to win the game in the ninth. This is the last time we'll see the Angels until May 16th (on a Saturday afternoon Fox game of the week). We faced them just two times this spring, and won twice (13-7 on Sunday, 5-4 today).

The Rangers only threw out three pitchers today. None of them are guys making the club. Doug Mathis started. Doug appeared in eight games for the Rangers in 2008, posting a 6.65 ERA. Which is pretty close to what his spring ERA is in 2009 (6.75). In this game he went just four innings, giving up just three hits. However, he accompanied those hits with three walks for a total of three earned runs. Two of those runs came on a home run ball to Matthew Brown. Tommy Hunter followed with a scoreless inning (Tommy was in 3 games in 2008, for a 16.36 ERA). The final Rangers pitcher was Derek Holland, who had the weird line of 4IP, 3H, 1ER, a blown save, and the win.

That win came on the aforementioned home run by Andruw Jones in the ninth to take the decisive lead. Jones had come in for Josh Hamilton in his slot. Josh himself had a solo home run earlier in the game. Jones also had a double in the slot as well, so this hole had some power on April 1st. You know the drill, four doubles, two home runs, six singles, Rangers scored, we won. Old hat, eh? hahahaha

Anyway, it's nice to see the page flip to April. Next Monday is Opening Day. I'll be there, as will most others living in this area that read this site, I'd wager. Bunch of roster moves are imminent.

I'm not saying much about this game. The reason is there's a big Giants fan where I work, and the less said about this fiasco the better. Still, a few comments:

1. This game featured no position player substitutions. I believe that was the first game like that all spring. The same guys who started the game in the field (save for the pitcher) ended it.
2. We had just six hits, two of 'em by Josh Hamilton, and one of THOSE was a three run home run off Barry Zito, accounting for all our runs.
3. Matt Harrison was not good, I actually got a chance to listen to the start of this game at work yesterday. Was ugly.
4. Barry Zito didn't sound too bad. Of course, it's the Rangers, so he could go 1-16 all season, the 1 would be against us, naturally. Just like the Oakland days.
5. Of the nine guys who batted this game, the lowest spring batting average at the end of the game was .258 (Blalock). The highest was Josh Hamilton (.384)

Sunday's game featured four home runs accounting for nine of thirteen runs. Monday's game featured four more home runs, this time accounting for all seven of the runs! Here's Monday's list...

Taylor Teagarden - Three run shot in the second inning off Matt Cain
Andruw Jones - Solo shot in the fourth off of Matt Cain
Justin Smoak - Solo shot in the ninth off of Luis Perdomo
David Murphy - Two run shot in the 10th to win the game off of Felix Romero

That's eight home runs in two games accounting for 16 runs. That's some nice power. But then again, that should be no surprise to anyone who follows Texas Rangers baseball. Overall, we're looking at ten hits, of which four were home runs, one was a double, and the other half were singles. It was another scattered hits day, as only Andruw Jones had more than a lone hit (home run and double).

The pitching. We had six guys on the mound this game. Only one of them is actually on the 40 man roster right now (Josh Rupe). The last two innings were thrown by three guys who won't be with the club when we break (Kasey Kiker, Beau Vaughn, & AJ Murray). Those guys gave up one run (Kiker) between them. The other guys have a realistic shot, although if you had asked me a couple of weeks ago, the starter had zero chance, but seems to be pitching his way into contention. This of course is Mr. Anna Benson. However, we've seen this kind of NRI "bag of magic beans" before in spring training. If he does make the club, it had better not be for just two good starts, and cost us someone else off the 40 man roster (Doug Davis, anyone?) Anyway, Benson went six innings, giving up six hits and zero walks for three earned runs - a technical quality start. Not a bad performance, actually. Josh Rupe, who seems to be saving his spot, threw a scoreless inning, and Eddie Guardado had a blown save. He hasn't been in 2009 what he was in 2008, his ERA is over 10 in the spring. Not exactly confidence building. If that doesn't work out, call Mike Venafro. He's not doing anything now. :)

What I found amusing tonight when I sat down to write this was the fact that it's still March, and we played our thirty first spring training game. I know that's because of the World Baseball Classic and all, but it still seems like a lot, even knowing that. Something else is I haven't heard hardly anything about the WBC since the US was eliminated. I mean, I know it's out there, but I'm not being hit in the face with it like I was before. When I wrote this paragraph, I didn't even know who was in the finals, so I hit the site for the thing, and found out Japan won again. And it was a week ago. I didn't even know it was over! Wow.

