The second game of the spring came on at an odd time. Most spring games don’t start at 4:05 Central Time. Unfortunately, it didn’t matter, as I was unavailable. My wife and I were at the Doctor’s office for her pregnancy. So I didn’t get to hear any of this. This, like yesterday’s game was on MLB’s Gameday Audio. If you don’t know Gameday audio, it’s a surprisingly good deal. For $15 a season, you get streaming access to every game. You get the home and away audio for every game played the entire season, including several Spanish stations. The Rangers’ Spanish team is on here. But if you spend a lot of time in front of the computer, and like other teams besides the Rangers, it’s a great deal.
Anyway, in looking over the box score, it appears we faced a pretty “real” Angels team. The Angels starting lineup was pretty much a regular season one. All their regulars appeared to start the game, including Torii Hunter, who most people figured would have been a Ranger now. Likewise the Rangers lineup looked pretty solid. I don’t think this was the “regular” lineup, but it seemed pretty close.
Offensively, the Rangers were pretty confined. Counting subs, we sent a total of 18 batters to the plate. Only four of them got hits. And three of those got two each (Kinsler, Hamilton, & Murphy). The other was Hank Blalock. Kinsler & Blalock had a double each, and Josh Hamilton had a triple. Our RBI’s came from Mike Young, Josh Hamilton, and Ben Broussard (with a sac fly). Most of this damage was against Anaheim starter Ervin Santana, who gave up two of the three runs in his two innings of work. He gave up three hits and a walk, which will usually push a run or two across the board.
The remainder of the Angels pitchers are surnames I don’t recognize (Olenberger, Bonilla, M White, & Arredondo). Even the linked names in the box score on mlb don’t have names for these guys. Must be all NRI’s. White though was pretty good, striking out four in his two innings of work.
On the other side of the coin, the Rangers sent eight pitchers to the hill in this one. Only the starter (Kason Gabbard) threw more than an inning (he threw two). Well, OK, Eric Hurley threw 1.2, but his time was balanced by Batista who threw just 0.1 (to one batter, no less). The remaining Rangers pitchers were Jamey Wright, Fukumori, Davis, Kam Loe, & Franklyn German. Gabbard, Hurley & Davis gave up one run each. Hurley walked two many (2 in 1.2 to go with three hits), but the walks were down (4 in all by Rangers pitching).
Because this game ended in a tie, I was tempted to make some sort of Bud Selig joke, but decided against it, as I couldn’t make it work well enough.
Bring on Eric & Victor tomorrow!
Regarding Selig, I bit:
“The Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim played to a tie on Thursday afternoon in Tempe, Arizona.
And Bud Selig was nowhere to be found, either.”