Well, after the game I went to against the Phillies when Padilla looked fairly pedestrian, I thought "OK, he's been pretty decent, he'll bounce back against Baltimore". WRONG.
Vicente Padilla looked like the 2007 edition of himself, even evoking bad memories of Chan Ho Park & Mark Clark. He gave up a run in the first. OK, no big deal, just one run. He looked wobbly in the first inning, but this version of Padilla has been good with dealing with that. Not this game. In the second inning he gave up three runs, then four more in the third. They were all earned, too. Couldn't pin the numbers on a bad play behind him - Pidente threw up eight earned runs on the scoreboard; not surviving the third inning. It was pretty darned ugly. I think the most telling stat is that he didn't strike out anyone. While he's not going to lead the league in strikeouts, he does get his fair share, and to strike out zero is a pretty much the telling sign. The Rangers pen did put up four innings of zeroes before Josh Rupe gave up two more runs in the 8th. But the damage was done, we were never really in this game.
That despite an actual first inning lead when Bradley doubled in a run. In fact, that double was our only extra base hit. We had eight more hits - all singles. Orioles starter Jeremy Guthrie did allow two walks, but our bats were pretty much shut down. In fact, Milton Bradley pretty much was the offense. He was 2-4 with three RBI's.
This game pretty much boiled down to Vicente Padilla was never in this game, so neither was the rest of the team. When you give up 28 runs total in two consecutive games, you pretty much aren't going to be in either of those games.
Per my policy, I don't write about Rangers losses to the Yankees.
Although I will say it was somewhat gratifying to beat Ponson, even if we didn't beat the Yankees.
The Rangers had been godawful in Yankee Stadium the last few years. Oh, we'd get a win here and there to show we had a small pulse, but we've been effectively target practice for the Yankees. Not this year. After last night's extremely well pitched game, we get another - and our second win in a row in Yankee stadium in as long as I can remember.
Kevin Millwood went for the Rangers, and had a pretty good outing. Went five innings, giving up five hits and a walk for one earned run. Struck out six. Funny thing is after just 84 pitches, he was out after five. I admit I passed out on the sofa for a bit there, so it's possible there was an explanation and I missed it.
Josh Rupe followed and ended up with a blown save, as he gave up the tying run; his only in two innings. Frank Francisco followed with a scoreless frame. CJ Wilson closed it out, and after getting a double play, seemed absolutely fired up - got the final out on three pitches. Two strikes at 95+ on the radar gun, and the third was a ground out that shattered the bat. Was a great ending to this.
Offensively the Rangers had just nine hits. Six of them were by Kinsler, Young, & Bradley who had two each. But the big thing was Ian Kinsler, who ran us into this win. In the ninth inning, Ian got on, then stole second, and then stole third, and scored on a single in the top of the ninth. It was quite impressive to get the win against Rivera.
As a Ranger fan, you feel positively giddy about the lofty perch of three games over .500 - and to do it against Rivera and the Yankees made it a whole lot better. Dare we think sweep on Wednesday?
I was cleaning up my bookmarks file this morning, and found a couple of Josh Hamilton links I can't recall if I mentioned before. Posting them in case you haven't, either.
A lot was made about the fact that Arod tied Jimmie Foxx for 14th on the all time home run list at 534. But what I found far more amazing was the fact that Jason Giambi got a triple in this game! If ever there was a time to use Chris Berman's NFL quote of "Rumblin, Bumblin, Stumblin...", that was it. Speaking of Giambi, when did the Yankees allow facial hair again? I thought that was verboten with them. As long as I'm at it, Giambi's 'stache looked sillier than the promo pictures for Ramon Vazquez & Frank Catalanotto for 2008. :)
The Yankees only got four hits total this game. That's the story of this one. The Yankees' offense was shut down. Of the four hits, it was for the cycle, amusingly enough. There was a single by Benji Molina, a double by Jorge Posada, the triple by Jason Giambi, and a home run by Arod. Arod's home run was pretty titanic, it cleared Monument Park - quite a shot. That was Feldman's only mistake of the night, but to a guy who should be the eventual home run king is nothing to feel too bad about.