This game was all about home runs. There were quite a few of them.

Josh Hamilton - Two run shot in first inning off of Sean O'Sullivan
Josh Hamilton - Three run shot in second inning of of Sean O'Sullivan
Chris Davis - Solo shot in fifth off of Darren Oliver
Taylor Teagarden - Three run shot in seventh off of Marc Bulger

That wasn't all the offense, mind you, but those four hits (of the 17 we had total) accounted for nine of the thirteen runs we had in total, so I'd say that was the game right there. While I didn't hear or see it, the stories say that the home run by Chris Davis was probably the furthest hit of the spring. We don't get distance calls in spring training (why not?), but the reports say it went totally over the berm and the party tent beyond that. Sounds like a titanic shot to me.

Two other hits were extra base jobs, both doubles (one by Chris Davis, one by Nelson Cruz). The remaining eleven hits were all singles. With seventeen hits total, you know there were several guys with multiple hits. A glance at the box score shows this to be true. Kinsler was 3-4, Young was 2-3, Hamilton was 2-5, Chris Davis was 3-4, even Elvis Andrus was 2-3. Everyone else had just one hit.

Brandon McCarthy started the game, and was OK. I'm unclear why he came out when he did (I can't really figure that out by the box score), but he went four innings, gave up just two runs on six hits and no walks. Normally I'd pass that off on pitch count, but we don't get that in spring box scores, either. Derrick Turnbow had the worst performance, giving up a three run home run to Torii Hunter in the sixth. Warner Madrigal & Frank Francisco each gave up a solo run in their respective innings. The only zeroes were CJ Wilson & Josh Rupe.

Nice to see the big sticks come out against a division foe. Hopefully that can continue into the regular season.

In a game that I knew was on the radio, but due to life, had no chance to listen to, the Rangers won 8-5 over their Surprise roommates.

Scott Feldman started this game, and if the recent rumors are to be believed, it might be one of his final starts for awhile. There's a lot of talk about him going to the pen and giving the fifth starter spot to Mr. Anna Benson. Whether that's smart or not, I don't know, but Feldman didn't help his case today. He went five innings, giving up six hits and a walk for a total of four earned runs. He did strike out six, though - that's something good, but not enough to overcome the earned runs. He was briefly followed by Jimmy Gobble, who pitched just one third of an inning, before being relieved by Jason Jennings, who finished the game with a 3 and 2/3 inning performance to get the win. Jennings allowed just three hits, and one walk with four strikeouts for his shutout performance.

Offensively, we had ten hits that were pretty fairly well spread out. Only one Ranger had more than one, that was Nelson Cruz, who went 2-4, one of which was a two run home run in the first inning. Omar Vizquel & Frank Catalanotto had doubles. Hank Blalock & Jarrod Saltammachia had triples, and there was Cruz' home run. However, the most important hit was by back of the book guy Marcus Lemon, who had a sac fly in the ninth, giving the Rangers the lead they would keep for the win.

I did miss this game, but had a lot of fun having an afternoon out with my daughter. Explained about a letter about the return and regular addresses, the stamp, and how the letter gets to where its' going. Given how much time I've put into this site over the 11 years I've been doing it now, it's quite easy to NOT do it do do something like explain to your kid how to mail a letter. Hopefully she likes the Rangers game we're going to on Saturday as much. :)

After the fiasco of losing 11-10 to the Brewers, one was hoping for some redemption on Friday night. In a televised game, the Rangers went up against the Milwaukee Brewers. Kevin Millwood took the mound, and had a line that looked fairly ugly, even if it pretty much wasn't his fault.

