Opening day. Opening day on the road, doesn’t seem quite the same, and especially when the game is at 9PM. :)
Still, I was excited to see Ranger baseball again. I’d seen the players play (well, heard them) on the radio, plus saw them in person once already in the exhibition game I went to, so the big deal here was Josh Lewin. While I liked Bill Jones, and was sorry to see him go, Josh Lewin has an energy that ought to be very interesting. It’s been but one game, but so far I like him!
On the field, well – we got beat by Mark Mulder, who was definitely on his game – Chan Ho Park was not. Park had moments of being on his game, but kept getting away from them. I think the tone was set by him hitting Randy Velarde as the second batter of the game. Park wasn’t exactly awful, but his performance would have fit well with last year’s team – not a good trend.
Offensively, we had little to nothing going on – except for Juan Gonzalez who had TWO infield singles. Hank Blalock on the first pitch he saw drived a single to center and got an RBI & a hit on his first major league pitch. Carl Everett made it a little less than lifeless in the 9th when he had a two run home run, but even at a score of 8-3, we seemed more out of it than that.
Ah well, there’s more to go. Just hope this isn’t a trend already.