The Rangers didn't exactly tear it up offensively, either. They had just seven hits, and Michael Young had three of those. Two of Young's three hits were doubles. In fact, four of our seven hits were doubles. Our first run scored on a Josh Hamilton single to right, which scored Ian Kinsler. That gave Josh his 80th RBI of the season. Our second run, and the winning run was plated by Chris Davis, the second game in a row where he did that. Davis' RBI was on a double to deep right field.
Nice caught stealing by Saltamacchia, throwing from his knees. His defense has looked better since Laird got hurt. If Salty keeps improving, one might think Laird would have a bit of deja-vu. That would be the second time he could conceivably lose his starting job when someone else came in and played great while he was on the DL.
Bit of bad news for Eddie Guardado. He had to leave the game after not throwing a pitch at all. He appeared to get hurt during his warmup tosses in the eighth inning.
It was nice to see Scott Feldman get a win - he should have many more. We continue to not score runs for him, but this time at least we managed to keep the other team off the board.
We finally got to two games over .500. Seems like such a "lofty goal" that we reached, even if it is just two games over .500 - know what I mean?
Anyone else want to see Chris Davis stay at first base for good, and pretty much be done with Catalanotto, and forget about this idea of Blalock being a first baseman? I don't think Hank is back in 2009 anyway.
Chris Davis came to the majors with quite a fanfare. Well, at least from those of us who have a knowledge of the Rangers' minor league system. On Sunday, he delivered what turned out to be the winning run. Davis hit a home run in the second inning, which gave the Rangers a 2-1 lead at that time.
That was the only run of the second inning, and we had just a lone run in the two frames surrounding it, too. The first inning was a leadoff triple by Ian Kinsler who was grounded home by Michael Young. The third inning run was a Michael Young double, who was brought home by a Josh Hamilton single. That was actually it for awhile. The Rangers didn't score again until the bottom of the eighth, when they plated two on an RBI single by Ramon Vazquez, and a fielder's choice by Michael Young.
The Rangers were up against former Ranger pitcher Jamie Moyer, who is still chugging along quite nicely at 45. He's one of the few players left in MLB older than me, so I notice that. :) Moyer's line wasn't that bad - 5.2 IP, 7H, 4BB, 3ER. Well, the walks weren't good, but 3ER in just about six innings isn't horrendous.
Problem for Philly was that Eric Hurley was good. He gave up just one earned run in his 5.2 innings of work. This was enough to get his first major league win. Our pen followed up with 3.1 innings of scoreless relief to give the Rangers a series win, and take them back over .500 again.
This was the pitching duel I wanted to see. Vicente Padilla vs Cole Hamels. Both are pitching pretty good this season. Funny thing is, it's not what we got. Hamels was better than Padilla was, but wasn't outstanding himself.
Cole Hamels went seven innings, giving up six hits and two walks. This for a total of four runs, although he did strike out eight. Hamels was more streaky, as he gave up two runs in the first, then nothing for awhile, and the other two in the fifth. He seemed to dominate better than Padilla did (or did not as the case may be).
Vicente Padilla gave up more. In his six innings, he gave up seven hits and three walks. Seven earned runs. He wasn't helped by the long ball - two of which he gave up. Both home runs were from guys you'd expect that from. Chase Utley & Ryan Howard. But Padilla was not the same guy who we've seen this year. Whether it was facing his former club, or the heat, or he was just "off" tonight, it wasn't the real good Padilla we've been seeing in 2008.
Offensively, Michael Young did something he hasn't done a ton of the last two seasons, hit a home run. He had a two run shot in the first inning, which was his seventh of the season. Kinsler & Young definitely had their sticks going - both went 3-5 this game. The rest of the offense was scattered amongst the lineup - Kinsler/Young were by far the standouts.
We did make some noise late when we tried to catch up - we scored a few in the bottom of the 8th against Chad Durbin, but couldn't tie it up there. In the bottom of the ninth, the Phils brought on their closer Brad Lidge, who has returned to the lights out closer he used to be in his early days in Houston. Even then, we got a couple guys on, which brought up both Josh Hamilton & Milton Bradley. Both had the chance to win the game with a walk off home run - which I think everyone was hoping for. Didn't happen. Lidge struck them both out.