The good stuff in Kevin's performance was that he went six innings and gave up just four hits. He did however, walk three, and allowed six runs, although three of them were unearned. That came after an Elvis Andrus error. If you take out the unearned runs, it qualified for a quality start, but it still was six runs surrendered. It just felt "bad", even if the line wasn't terribly awful. The three relievers was pretty decent. CJ Wilson had a scoreless inning with no hits, Derrick Turnbow went one, gave up a run on one hit and a walk, and Josh Rupe had a one hit no run inning. Wasn't awful, but the three unearned runs really hurt this game.

Offensively, we were led by Chris Davis, Taylor Teagarden, & Michael Young. Young, in his first game back from the minor injury went 2-3 with a solo home run to right center field in the first inning. Teagarden went 3-3, although he didn't have any RBI's. Chris Davis, however, went 3-4, scoring twice, and with two RBI's. He was definitely the leader here. His two RBI's came on a two run home run in the sixth inning. Other offensive notes were three doubles (Andrus, Teagarden, & Davis), a triple by Taylor Teagarden, and the aforementioned home runs by Young & Davis.

Michael Young also had an error in addition to the Andrus one. A disappointing loss for sure, the three unearned runs in the first inning definitely were a major factor in this loss.

Oh, I could write about how Padilla and now departed Brendan Donnelly let the Diamondbacks back in the game. I could write about the two double plays in the first two innings, I could write about the hot line drive by Hamilton, I could write about the fact the Rangers were on TV, and how I'd rather have Vin Scully at 82 over Josh Lewin now. However, all I want to say is this...

DID YOU SEE THAT FREAKIN' GRAND SLAM BY CHRIS DAVIS!?!?!?
THAT WAS THE WHOLE GAME RIGHT THERE!

I mean I didn't want to write about anything else after that happened. hahahaha. :)

Quick - call Bud Selig! Expand spring training rosters, hold out pitchers or something. There was a tie! If we were playing the Brewers, I could get more mileage out of that.

Anyway, that really good feeling about Brandon McCarthy after the last start was pretty much squashed after he came out and pitched like Brandon McCarthy on Tuesday. His line shows 4.2 innings pitched, eight hits and three walks for six earned runs. That was a big pile of stink for sure. I still think he's going to be better in 2009 than he has been since he got here, but that was not an encouraging outing. Of the eight hits he gave up, five of them were doubles, so he was getting smacked around a bit, it wasn't just bloops and lucky falls. The rest of our pitching staff was pretty decent. Combined the four pitchers that followed McCarthy (Rupe, Turnbow, Wilson, Gobble) went 5.1 innings, gave up just five hits, and one run (Rupe), while walking nobody. Rupe did chime in with a wild pitch, however. I'm unclear if that led to a run or not, that's not shown in the box score.

Offensively, we had fifteen hits, the highlights were a three run home run by Nelson Cruz, and a 2-3 with 2 RBI day by Satalamacchia. What I found interesting about this game was that of the nine guys we started the lineup with, every one of them was substituted for during the game, except for one. Andruw Jones started as DH and finished the game as DH. Everyone else who started didn't finish the game. Find that amusing, I wonder if it's a case "Please Andruw, catch fire, give us a reason to keep you on the roster".

However, Michael Young leaving with an injury was not a good thing. He had to leave the game early with "an aggravated quadriceps" injury after the first inning. Ron Washington said that it was no big deal and that he'd be back Wednesday. If that was the case, why did you remove him at all then, if it's "no big deal". Something to keep an eye on.

Well, this game was on TV. That part was good. Not a lot else was. :)

The Rangers were shut out in this game through the first seven innings. In fact, through about four or so at the start, Randy Wolf was perfect. The Rangers managed just five hits in the whole game, and in true Rangers fashion, two of them were home runs. But before we got to that there was a whole lot of nothing. Our bad day at the plate was finally stopped in the top of the eighth when Chris Davis hit an opposite field wind aided home run. That broke the shuout. In the ninth, when we had guys with uniform numbers above 90 playing the game, Andy Fox jacked a two run home run on a pitch that seemed at the time to be eyeball level. Was a no doubter. Two home runs and a double accounted for 3/5 of our hits. We had nothing really, and it wasn't even as close as 11-4 "seems".

