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Going into the bottom of the ninth inning, I had Eric Nadel on, and I have to say, I was getting waves of chills going over my back.  I mean, OH MAN.  I wasn’t watching when Kenny Rogers pitched his perfect game, but I have to imagine it felt like this.  I had contacted several friends, told them they needed to get the game on.   It was one of those “moments”.    While I am tired of hearing about the Cruz non catch in right in the World Series, I have to say that Newy Scruggs equated it well.  He said this was like that.  You got up high, let yourself believe, and the it crashed down.  Yeah, it was pretty crushing.   Before that, I was fist pumping sitting in front of my computer, I was seriously into it.  Was texting a friend at the same time, chatting with another on Facebook’s chat, so yeah, I was into it with a few friends.   Then… Marwin Gonzalez.  I mean, who? [Read more...]

I was ready to go.  I caught up most of the parts of my Rangers site, I had the game loaded up on “WatchESPN”, so I got to see the game (and listened to some bad announcing).   Matt Harrison was looking good early, on, and then “that” happened.   And by that, I meant that somewhere between the top of the fourth and the bottom of the fourth, the Rangers and Astros seemed to switch uniforms.  They certainly were not playing like they were supposed to.   I think they switched uniforms! [Read more...]

I got a bit behind with Spring Training Updates, and I’m taking a pass on the dozen or so I missed.  Got way too busy with actual work (which is good).  Will be with it for the regular season.  :)

This was the last game of the season, and given we open the season Sunday night against the Astros, we don’t get a day off.  The 25 man roster will be finalized (formally anyway), on Sunday afternoon – the cutoff was 2PM, according to a tweet by Jamey Newberg.    Will be curious to see the final shakeout.  Will have something to say about that on Sunday before the game starts.

I got a bit behind with Spring Training Updates, and I’m taking a pass on the dozen or so I missed.  Got way too busy with actual work (which is good).  Will be with it for the regular season.  :)

I got a bit behind with Spring Training Updates, and I’m taking a pass on the dozen or so I missed.  Got way too busy with actual work (which is good).  Will be with it for the regular season.  :)

Nice to see a home game from Arlington on my TV again.  It’d been awhile!

Interesting full circle event here.  Esteban Loaiza warmed up and came into the game at Rangers Ballpark for the Mexican team.  When his inning was done, the next Rangers pitcher was Josh Lindblom.  All we needed in the middle was Michael Young somehow, and the circle would have been complete.  :)

I got a bit behind with Spring Training Updates, and I’m taking a pass on the dozen or so I missed.  Got way too busy with actual work (which is good).  Will be with it for the regular season.  :)

I got a bit behind with Spring Training Updates, and I’m taking a pass on the dozen or so I missed.  Got way too busy with actual work (which is good).  Will be with it for the regular season.  :)

I got a bit behind with Spring Training Updates, and I’m taking a pass on the dozen or so I missed.  Got way too busy with actual work (which is good).  Will be with it for the regular season.  :)

I got a bit behind with Spring Training Updates, and I’m taking a pass on the dozen or so I missed.  Got way too busy with actual work (which is good).  Will be with it for the regular season.  :)

I got a bit behind with Spring Training Updates, and I’m taking a pass on the dozen or so I missed.  Got way too busy with actual work (which is good).  Will be with it for the regular season.  :)

I got a bit behind with Spring Training Updates, and I’m taking a pass on the dozen or so I missed.  Got way too busy with actual work (which is good).  Will be with it for the regular season.  :)

I got a bit behind with Spring Training Updates, and I’m taking a pass on the dozen or so I missed.  Got way too busy with actual work (which is good).  Will be with it for the regular season.  :)

I got a bit behind with Spring Training Updates, and I’m taking a pass on the dozen or so I missed.  Got way too busy with actual work (which is good).  Will be with it for the regular season.  :)

I got a bit behind with Spring Training Updates, and I’m taking a pass on the dozen or so I missed.  Got way too busy with actual work (which is good).  Will be with it for the regular season.  :)

Home run for Kinsler.

I got a bit behind with Spring Training Updates, and I’m taking a pass on the dozen or so I missed.  Got way too busy with actual work (which is good).  Will be with it for the regular season.  :)

Our old buddy Kameron Loe won this one for the Mariners.  Nice to see him still around.  I liked him when he was here.