Great defensive moment when Jimmy Rollins was gunned out at home plate trying to get an inside the park home run. Watching the play develop, I thought it was a no doubter, but then the throw came in better than I thought, and Rollins was nabbed on the hand - had he slid in with his hands down, he would have scored, actually.
This was a really good game. I was there, didn't care for the rain, but the game itself was a good one - while the Rangers only led briefly in the bottom of the first, it had that "back and forth" feel to it. Enjoyed this one.
It rained almost the whole game. Started in like the second inning, and had various degrees of intensity through the rest of the game, but it never stopped. Praise be to God that it stopped when the game was over, so we didn't get soaked going to the car, and more importantly that nobody had to deal with the rain in the crush of cars leaving the park.
Also, a random comment. If you're going to take your kids to the game and teach them about baseball, that's great. Don't also teach them things like "Hey, dumbass - that wasn't a strike!" There was a moron sitting behind my brother and I who was doing that. Loved he was teaching his kids the game. Didn't love he was teaching his kids the ugly side of being a fan, too. Do you really want your kids growing up like Craig Bueno? Come on, don't do stupid stuff like that.
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".
So this year I've decided to keep track of it. This post will get bumped whenever there is a player who is making his first appearance for the Texas Rangers in 2008. 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.
Total players in 2008: 44
Total pitchers used in 2008: 23
- #44 - Warner Madrigal (Jun 28 - Major League Debut)
- #43 - Chris Davis (Jun 26 - Major League Debut)
- #42 - Max Ramirez (Jun 21 - Major League Debut)
- #41 - Eric Hurley (Jun 12 - Major League Debut)
- #40 - Kameron Loe (Jun 4)
- #39 - Elizardo Ramirez (Jun 3 - DFA Jun 8)
- #38 - Robinson Tejeda (May 30 - DFA Jun 15)
- #37 - Doug Mathis (May 11 - Major League Debut)
- #36 - Travis Metcalf (May 8)
- #35 - A.J. Murray (May 2)
- #34 - Brandon Boggs (Apr 29 - Major League Debut)
- #33 - Chris Shelton (Apr 29)
- #32 - Sidney Ponson (Apr 26 - DFA Jun 6)
- #31 - Jarrod Saltamacchia (Apr 25)
- #30 - Frank Francisco (Apr 22)
- #29 - German Duran (Apr 17 - Major League Debut)
- #28 - Wes Littleton (Apr 14)
- #27 - Scott Feldman (Apr 13)
- #26 - Luis Mendoza (Apr 12)
- #25 to #1: Joaquin Benoit, Franklyn German, Kazuo Fukumori, Jason Jennings, Dustin Nippert, Kevin Millwood, Jamey Wright, Josh Rupe, Vicente Padilla, Kason Gabbard, Eddie Guardado, C.J. Wilson, Gerald Laird, Adam Melhuse (Released Apr 25), Hank Blalock, Jason Botts (traded Jun 4), Ben Broussard (Released May 15), Ian Kinsler, Ramon Vazquez, Michael Young, Milton Bradley, Marlon Byrd, Frank Catalanotto, Josh Hamilton, David Murphy
I'm going to do my best to stay on top of this, but if you notice someone I've missed, please tell me. Thanks.
Well, my brother flew in from Philadelphia to go to this game (and the other two as well). So we headed out, picked up our tickets from will call, and hit our seats, which were right behind first base. Got to see the tail end of Phillies batting practice, and watched all the pregame stuff. It was a weird feeling for me, both seeing my hometown Phillies at Rangers ballpark, and also having my brother with me at the game.