Going the other way, Josh Rupe, who seems to be on the way down the pecking order gave up a home run on his first pitch thrown. Flashbacks to Rick Helling and the home opener in 1998 there? There was for me. Our pitching could be summed up as bad. The only guy who didn't give up a run was newly acquired Jimmy Gobble, who threw one scoreless frame. Everyone else seemed to suck from the fountain of well.. SUCK.

The big highlight was the inning of Vin Scully. That was pretty cool having Vin do an inning of broadcast. It's amazing when you think this guy started broadcasting Dodger games back in Brooklyn in 1950. I mean wow. The guy's 82, and while he does seem old, he doesn't have that "old man" slow speech. In just that short inning, you can see why he's such a gem. I kind of have that in Philly to a lesser degree with Harry Kalas, but Scully is really smooth. Enjoyed that. I wouldn't mind them doing the same thing again when the Dodgers are in Arlington this summer.

One amusing play was a grounder down the third base side that Metcalf got going away. Threw across the diamond, and it resulted in Chris Davis with his rear end on the ground straddling first base. Was a funny play to see.

Day off on Monday - which was useful as I was backed up, and had to write about Saturday and Sunday's games on Monday night.

Kevin Millwood didn't get a win today, but pitched one of those "technical quality starts". You know, six innings, three runs - a 4.50 ERA. In these six innings, he gave up five hits, three runs, and two homers. Not good. He did strike out five, but multiple homers is never really a good sign. I missed this game utterly, so I have no idea how he sounded, but the line is "meh", even if it qualifies as a quality start.

Willie Eyre followed and had that fun line of "Blown Save" as well as the win.

Offensively, we played the Rockies to a 4-4 tie after six and a half innings. The big tie breaker was a grand slam by Chad Tracy in the bottom of the seventh. That won the game, and also closed out the scoring. That was the obvious highlight, but in all the Rangers had twelve hits, and only Jarrod Saltamacchia had more than one, although both of his were doubles. Speaking of doubles, the "Arlington Doubles Hit Parade" churned up and got going again. Seven of them in fact. Seven of our twelve hits were doubles. Nelson Cruz, Salty for two, Travis Metcalf, David Murphy, Chris Davis, & Andruw Jones all got into the two bagger.

Three of the doubles came against a pitcher that a few years back used to give us fits, but not so much anymore. Gustavo Chacin, then of the Toronto Blue Jays was a guy I never wanted to see pitch against us. Today though, he went 2.1 innings, gave up five hits, five earned runs, and walked four guys. Five hits and four walks in 2.1 innings is pretty atrocious.

Brandon Boggs & Joaquin Arias stole a base in this one.

Cruz and Arias also left five men on base, they didn't have a lot of clutch.

Still, a win is a win, and it's now six in a row. Nice to see, even if it doesn't count.

The Rangers have now won five in a row, and are now in 3rd place in Cactus league play (out of 14 teams) with a 13-9 record. The did this behind an 11-5 pounding of the Colorado Rockies on Friday afternoon. Again, I was really busy with work, and couldn't listen. Couldn't even look at a box score, I didn't know who won until the evening, right before I started watching the series finale of Battlestar Galactica.

But I digress. Let's get the bad news. Michael Young had to come out of the game with a quad injury, and is expected to miss a couple of games. It's probably not a serious threat, but you never want a star player to go out at all. Hope that all goes well. Before he left, he was doing well at the plate, going 2-2.

Nelson Cruz also jacked his fourth home run of the spring, completely pushing out Andruw Jones. Cruz was not the only guy with a home run. Forgotten man Frank Catalnotto had a three run jimmy jack. But it was again a doubles team, we had six of them. 15 hits in all, a d eight extra base hits. That's the Rangers for ya.

Matt Harrison started this one and was ok. Five innings, five hits, two runs and two walks. Nothing to really write home about, but there has been a lot worse. Another inning and it would have been a pretty decent outing. Overall, the pitching waspretty decent, although no performance really stands out. But I'll take that over godawful like we've had a lot over the last decade or so.