I got a bit behind with Spring Training Updates, and I’m taking a pass on the dozen or so I missed.  Got way too busy with actual work (which is good).  Will be with it for the regular season.  :)

Matt Harrison had a great start here, leading the Rangers to a 4-0 win over the Dodgers.  He went five innings, allowed just a single hit.  No walks.  Struck out three.   Only 57 pitches over five innings – he looked middle of the season strong.  Would have liked to have seen how much more he could have done, but it is just March 16th.   That’s good for me, as I have him on all four of my Fantasy baseball teams.  :)

Overall, Rangers pitchers had a combined awesome game.  9 innings pitched, just two hits, ZERO walks, and eight strikeouts.  Bloody awesome pitching job in this game.  The kind of thing that I’d love to see going into the season – hope this kind of outing happens more.

David Murphy led the offense with a single and a double.   Beyond that, it was a scatted pile of singles amongst everyone else.    Murph had one of the RBI’s, as did Jeff Baker, Jim Adducci, and Greg Miclat.

This was the first of two split squad games today.  This one was started by Nick Tepesch, a guy getting a lot of notice this spring.    His line wasn’t great, but he went five innings.   He gave up three hits and a walk, and three earned runs.  One of the runs was a solo home run.   I didn’t see this game, so I can’t comment on what his pitching looked like.  The stories from people who were there said he was decent, but his line didn’t bear that out.  Will have to take their word for it.

Craig Gentry got a triple this game, something I hope to see from home a lot this year – that guy can FLY!    We had a scattered offense, nobody had more than one hit.    AJ had his third double of the season.  Still think the guy’s a jerk, but so far this spring, he’s doing well offensively.

Starting to not like seeing the Giants, they’re starting to annoy me.    Matt Cain looked good.   Thing that was more annoying is there isn’t one pitcher that gave up like four runs in 2/3 of an inning – the damage was kind of spread out over several pitchers, so it was a combined loss.   Rangers threw 7 pitchers out there, with nobody pitching more than two innings (only Lowe did that).    Rangers offense managed a bunch of singles, and one double.

Getting close to not wanting to write about the Giants anymore like I don’t write about losses to the Yankees.

In a theme that might become a recurring one for me – “Where was this win against the A’s last September?”…

Randy Wells started for the Rangers, and had a few wobbles, but held his ground.  Went 5 innings (first Ranger to do that this spring I think), and gave up three hits, and four walks.  Struck out four.  The only run he gave up was a solo home run.   The rest of the Rangers pitchers are guys who won’t be around (well, maybe the first one).  The releivers were Nate Robertson, Yoshi Tateyama, Jeff Beliveau, & Coty Woods.

Offensively, we had three doubles, and six singles.   The RBI’s came from guys we will need a lot of them from once the season starts: Berkman, Beltre, Kinsler, Andrus, Moreland, and well, not the last one as I don’t think Solarte will make the club.

But it was a good, solid mid spring training game.  Guys are starting to get stretched out a bit, some regular names are showing up, we’re about halfway through at this point.  :)

The Rangers scored early, often, and through the whole game.   We scored in all the innings except the 5th & 6th.  2,4,1,1,0,0,2,2 are the innings the Rangers scored in.   In all the Rangers had 12 hits and 6 walks, which makes it easier.  We had just two doubles, and two home runs, and a pile of singles.    This is a game where our power came from some newer sources.  Double by Leonys Martin, and a Home run by Mike Olt.  We also had a home run by spring surprise Jeff Baker, and a double by Jared Hoying.

Pitching wise, Alexi Ogando pitched well in his start, getting four shutout innings.  They weren’t without incident as he did walk too many for four innings (three), but he didn’t give up any runs, which is the bottom line.  The three runs the Brewers got all came from Tanner Scheppers, who did NOT have a good outing at all.

We were also helped by three Brewer errors.

I remember when we played the Giants in the series a couple of years ago thinking that Madison Bumgarner was going to be the soft touch after the first few guys.  I was wrong then.  He also did it do us again this game.  Granted, it’s spring training, so he’s not going eight innings, but…  In the four that he did pitch, giving up just one hit and a walk.  Struck out four.   Threw 63 pitches.  Overall, that set the tone. [Read more...]