Anyway, both starting pitchers (Kason Gabbard & Brett Myers) pretty much stunk up the joint. Ian Kinsler got it started early with a solo home run to lead off the bottom of the first. That wasn't so bad, really. The score was 1-0 going into the third inning. Then it seriously bogged down. The Phillies scored five runs in the top of the third - the big shot there was a grand slam by Pedro Feliz. The Rangers had walked Pat Burrell intentionally to load up the bases and get to Ryan Howard. On the surface that would seem like suicide, but Howard's only batting about .210 at the moment. He struck out. But then Feliz hit a slam over the wall in left, giving the Phillies a 5-1 lead. Gabbard actually survived that inning into the fourth, but not much longer than that (only one more out).
The bottom of the third inning was started by Brett Myers, but he never got anyone out, and was pulled after several batters reached. It continued with Clay Condry, Philly's long man, who gave up the first major league home run to Chris Davis, who it it the other way over the left field wall. That was pretty cool to see in person.
In all there were six longballs in the game, three by each team. Milton Bradley had one that hit the right field foul pole. There was the aforementioned ones by Chris Davis and Ian Kinsler. The Phillies had three too, one being the Feliz grand slam. Chris Coste had one in the fourth, and Jason Werth had one off of CJ Wilson to start off the ninth inning - not what you want to see when you closer comes in.
Still, the Rangers managed to hang on and win the game, getting yet again one game over .500. They try tomorrow to get two games over, which has been a major problem all season. It will be a great pitching matchup - Cole Hamels against Vicente Padilla. That's the pitching matchup I was looking forward to the most this weekend. Hope it lives up to the billing.
One other thing was bats tonight. There were three bats that flew into the stands, including the third one which was a broken bat off the hands of Josh Hamilton. That bat hit a woman about 10-15 rows in front of me or so. She ended up leaving the game with a VERY obvious limp - she was hurting. Was funny, as soon as they started flying, or any bat broke in the field, you heard a ton of people around me shouting "MAPLE!" - not sure what the means, but the world maple is starting to be synonymous for "broken bat".
Here is a sideshow of pictures I took at the game tonight (including several of Chris Davis). If you want to see larger versions of the pictures, you can reach the photo gallery here.
Friday's game is the halfway point of the season. We head into that game at (wait for it) .500 again, after having dropped the finale of the series to Houston, 7-2. We fell behind bigtime very early, and were never ever in this game.
Millwood gave up a three run triple in the first inning up onto the giant hill of grass in center field, and then in the second inning surrendered four more runs. Kevin was just a mess. He actually threw five innings total, but his first two were so bad, it gave him a line that was bad even if you factor in the three scoreless innings he did pitch. All told, Kevin gave up twelve hits and three walks for seven earned runs. Raised his ERA over five (5.08) - just bad. The only positive to the pitching was that Josh Rupe, Jack Benoit, & Jamey Wright all had scoreless innings to follow, but it didn't much matter at that time.
Wandy Rodriguez for the Astros threw gem of a game against us, and even if Kevin had given up just a few runs, it wouldn't have much mattered. In his eight innings, Rodriguez only gave up a single run on five hits. The run that he did give up was in his last inning pitched on a single to Ian Kinsler. We were pretty much shut down all game. There was one surprise hit though - a double by Kevin Millwood. This ends NL Interleague for the season, and our pitchers did pretty well as a group with the stick.
Josh Hamilton & Milton Bradley were in the game, but neither factored into what little offense we did have, and Hamilton had to leave the game after the first inning when he was hit in the hand by a pitch. Anyone else having visions of him being elected to play in the All-Star game, but not being able to?
This ends the Silver Boot series for 2008. Every year someone writes about this - if you recall, the Rangers were making a big stink about getting out of the AL West and going to the AL Central to be more in tune with the time zone we're in. That was apparently going to happen, and Tom Hicks let Bud Selig off the hook by accepting a guaranteed series each year against the Astros, keeping us with a lot of 9PM game starting times. This was supposed to become a big rivalry, but it hasn't happened. I do like seeing us play the Astros, that part is nice, but the rivalry is a non issue. The most telling thing of all was the quote by Michael Young about the silver boot that the Rangers won (again on run differential, as the series was 3-3). Young said, "I could care less," shortstop Michael Young said. "They can keep it for all I care." That your "face of the franchise" player said that about the boot tells you all you need to know. As much as I like the Astros games, I think I'd rather be in the AL Central with more realistic starting times for my inter-division games.