I entered this entry through my new iPod Touch. While you can do it if you want, it's a bit of a pain in the... I can't recommend blog posts this way. :)

This game started off poorly. Kris Benson started the game, and went four innings, giving up five hits and a walk. This lead to four earned runs on his slate. All in the first inning. So we were in an immediate hole. A feeling Rangers fans should be used to, unfortunately.

Offensively we brought it back in the third with a six spot of our own. That was enough to win the game, actually right there. It reminds me of something a friend of mine said a few years back. That was he doesn't mind lots of offense, but he prefers it be balanced out, and not in bombs like that. He said 12-9 games don't bother him, but when you get like a 2-2-1-3-1 type of deal, not a 9 and a 3. Anyway, we had twelve hits in all, and the hits were pretty balanced. Everyone had just one, except Omar Vizquel who I think had his best day of the spring, going 3-5 with a run and an RBI. One of Omar's hits was a double. We had two more of those (Murphy & B Harrison) as well as a triple (Boggs), and a home run (Marlon Byrd).

Byrd is doing pretty well, and has apparently pushed out Andruw Jones, as some quotes came out saying that Jones would not be added to our roster by Friday (first out day for him).

Yesterday and today were busy days for me at work, I didn't even get to box score watch this game, and I probably shouldn't be taking the time to write this little bit, but I didn't want to take two mulligans in a row. That's for an 8 or 9 game losing streak in August (which I hope doesn't happen, mind you).

Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. I'm afraid to admit it after so many years of so many failed attempts at this... But I'm starting to get excited about Brandon McCarthy again. Today he was darn near perfect in the game against the Padres.

Brandon went four innings, gave up NO HITS, two walks, and struck out three. His spring ERA is (I believe) now at 1.80 and is 2-0. According to the radio guys, the only reason he came out at all was that other pitchers needed to get work, and Brandon continued to work down in the bullpen. I have a good feeling. Granted, being a Rangers fan having a good feeling about a pitcher can mean jack, but man it feels good, doesn't it?

Josh Hamilton went 3-3 with an RBI and two runs scored. Two of his hits were doubles, and he sounded good on the radio. Ian Kinsler also went 3-3 with two runs scored.

Joaquin Arias went 1-2 and kept his batting average at at stupid high rate (.522). Funny thing is it's not as high as Adam Melhuse's which is sitting at .615! Obviously that won't stay, but it's always amusing to see gaudy numbers like that.

Nelson Cruz got it going early with a three run home run in a part of the game I didn't get to hear due to work. Cruz appears to have pushed out Andruw Jones, I can't see where Jones fits now especially with Cruz doing so well.

Willie Eyre also threw a scoreless inning, striking out two in his comeback from Tommy John.

Nice to see such a dominating performance by Brandon McCarthy. Hopefully my saying he is the key a couple of days ago in a season preview was what he needed. :) hahahahaha

Time for another mulligan. Too busy at work today.

A trio of Texas Rangers hit their first home runs of the spring. They are Joaquin Arias, Chris Davis, and Michael Young.

The big moment for Texas came in the fourth inning when we scored six, which included Chris Davis' solo home run.

Kevin Millwood was better than the 10 run fiasco he had last time, but still wasn't great. Five innings, six hits, one walk, four earned runs.

Joaquin Arias only had one at bat, but got a hit. He is now batting over .500 for the spring! Metcalf, Byrd, & Elvis all had two hits. )

Sorry for the lack of writing. I had forgotten one of my co workers was on vacation this week, and the time I would have spent writing was spent picking up some of his work.

Today the Rangers have a scheduled off day again - there's a lot more of those this year than usual.

First, this was a bonus TV game. MLB Network was carrying the White Sox feed for the game, and as such I was able to watch this one on TV. They talked to Buddy Bell, who is involved in some advisory capacity with the White Sox now. Wasn't that bad, actually for watching the other team's announcers - they knew our team, they had a lot of nice things to say about our big prospects, especially Justin Smoak & Max Ramirez.

Matt Harrison started this game, and looked quite good. Four innings, four hits, one walk, four strikeouts, and just one run. And that run was a solo home run. In fact, home runs were pretty much the order of the day for the Chicago offense. They had four home runs off of four different Ranger pitchers. Three of them were solo shots, but the big one was the last one, which came on the last pitch of the game. Brian Anderson jacked a walkoff grand slam to end the game. That was Anderson's second home run of the afternoon, actually. But that's the crappy end of the game spring pitching.

