In game 34 of the season, the Rangers finally made their first roster move that affects the 25 man roster. Derek Holland was brought up (hello Hannah), and Matt Harrison was sent down. It’s a surprise that we haven’t made any pitching movies until May 12th – that’s positively glacier like for the Texas Rangers.
Holland’s first appearance of the season went pretty darned well. Six innings, just five hits, and one walk. Punched out seven in his six innings on the mound, but most importantly didn’t allow any runs at all. He came out at 103 pitches, which given it was his first start in the majors of the year, I was OK with. Would have liked seven, but there was no need to push it that hard, especially given we were up 7-0 at the time he came out of the game. Josh & Tom made it a point to talk about his changed delivery, which probably had most of what to do with his minor league numbers this year (4-1, ERA 0.93, 6GS, average of 8.6K per 9 innings). Hopefully he sticks up here the rest of the season, and does well.
It’s quite a weird feeling talking about all the good pitching wearing the Rangers uniform. I get ahead of myself, but I wonder if we can be like Tampa Bay in 2008. Would be interesting. Anyway…
Outside of Derek’s appearance, the other big story was home runs. The Rangers hit five of them. They were hit by Josh Hamilton, Vlad Guerrero, Max Ramirez, Michael Young, & Justin Smoak. Hamilton & Guerrero went back to back again, and in the middle of that b2b, the A’s had a pitching change, too. :) The home runs accounted for 7 of the 10 runs we had in all, so I’d say the longball dominated the offense tonight for sure.
Of the Ranger starters, only David Murphy (starting for Craig Gentry who was a last second scratch) took an ofer. Every other starter had at least one hit, with Josh Hamilton leading the way with three.
Was a good night to be a Rangers fan. What would make it more fun is if the owners’ meeting currently going on will result in Selig taking control of the Rangers to sell it to Greenberg/Ryan. Come on Bud..