Philly comes to down for the first time ever. My brother is flying in from Philadelphia, and we're going to be at all three games. Yeah, I'll be wearing Phillies shirts - it's not often I get to see my home town team live. I'll probably do the thing where I wear a Phillies shirt, and a Rangers cap. Probably won't see too many of those in the park. :)
I'm still pretty tied down with work, and since I wanted to get this done before the next game starts, I'm going to have to resort to something quick.
1) Scott Feldman can't catch a break. On a game he doesn't pitch terribly well, the team goes on to win a low scoring game. They can't score for him when he pitches great. Go figure.
2) CJ Wilson really feels like John Wetteland in that he gives you a heart attack before getting the save.
3) Welcome Max Ramirez! Not only did he get his first major league hit in the game, he then went on to get his first home run, a two run shot that turned out to be the game winner. That was really nice to see!
Tonight is the rubber game for the series, and for the overall Silver Boot. I should have some time to write about that one tomorrow.
Still busy with the project from yesterday, no time to write.
I was sitting down to write recaps for the weekend's games and was handed a project by my boss, so I will have to pass on this game.
Nice to see Pidente get his 10th win - probably could be a candidate to be an All-Star pitcher, but the last time he was, there was a tie in the All Star game. :)
The Rangers got out to a lead early in this one, with a leadoff home run by Ian Kinsler, just two pitches into the game. Unfortunately, despite the score, it was NOT one of those games that you get out early and coast. For two reasons.
One - our bullpen lately won't let you coast.
Two - We let the Nats back in the game fairly quickly.
We did get out to a three run lead in the first inning, then our bats went silent for awhile. It was during this time that Kason Gabbard let the Nats creep back in with a two run fourth, and solo run in the fifth to make the score at that time 4-3.
But a huge seven spot in the seventh inning put the Rangers way out front, and a few single runs in the last two frames assured this was a Nats stomping game.
The Rangers had eighteen hits in all, but mostly just singles. Kinsler's home run, and doubles by Murphy, Young, & Vazquez were it for extra base hits.
Jamey Wright got himself in some hot water in the 14th inning. Bases loaded, one out. Got a strikeout, but hit a grounder just out of the reach of Michael Young. That was it.
Wasted a good outing by Kevin Millwood. Hats off to the Nats pen, which kept us almost completely down from the third inning on. In fact, from the seventh inning onwards, we had just one hit.
We may have lost Gerald Laird for awhile, as his hamstring looked really bad when he collapsed in a heap. That will probably make Salty the #1 catcher for awhile, they'll probably bring up one of our kids to be the backup. Nice that Salty did finally get a guy stealing.
Basically, all this boils down to one word - DAMMIT!
I was listening to "The Show" on XM Channel 175, and they had David Murphy on. Was nice to see him get some national love. He said the usual stuff you'd expect about his team and all that. But the thing he talked about which made me post this entry was rookie hazing.
He talked about how the Rangers last year had their rookie hazing - they took the rookies, and the vets with the most service time got to pick a rookie's name and had them wear what they wanted. Murphy said that Brad Wilkerson had picked him, and the next day there was a Tooth Fairy outfit in his locker to wear. So Murphy had to wear that on the plane flight, and also to some party that night as well.
He pointed out that he's probably going to have to do it again this year, because of the oddity that he's still technically a rookie. To make it worse, he had to do this in 2006 as well after being up with the Red Sox in September of 2006 too! He didn't seem genuinely mad about it, but seemed like "Oh boy, I get to do this a third time now"
On the positive side, Murphy did mention that the Red Sox did give him a World Series ring after being up with them for just three games in 2007.
