The injury report: Today’s Dallas Morning News is reporting that Wetteland might start the season on the disabled list, and today’s radio broadcast wasn’t so gloomy, but they didn’t sing praises about his recovery, either. He’s been ordered not to pitch for four days in order to give his body some time to heal. Johnny Oates was worried he was overcompensating, and gave him some extra rest. The radio guys also said that Luis Alicea was going to have an MRI tomorrow morning to determine what’s going on with him.
On the plus side, Ruben Mateo came back in the game today after missing some, and hit a pinch hit two run home run, which was way cool to hear (would have been nicer to see, but we finally get pre-season TV baseball next weekend). Also, the guys were saying that Raffy has set a date to return to game play for next weekend. Let’s see.
This sounded like a very well rounded team game (for the most part). Aaron Sele pitched by far his best game of the spring so far, only allowing 1 hit (unfortunately, that hit was a home run). He struck out six Reds in the five innings he pitched. They were all called strikeouts. That could have been due to the umpire in question. I remember this guy from my time listening to Phillies games in the National League. Still, Sele sounded like he was sharp today Patterson, though, didn’t do the same. He pitched one inning, and gave up a couple of runs. He didn’t sound like he had it in control at all. Jonathan Johnson, on the other hand, did! He pitched two perfect innings, which is always great to hear. Eric Gunderson came in and got a save, too.
There was some nice hitting today, including the aforementioned HR by Mateo, and several doubles. Milt Cuyler also sounded really sharp today, which was nice to see, as I have a gut feeling we’ll need some extra depth this year. Great game!
Commentary by Jim Weeks:
The Rangers erupted for 4 runs in the sixth inning Sunday and dyed the Reds, 5-3. The Rangers scored 2 of their runs in the inning when pinch-hitter Ruben Mateo slammed a 2-run shot off Dennis Reyes. Mateo is now 9 for his last 16 (.563) with 3 homers, a double, 4 walks and 8 RBIs. He’s also hit in his last 8 straight exhibition contests, the longest such streak by any Ranger this spring.
The story of the game however, was the greedy pitching of Aaron Sele, who limited the Reds to just one hit over 5 innings, while striking out 6. As good as Helling was on Saturday, Sele was even moreso on Sunday.
Eric Gunderson picked up a save and continued pitching well this spring. Gunderson’s probably had one of the lefty jobs in the bullpen all along, as long as he pitched decently. By all accounts, he’s pitched pretty well.
The Rangers limited the Redlegs to just 5 hits overall and was by far the best pitched game they’ve had all spring. This is very encouraging sign, especially after the good performance yesterday by Helling.
The Rangers have now won 2 in a row and are 9-7-1, despite starting off the spring 1 and 4.