This was a game I didn’t get to see much of.   Had to work.  But I did catch a few minutes here and there.   What I didn’t miss was the mostly blah performance of Derek Holland.   When I was thinking of writing for this game, I thought it was going to be one of those back and forth games.  That did turn out to be the case in the middle innings for a little, but not as much as I realized.

The Rangers started out with a couple of runs early against Joe Blanton.  A guy I remember from his time in Philly.  When he got on the ropes early, I was immediately expecting a blowout.   That didn’t happen.  We did score 2, which is always helpful.  But we let Blanton off the hook, as we could have had a lot more than that.    [Read more…]

I am not going to write a lot about this one.   The old “running out of time to write” right now thing.  But I will put down a few bullet points.

• Justin Grimm looked as good as I’ve seen him since his initial stellar major league start.   Was quite good.
• I got to see just a little bit of this game, but I did get to see the bottom of the fifth
• Always amusing to see a game with an 11-3 score with an official credit for a save.  :)
• In watching game commentary on Twitter, it was funny to see both “Nelson Cruz boomstick” and “Nelson Cruz bloopstick” at the same time. :)
• Nice jets on Leonys Martin.  Good to see he didn’t hurt himself on his triple.
• Martin wins the slugging percentage award for this game with a triple and a double.
• Always ALWAYS love seeing grand slams by the Rangers.   Even better when the outfielders for the other team don’t even MOVE when the ball is headed their way.  :)

Two shutouts in a row.  Granted, it’s the Mariners, who have had offensive problems the last several years.  But still.   Won 7-0 yesterday.  Won 5-0 today.   You’ve GOT to love that kind of performance from your pitching staff.   Yesterday the big deal was Yu Darvish.   Today the big deal was.. well.. all of them.    Because in the third inning, it looked pretty bad. [Read more…]

Whatever was bothering Yu Darvish in his second start, certainly didn’t bother him this game.   He looked more like the almost perfect guy in his first outing of the season.   Wasn’t quite THAT good, but man, he looked good here.  His pitches were moving – he mowed guys down.   He very much looks like what the Rangers expected to get when they sent a truckload of money to his Japanese team, and then offered Darvish himself another truckload of money.   Take that Dice-K! [Read more…]

This is one of those games that has a simple explanation.  Oh, I could write multiple hundreds of words about it, breaking down all the details, but it really is very simple.  Carlos Villanueva for the Cubs was good.  Alexi Ogando for the Rangers was not.    Ogando allowed five earned runs in 2.1 innings.  That was the game  in a nutshell.

Our only two runs came on two solo home runs (Kinsler & Cruz).  In fact, Kinsler & Cruz were our ENTIRE offense, as we had just four hits total.  Both of them had two hits (the others being singles).  Nobody else had any.

That’s it, folks!

Wednesday’s game against the Cubs was rained out, and due to the way interleague is handled now (basically all the time), a replacement date is unknown.   They couldn’t DH it on Thursday because that day had rain in the forecast, too.   But the replacement game has no announced time.   Somewhere along the line, we’ll have to go back to Chicago just to play one game.   While I’m just a fan from home, and don’t have to travel, I imagine the players don’t care for that kind of thing.

The MLB story I link to here mentions the Rangers didn’t do their usual tarp slide – mostly because it was too cold.  :)

April games in Wrigley were never as fun as the ones later in the summer.  Growing up a Phillies fan, I always thought what made Wrigley look as good as it did was all the walls and ivy.   Which was never the case in April, as it was a bunch of brown vines, which I thought made the park look just the opposite – pretty dreary looking.   I do like that into 2013, the walls are still advertising free.  I remember for the longest time Wrigley had NO advertising of any kind inside the park.  That was really unique.   That’s been lost, but the walls remain mostly ad free.  Be nice if it could have stayed ad free.  I have always loved the ivy covered walls there.  I hope to see a game there someday.  :) [Read more…]

Nick Tepesch took the mound for this start, and while I didn’t think his line showed a very good outing, I didn’t feel it was that bad.   Oh, by every measurable number he didn’t do too great.  5.2 innings pitched.  Threw 102 pitches, allowed nine hits, four earned runs.  Pretty “meh” outing.  However, the “gut feeling-ometer” in my head didn’t think he was as awful as his line seemed to indicate.    I like this kid, really want him to do well.  Would love for one of our kids to come up, claim a spot, and not give it back.   With the surgery for Harrison, plus Colby Lewis still out, we need at least one of these guys to claim a spot on the rotation.   Hoping it’s Tepesch. [Read more…]

I had to work and do a bunch of family stuff, and as such I went to bed early on Saturday night.  I didn’t get to see any of this one, so this is a pure box score recap from me.  :)

The pitchers duel I thought we’d get the night before with Darvish & Iwakuma materialized a bit more solidly on Saturday night with Alexi Ogando taking the hill against Joe Saunders.  Saunders is a weird case for us, I always feel like we should crush him, but he’ll turn around and do what he did last night against us; especially when he was with the Angels.   Sat night was not a “crush him” night, I see. [Read more…]

While the team and Darvish both denied it afterwards, I cannot help but feel that the blister/finger issue that took Darvish out of his last start early contributed here.   He was wildly inconsistent.   There was an inning or two where Darvish looked like he did in the (almost) perfect game.  Then there were innings where he looked like he did on his first ever Major League start last season.   Most of it was in the middle, but the inconsistancy didn’t feel “right” to me.  There was something off, there was something keeping him from pitching like he did in the second inning of this game  the whole game. [Read more…]