After beating the Atlanta Braves today, we head back out on the road for more Interleague play. We're about to hear a lot about how the Rangers were the "Washington Senators II" during the time they played in DC. As I've pointed out a few times, the Rangers are NOT the second Senators. They're the third team with that moniker (technically the fourth, but more on that in a bit). Most people will tell you the Minnesota Twins were the original Senators, and when they moved out of DC, the Rangers franchise became the second. All of this completely ignores the real original Washington Senators, who played from 1891-1899. While I admit, it wasn't a major team in the overall scheme of things, it did exist for about a decade. I guess it's not sexy enough to bring this up, which is why we never hear it.
As long as I'm totally nitpicking here, the 1890's Washington Senators wasn't the original Washington Nationals, either. There was a team that played one year - 1884 as the Washington Nationals. But that's seriously obscure, and since that was a completely different league, I'm not counting them as the first.
To sum this up, I wonder if this will be brought up, too. When the Montreal Expos franchise moved to DC and took on the moniker of the Nationals, they wanted to use the old red "W" cap that our franchise used to wear. Since the Senators team moved here, Tom Hicks still owns the legal rights to the "Washington Senators" name, which includes logos, uniforms, etc.. The Nationals franchise had to pay Hicks money to let them use the cap. Gotta love THAT. Baseball is now feeding off of itself in terms of places it wants to make money. :)
The Rangers won in a thrilling fashion. Most everyone loves walk off wins in the bottom of the ninth. However, this is one I wished we didn't have to get to.
First off, Scott Feldman continues to be the most unlucky pitcher on our staff in 2008. He left the game again with a lead. I don't have a count in front of me of how many games he's had blown for him by the pen, but it's quite a few. His record is 1-3, and has started nine games this year. He'd probably have a winning record by more than a few games if the pen could hold a lead. It's probably why we continue to be a .500 team.
Which brings me to another point. CJ Wilson is having a major rough stretch right now. He's either blown saves, or just given up runs when he's been brought in for non save opportunities. If he doesn't get it together soon, I wonder if Ron Washington will go to someone else, like Guardado or Wright for saves? I have CJ Wilson on several fantasy teams, I wonder if I need to make some moves there.
Speaking of Guardado, how about that fifteen pitch at bat to his first batter? That's a heck of a lot. I remember when I was a kid, a guy by the name of Jay Johnstone for the Phillies had a 21 pitch at bat. But 15 is a heck of a lot of pitches. Good thing Eddie came through with a called third strike there.
Offensively, the big blast was a three run home run by Brandon Boggs in the sixth inning. That was to Atlanta reliever Jeff Ridgeway, who was the first of six relievers Bobby Cox used. In fact, of those relievers, only one pitched more than .2 of an inning! Anyway, Boggs' blast gave us a 4-2 lead at the time, and the game was actually feeling like it was one we were going to win - something we've had trouble with in the daytime this year.
Jarrod Salatamacchia continues to show that Gerald Laird is by far the better catcher on this team for now. Yeah, Jarrod is supposed to have a higher "potential" than Laird, but Laird is doing well now. Makes you wonder if perhaps Salty will get moved in July and bring up someone like Max Ramirez to be Laird's backup.
Anyway, nice to get a win.
In the last few days, the Mariners have fired their GM, fired their Manager, and there's been a lot of talk about them dumping a bunch of players, and they have the worst record in baseball after being tagged by many to win the division. I think this image is appropriate. :)
You know, I was planning on writing how much I was enjoying this game, how I thought Eric Hurley deserved a better fate, and all that. But all I really WANT to do is post this image:
Yes, I know that's Adam Hydzu & Akinori Otsuka up there, but I didn't have a current picture of the bullpen like this. :)
The Atlanta Braves come to town. This is I believe their third trip to Texas, and yet the Phillies still haven't been here. I know Interleague is not an exact science, but I would like to see some other teams besides the same one over and over again like that. Especially when we have realistically only two inbound NL teams. Yeah, yeah - we get three, but one is ALWAYS the Astros, so we have only two from the "rotating pool" of other NL teams.
Vicente Padilla continues to be good this season. This game was yet another in his great 2008 performances. Six innings, two hits, two walks, and two runs allowed, although just one was earned. One of the runs was a solo home run in the sixth - he looked pretty good, although not as crisp and dominating - at least not late. Early on he was, retiring the first 13 batters. Guess that does qualify as dominating, eh? :) The pen almost blew it late, but they did hang on for Pidente's 9th win of the season.