The guys who count for the regular season were better than that. Derrick Turnbow pitched "OK". His line doesn't show it, but he seemed to labor a bunch. Josh Rupe gave up two walks and a hit (with a run) in his inning. Jennings had two innings, but four hits and a run. Meh on the last couple of guys.

Offensively, I'm surprised we had as many runs as we did, because we had just six hits, and three of those were by Joaquin "En Fuego" Arias. Arias was 3-4 today after going 3-4 the previous game. If he keeps this up for another week or so, it might make the final cuts difficult. But outside of Arias, we managed just a double by Marlon Byrd, a bloop single by Omar Vizquel, & a single by Chris Davis.

This loss now drops us to three in a row in the loss column, and drops us one game under .500 for the spring.

Well, the other half of the Rangers team stayed behind in Surpise to play the Royals, and this half of the squad didn't fare as good as the one that went away to play LA.

The story of this game was the effectiveness of former Ranger pitcher Robinson Tejeda. He went four innings, gave up four hits and three walks, but also struck out seven Rangers of the 12 outs recorded. Another former Ranger, Jamey Wright followed with two innings of shutout ball. The remaining two KC pitchers also threw goose eggs. I wouldn't get too worked up about Tejeda. I followed him in Philly, I obviously followed him in Texas. You should know as well as I do he has these flashes for short periods, and relapses.

Anyway, our offense was pretty darned ineffective. Only one guy had anything going on, and that was Joaquin Arias, who had three of the seven overall hits the guys wearing Texas on their chests got, however none of his hits led to a score. The only run we got at all was a double by Marlon Byrd, who scored Hank Blalock. That was it.

Pitching wise for Texas, Vicente Padilla threw three, gave up three hits and two walks and three earned runs. Meh. One of the hits was a two run home run. In fact, the other run of the game was against Frank Francisco; again a home run.

So no, neither game on Friday was particularly fun for a Rangers fan.

Saturday brings something unannounced. A Rangers game on television. It's not the Rangers guys, but the game will be on MLB Network on Saturday afternoon, presumably using White Sox coverage (assuming it's not blacked out).

In the first of the two split squad games, the Rangers played against the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles in Phoenix. While this was the road game, it wasn't the usual road spring game in that about half our regulars were here, and half were left behind in Surprise to play the other game. Really seemed like a split squad from a quick glance at the scorecard.

Anyway, the Rangers jumped out early in this one. In the first inning, Josh Hamilton hit a two run home run, and then was immediately followed by a solo home run by Nelson Cruz. And then.. well, that was it. All of our scoring was done by the fourth batter of the game. We had just three more hits the entire rest of the game (one of them was a second hit by Hamilton). So a promising started just ended there with a "promising start".

Of course, the big ol' "4" in the error column of the linescore has a lot to say about it. Two of the errors were by pitchers (Mathis & Harrison). Duran missed a catch, and Adam Melhuse threw one away. Sloppy play there for sure. Only one run was unearned, and we did turn four double plays in the game.

Pretty much all of the Dodgers offense was also early. Our starter in this one was Doug Mathis, who went three innings, allowing three of the four Dodger runs (one was the aforementioned unearned one). The Rangers threw eight pitchers out there in all, which is a huge number when you consider that Mathis threw three innings. The only other Ranger pitcher to give up a run was the final one, Thomas Diamond who walked two, not really helping himself at all.

Somewhat annoying that we got out to that kind of start and then nothing.

Fun note in that the Rangers did not take Andruw Jones with them in the split squad game against the Dodgers. :)

This is the time of year where you here a lot of platitudes about how scores don't matter, we're just working on things, it doesn't matter, etc, etc, etc. Even Jamey Newberg wrote about Brandon McCarthy last night saying we shouldn't get so up about it for the same reason we shouldn't get too worried about Millwood and the 10 ER the other day (but come on Jamey, that was bad even for spring!). Still, I agree with Jamey's base point. It's hard not to get excited about McCarthy's performance.

