First off, a complaint. Listening to the radio coverage of this game today, the Ranger announcers talked about “protesters” outside Jacobs Field who were complaining against the Indians use of the “Indian symbol” as their team logo. I mean, this team has been around for what, a zillion years – and people are just NOW complaining? Why is it all of a sudden a problem? Political correctness, that’s why. To me, anyone who complains about useless things like this deserves to be horsewhipped themselves. Stop wasting everyone’s time, and protest against REAL problems. What a waste of time. I know my mother reads these things, so I won’t truly say what I’m feeling here. Suffice it to say it’s much stronger than these words. For these people, I present this group of images.. Wish I could find out where they all live, I’d sign ’em all up for Indians mailings. :)

On the Baseball front – oh man.. Rick Helling! And in April! :) 8 innings pitched (132 pitches), 4 hits, two earned runs. What a performance! The only mistake was a long ball to Omar Visquel in the first inning – Rick’s first allowed HR in 2000. At this point in 1999 he had given up, what about 100 of them? Actually, Rick never allowed an Indian runner to second base after that. He had 9 strikeouts in 8 innings as well as two walks. Overall, a totally dominating performance by Rick. This is the kind of game he used to pitch all last year, and never got any run support for. Hopefully he’ll get some better stuff this year – would be nice to be more like the 20 game winner from two years ago.
On the other side, for a change, we started out the game with the lead – which hasn’t happened much so far this season. David Segui had a home run in the first for two of the three runs in that frame. We had a couple more runs in the third with small ball, which was nice to see. Our remaining two runs came off of solo home runs by Raffy & Pudge.
Was nice to see former Ranger Bobby Witt on the mound, and pitching fairly well, going three innings, allowing two hits and no runs with a strikeout. Fortunately, that wasn’t damaging to us.
One final remark – where was all of this when we were in New York? Sigh.

No time to write commentary for this game, didn’t even get to do this until 5PM Friday, after the first game against the Indians has already been over for about two hours. :)
Besides, it’s the Yankees, what more do I need to say?

It’s the Yankees again – what can I say? We always seem to find a way to lose to them. The Yankees themselves don’t bother me – it’s the fact that we can’t beat them that bothers me.
Actually, I liked the game – went back and forth, and never really totally got out of hand – although it was a sloppy game. Perrenial Ranger killer Bernie Williams killed us again with another home run. I didn’t like that we lost, but I did like that the game was close the whole way along – one of those see-saw games.
Couldn’t watch on TV – listened on the radio, and it appeared that Mr. Whiny (O’Neill) was being his usual self at the plate. Always love when he flares up like that, and even David Cone was getting into the act.
I also liked reading in the DMN this morning about Kenny Rogers getting booed during player introductions, and then tipping his hat to the fans. Wish I could have seen that. :) We seem to be stuck in a Win lose win lose pattern right now. Still early, our division is all right next to each other, probably won’t start to break apart until the end of April, I would think.

Rainout – and it was called the day before – almost 24 full hours before the game. This game will be made up in August – exact date is as of yet undetermined. Tomorrow’s game time will be changed from 7PM to 1PM (NY Time).

A very nice day at the Ballpark for a game. Sunny, cool, a perfect Sunday afternoon. Of course, I left with sunburn on the right side of my face because I never remember to use sunblock. :)
Anyway, Rick Helling came out and threw a LOT of pitches. I was scoring the game, and for some reason, the number of pitches really seemed to concern me – he was at 75 through the first three innings. Rick gave up runs in the top of the first, a disturbing trend in just about every game the Rangers have had so far this season. However, that was about it for him. He did give up another run later in the game, but he seemed like he was never totally in control. He had 7 strikeouts in 6 innings, but really seemed to have to work for everything he got. What I didn’t realize is that I looked at the line score right before he came out, and realized that he had only given up four hits over 6 innings – and one of the runs was unearned (via one of three Alicea errors on the day). It didn’t really seem like he was overpowering at all at the game, but the line score shows it – only 2 earned runs over 6 innings, and 4 hits. A “Quality Start” by the technical defintion of the word. :)
On the other side of the coin, we got a long ball from Raffy, but the rest of the game was hits here and there that happened to be bunched together at the right time. We had three doubles and a triple in the game – coupled with some walks, we got more than enough runs across the plate. I liked the offense today – we scored runs, but it wasn’t all on the longball (in fact, Raffy’s solo HR was the only run from a long ball).
Relief pitching was great, too. Venafro only pitched to one batter, but Francsico Cordero looked great, and Jeff Zimmerman looked the most dominating I’ve seen him all year so far (including spring training). John Wetteland should have had an easy inning, but the third Alicea error of the game allowed two unearned runs to score, making the game a bit closer in the score than it should have been.
Overall a great game on a Sunday afternoon. I love my new season ticket seats – they have such a great vantage point – there’s nothing you can’t see from where I sit. On to the Bronx on Tuesday. Ugh.