Offensively, we got started early with an upper tank home run by Josh Hamilton. Was a serious no doubter - Tim Hudson looked like he got whiplash turning around so fast to see where it went. Marlon Byrd also had a home run in the sixth inning that went right into the wedgie. Milton Bradley went 1-2 with two RBI's before having to come out of the game with a "mild" strain injury. They didn't seem concerned, but with Bradley, you have to worry. He's been a great surprise this season, but there's always his health in the back of one's mind.
Bradley was the only Ranger with more than one hit. Of the starters, only David Murphy & Michael Young went ofer - everyone else had a lone hit. Two were doubles (Kinsler, Cat), and the rest were singles. But this was all well placed, as we put a four spot on Tim Hudson in the third inning.
Nice to get the win. Although I have to admit I'm getting tired of saying "..back to .500". I've said that way too many times this year. We need a winning streak.
We were shut down by New York's pitching. Michael Young & Josh Hamilton had RBI singles in the first and third innings, but that's all we managed to push across the plate all game. Even one of those runs was unearned. Of our six overall hits, just one was an extra base hit (double by Cat). That was pretty much it.
Kason Gabbard was "meh", although I didn't think he was THAT awful. 5.2IP, 8H, 3BB, 4ER.
I have to say I don't like watching pitchers bat. If we continue to have splits between AL & NL vs the DH, then we need to reverse it in interleague. Use the DH In NL towns, and make pitchers bat in AL parks.
Boy, the Rangers really tried to give this one away, didn't they?
Kevin Millwood came out, threw a good outing (6IP, 2R). Had too many walks (4 in 6 innings), but still got the job done. Only two runs allowed. Then Frank Francisco came in after an inning of scoreless relief by Jamey Wright. Francisco proceeded to stink up the joint worse than a Chan Ho Park outing. Just one out, gave up two hits, two walks, and allowed three earned runs to score. Well, some of them were "allowed" by Eddie Guardado, but you know what I mean. CJ Wilson got the save, and in true John Wetteland fashion, was all over the place, allowed a few runs to score, left guys on base - was so far from a clean save, it was't funny.
We needed all the offense we got, plus a great defensive throw by Milton Bradley to gun out a Met at home plate turned out to be bigger than I think anyone thought it was at the time.
The Rangers were powered by three home runs (Vazquez, Kinsler, & Bradley). Bradley's appeared to leave the park completely. Vazquez was the leader, going 3-4 with 4 RBI's and two runs scored. Nice game for Ramon.
There's a site I frequent quite often, it's called "The Biz of Baseball" run by a fellow by the name of Maury Brown. If you are interested in the business dealings of the sport, it's an invaluable site (even if you're not interested, it's just good reading). Anyway, in December of 2006, they ran an article called "32 Voices on the State of the Game". It was an article with a sort of free flowing stream of consciousness from several completely different viewpoints. It was quite compelling. Well, they've done it again.
Out today is the next installment, entitled "The State of Major League Baseball 2008". The odd thing (to me) about this entry is that I was asked to contribute to this new article. That was mind boggling to me, as I consider myself a small fry when it comes to things like this. But Maury persisted, said I was someone he definitely wanted a "a new voice that was a fan perspective". So I sat down and wrote. If you're familiar with this site, you know I can tend to "go off" on tangents, and just get mad at stuff. That's kind of what I did in my piece. So check out the new article, not because I am in it, but because there's a lot of good thoughts in there.
I still feel a bit "tingly" to be in the same piece with some heavyweights and big names like Chuck Armstrong (President, Seattle Mariners), Jerry Crasnick (ESPN Author), Jeff Erickson (Rotowire), Brent Gambill (Producer, XM Satellite Radio's MLB Channel), Jeff Passan (Yahoo), and of course Ken Rosenthal (from everywhere). Thanks Maury!
Edit: After getting permission from Maury, here's my piece from the full article.
