This was a refresh the line score game. I saw us take a 1-0 lead in the top of the first, and I thought things would be fine. Then I saw the score after the bottom of the first. We were losing 3-1. Our good old buddy Chan Ho Park gave up three runs in the bottom of the first. In typical Park fashion, he had one stinker of an inning, and the rest were pretty decent. Overall Park gave up 3ER in his 3 innings of work. Not that good (that’s an ERA of 9), but the three in the first was a real eye roller. Jason Standridge, who got the win, also gave up 2ER in his 2 innings of work. The remainder of the pitchers we used (Shouse, Brocail, and Rupe) didn’t give up anything. Rupe also picked up a save. Oh yeah, there appeared to be the random hit batter by Park. That was something that Josh & Tom talked about a lot, the seemingly out of nowhere hit batter. There was one in Park’s line, I suspect it was the random kind. :)
Speaking of pitching, Kerry Wood started for the Cubs, and took himself out of the game after the second after feeling a strain in his right shoulder. Wood gave up a run in his two innings, but we staged a comeback against former Ranger prospect Ryan Dempster, picking up 3 runs (2ER), and finishing it off with two runs against Cubs reliever Roberto Novoa.
Offensively, no one really stood out. We had 5 RBI’s (one of our runs was unearned), and no one had more than one. Teixeira was 2 for 3, and Esteban German was 2 for 4. But everyone else had a single hit. We did also leave 14 runners on base, so it could have been an explosion; we just left too many guys out there to really dominate this game. Still, we got a win, and that’s all that really matters in the long run.
Also, Alfonso Soriano is 0-12 to start his spring training games. I don’t think it will be a problem in the long run, but seeing that stat did make me raise an eyebrow.
View my complete update for this game here.