What can you say about this one? Kenny Rogers pitched well, but made one or two minor mistakes, and paid for them. David Wells made none. Not a whole lot more can be said about this one – David Wells shut us down, and he also stopped Kenny Rogers’ home winning streak of 19 games, which dated back to mid 1997 when he was with the Yankees.

This team is certainly up and down and all over the place so far this season. We win the first two games big, then we lose the second two, and we bounce back with a big 5 home run filled drubbing of the Toronto Blue Jays.
Mark Clark took the mound for the first time since last June, and to be honest, after the first two innings, I didn’t feel he was a whole lot different. Sure, he pitched fairly well during spring, but Florida’s games are a lot different than the ones that count. After two innings, we were down 4-0 (although one of the runs was unearned). However, that was it for the Blue Jays (except a solo HR by them in the 9th). From this point on it was all Texas.
What was interesting about this game if you check the line score, is that someone scored in all nine innings. The Jays scored in innings 1 & 2, and we scored in innings 3 through 8, and Toronto did in the 9th. However, we belted a total of five home runs, led by Royce Clayton, who had his first ever two home run game ever. Just about every one of our runs came from the long ball – was nice to see that, although I would not like to have to rely on it, as I can’t believe we can sustain that over the course of a whole season.
Mark Clark, after the first two innings, settled in, and became the pitcher he was supposed to be when we first obtained him. He looked good, and was pulled probably out of concern based on his past – he didn’t look thrilled sitting in the dugout after being pulled. However, he got a win for the first time in a long time, and he’s got to feel happy about that.

I’m really busy at work today, but I can sum up what I wanted to say about this game in two words.. “James Baldwin”. Man, he killed us last year, and he did it again last night! Not a whole lot more needs be said about this one. :)

Day games during the week are always tough for me to deal with, as I don’t usually have time to pay attention to the game. However, I did a little today – I went into the company lounge, turned on the DSS, and sat in the sofa and watched the first two innings of the Ranger game. I had tickets to this game, but couldn’t go because I had no one to go with – everyone I would have taken had to work. :)
Anyway, our pitching wasn’t great again – seems like start of season jitters to me, as our pitching staff was excellent during spring training – people might be trying to prove too many things. At least I hope that’s the case. Our bullpen is already overworked, having used a gob of pitchers the game before, as well as this one. Darren Oliver struggled the whole time he was out there. It appeared he had figured it out, but then fell apart again.
I was listening over the net at my desk, and when I heard that we had loaded the bases for Pudge, I ran into the lounge again to watch the game . Pudge singled, and scored two runs to bring us to just a 7-3 deficit, and then Raffy launched his second three run homer in two days into the Ranger bullpen. I was rather excited at that, and started clapping really loudly. The office manager ran into the lounge, and I thought I was in trouble for making noise, but he wanted to see the replay, as he was listening in his office on the radio. :)
We had brought it all the way back with a 7-7 tie in the bottom of the 8th, but it didn’t last. Zimmerman gave up a solo home run in the top of the 9th, and then the Chisox added a few more, for a 12-7 lead after 8.5. We did pick up a solo home run in the bottom of the 9th by Chad Curtis, but that was it.
A rather disappointing loss, especially after coming back from a 7-1 deficit to tie the game.