"For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." (1 Timothy 6:10)
I'll start off with a theft from Will Carroll. It comes from the first Voices entry of this series.
"Saying what's right and wrong with the game is an exercise in hubris and futility."
Will's right. It's hard to have a good, honest list as to what is right and what is wrong that covers everything, which everyone can agree with. Even if you could make the list, would you want to? The flaws are what make the game. Baseball is a confusing game to "figure out". You think you have a handle on how it should be done, and then find out that you don't. But as humans, we tend to complain about things first. Most of the complaints you hear about about baseball are "too expensive" or "steroids".
The bigger complaint is about money, though. There's lawsuits about statistics (who owns the numbers), so much advertising that the head spins, a cost of parking and gas that is more than tickets in some places, and the price of concessions? Ha! Heck, the mlb minimum salary ($390,000) is so far out of whack with the "real" minimum wage ($12,168, assuming 40 hr work week) that it's mind boggling how far removed from reality MLB seems to be when you talk about money. Everything is about the "Baby Ruth Home Run Challenge", or the "DHL Pregame show", or the "Monster.com All Star ballot", to things like whatever the name of the Giants park is this week, and all that. You could take up the space that all 30 of us are using to talk about corporate naming issues. Heck, I saw a McDonald's logo ON THE PITCHER'S MOUND in PNC Park when looking at it in Google Maps. My kid's bobbleheads have half a dozen logos on them, nothing can get out there without being sponsored. I'm surprised there aren't some sort of logo inside the men's urinals in the bathrooms - or on the hot dogs themselves! We have so much money floating around the game that if baseball gave a religious tithe like Jesus commanded, we could probably do away with a lot of poverty in places. Don't even get me started on the extortion of cities that is building new stadiums.
On top of the things with money, then there are the things that are just confusing. For example, MLB made a major stink recently about how games are "too long", and they want to shave some time off. I think I read where the average time is longer by a matter of single digit seconds. Not minutes, but seconds. So what comes out at the same time? The note that we will have instant replay for home run balls, and for balls by the foul pole. They make a major deal about games being too long, then add a time suck like instant replay. Want the games to move faster? Call the bloody strike zone the way it is defined in the rule book. There's several rules that are already on the books that if actually ENFORCED would make the games go faster. Man, that's just perplexing.
A lot is made of the fact that it's a game meant for kids, but so many ancillary things around the game are things we have to "explain" to kids is a major hassle. As the parent of a three year old, I'm enjoying teaching my kid that a home run is not just when they "run" around the bases - they have to hit the ball over the fence. If I had to get into why Barry Bonds looks like a horse, or why she keeps hearing the words "performance enhancing", I don't know if I'd try to get my kid into baseball. There's so much business around the game, that it almost doesn't feel like it's for "kids" anymore. We're teaching kids to get ahead, get the biggest signing bonus there is, you'll "strike it rich with Scott Boras", etc, etc, etc.. That's why I'm enjoying Josh Hamilton now. A man who has discovered God, and is not afraid to show it. Good for him. Oh, he's not the only one, but he is a local one to me, so I hear about him the most. When you hear so much bad about the sport all the time in the media, it's nice to hear something nice like that.
What is The state of baseball? The state of "baseball" is fine, despite all the negativity above. The sport is too good to kill, but if you're reading the website this article will appear on, you probably know this already. The most vitriolic complainer will still love sitting out at the park watching the game. Baseball will sometimes go and do something very nice - like the recent Negro League player draft at the recent MLB draft. I enjoyed that moment a lot. So yeah, there's good there, but there's SO MUCH negative it feels that it's hard to find the good (outside the actual game itself).
P.S. I would like the return of scheduled doubleheaders - heck, give me a tripleheader!
The game between the Mets & Rangers was rained out. Came in from mowing the lawn tonight, and after a shower, sat down to watch the game. Puddles of rain in the outfield, and thanks to TiVo, I fast forwarded about an hour and a half and found out there was no game to be played.
Father's day tomorrow, and a doubleheader! The only thing that would have made that better was if the doubleheader was in Arlington, and not in Flushing, NY.