Four innings pitched on just 47 pitches. One hit. No walks, no runs, and three strikeouts. While I couldn't see it, I heard bits of it, and it sounded pretty good. Man, I hope this is it, that he's finally figured it out. I'm so tired of hearing about bad Jon Daniels trades, I would love one of the ones generally accepted to be in the "bad" ledger to be good after all this time. It is a good thing to see.

The pen was pretty darn good itself. Of the four relievers (Jennings, Eyre, Guardado, Feliz), only one run was allowed. That was Eddie, who gave up a solo home run. Netfali Feliz was almost as good as McCarthy. He went two innings, gave up no hits, but did walk one. The other three guys had just a lone hit each. The only walk was Feliz's one. So yeah, it was a very well pitched game.

Our offense was pretty good, what with fifteen hits in all. It was fairly balanced. We had a couple of ofers, and several guys with multiple hits. Always nice to see. Taylor Teagarden homered again. Four more doubles from the doubles machine that is the pro team in Arlington...

Random feel good remark: One gets the feeling we made the right choice in moving Gerald Laird out, we're probably going to be fine with our catching tandem who takes up 21 letters on the back of two uniforms (where have you gone Ed Ott).

Seattle on the other hand was not even close. They sounded sloppy on the radio. Whenever your line score has just about as many errors as hits, it's not a good day. The Mariners managed only four hits off our guys (as was detailed above), but they also committed three errors in the field, leading to two unearned runs against Jarrod Washburn. A reliever by the name of Roy Corcoran was the big stink bomb for the M's, giving up four earned runs in just one third of an inning (with three hits and two walks). Based solely on this season, one gets the feeling that Seattle isn't going to change much in 2009.

Although I will want to see the M's at least once, as I'd like to see Griffey in person again. I remember being at the last Seattle game in Arlington in 1999 thinking that would probably be the last time I saw him. I was right for a long time - I never saw him in person during any of his years in Cincinnati. Always liked him, be good to see him again.

Also, shouldn't we be hearing about the first round of spring training roster moves by now? We're due to send out several guys to minor league camp about now, aren't we?

Blame me for this one. In my office at work is a guy who is a big Giants fan, as he was imported from San Francisco. In the sixth inning, I send him an email with a link to the box score, and merely said this.. "You're losing, bitch!". You know, the usual fan garbage. So about 45 minutes later, I get an email back from him saying "Rally time, bitch!" At that point, the Giants had tied the score at 4. Then in a real Karma moment, the Giants put up single runs in the 8th and 9th to take the game 6-4. So blame me, my mouthing off cost us the game! ;)

Scott Feldman started the game for us, and threw quite well. Three innings, no runs and just one hit. Walked two, but it didn't hurt him. Brendan Donnelly followed, and didn't fare nearly as well, as he went just one inning, and surrendered two. Everyone else after that gave up a single run. Only Feldman escaped unscathed. On the ledger is Luis Mendoza, Casey Daigle, Elizardo Ramirez, & Bryan Corey. Daigle & the Lizard's runs were unearned, though.

It was another one of those games where no one dominated offensively. Nine different Rangers had one hit each. Six were singles, and there was one double (Andruw Jones), one triple (Mike Young), & a home run (David Murphy).

This one can be traced to the big old ugly number in the top of the second inning by the Dodgers. They plated seven runners. If that wasn't ugly enough, they surrounded it with a run in the first, and two in the third. The score was 10-5 after three innings. Pitching was NOT the name of this game.

Kevin Millwood led the stink brigade this game. Mark Clark & Chan Ho Park only dreamed about being this bad. Three innings, twelve hits, two walks, TEN earned runs. The only saving grace of that is that none of them were home runs, but that's really weak. Millwood faced 21 batters in his three innings of work, and ten of them scored. That's pretty awful. Of the remaining three runs the Dodgers scored, only one of them was earned (against Mr. Anna Benson), although Benson threw the same amount of innings as Stinky Kevin, and surrendered one tenth of the runs.

We were kind of out of it the entire game. Never led, much less be tied (excluding th