As sloppy as Wednesday’s game was, Thursday’s was much better. Rangers pitching was the order of the day, not allowing any earned runs at all. The ChiSox did score once, but it was an unearned run on a Jason Ellison miscue.
Vicente Padilla started this one and went three innings, giving up just one hit, and two walks. Extrapolated over a full game, that’s six walks – too many, but for now, it’s OK. Full season box scores show you the number of pitches thrown. The spring box scores don’t seem to show that, so I can’t say how crisp he seemed from just reading the box score. But three innings with just one hit, and only one earned run is quite nice.
A followup to that was Scott Feldman, who also tossed three scoreless frames. Feldman had just one hit as well, allowing no runs, and one walk. Feldman also had seven ground outs vs NO flyouts. That’s great to see (Padilla was one grounder, and six flyouts). Feldman also faced just ten batters in his three innings of work; one over the minimum (the one hit). Bill White, Paul Kometami, & Elizardo Ramirez each followed with an inning of work. All three allowed no runs, and only Kometami allowed a single hit. Very nice pitching by the Rangers on this game. Something we’ll need a lot of of once the season gets going.
Offensively, we had the longball working. Got three of them this game (Travis Metcalf, David Murphy, & Chris Davis). John Mayberry Jr also chipped in with a double to round out the extra base hit portion of the offense.
If you look at the line score, we had a two spot in the second, and then lone runs in the 3rd, 5th, 8th, & 9th. With spread out scoring like that, you’d think our offense was also spread out, and you’d be right. Only Mayberry had more than one hit.
I’m encouraged by the performance so far by Vicente Padilla. By all accounts in the local press, he’s more friendly, in better shape, and trying a lot harder than before; he appears to be healthy. Which will be important, as we’re hearing the word injury more often than I’d like this spring. I always kinda liked Padilla when he was in Philly, and I could like him here too, but he seems to have become a victim of head games. I always kind of liked the throw at people mentality he has. Not that I want to INTENTIONALLY throw at people’s heads, but the fear of “will I get hit” can work for a pitcher. He just needs to learn how to get that fear into people without plunking 7 or 8 guys at once and starting brawls all the time (hello Anaheim).