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The Rangers lost yet again, in a trend that is now disturbing to me. It was made even more disturbing by an article I read this week where the Rangers said they weren’t concerned with their bad record in the spring. That’s a sure sign that it’s worrying them somewhere, even if only subconsciously. You don’t issue statements for things you don’t care about.
Anyway, this game started off good enough early on. Derek Holland started for Texas, and was pretty good in the first few innings. Derek didn’t allow any runs the first three innings, and two in the fourth, and settled down again for a zero in the fifth. However, he ran out of gas in the sixth. Four runs were charged to his ledger, although one was driven in while Alexi Ogando was on the hill. Holland’s outing I’m not sure how to classify. One one hand he had four innings of shutout ball out of 5+ innings. But the non shutout stuff was not good. His official line was 5.1IP, 8H, 4ER, 0BB, 2K. He also balked.
Ogando, who I mentioned before was pretty bad, too. Only 1/3 of an inning, but in that, he allowed three hits and two walks, but surprisingly only two earned runs in all that. Still, that’s an atrocious line. Ben Snyder wasn’t good either (our 3rd of the day), but not nearly as painful as Ogando’s line. Synder went one onning, allowed three his and two walks – accounting for three earned runs.
Offensively, we put together 13 hits, which were fairy well spread out. Eight of them came from four guys who had two hits each (Borbon, Young, Hamilton, Guerrero). We had some nice power, too. Five doubles, a triple, and a home run. The home run was from a surprise – Matt Treanor.
Elvis Andrus was on the move. He stole a base and was caught once.
But it sadly all added up to yet another loss, bringing our spring record to 6-14-1. That’s good for last place in the Cactus league. In fact, the only major league team with a worse spring training record than the Rangers is the Washington Nationals. Even the Pittsburgh Pirates have a better record than us.
But the team isn’t worried!

McCarthy was awful. 3.1 innings. 12 runners (8 hits, 4 walks).
We never recovered.
Ugh.

Taking a mulligan on this one.

The game was good up until the third inning. The Rangers parked a five spot on the Padres ledger in the top of the third. Most of that came from a three run Nelson Cruz home run.
But then the Rangers surrendered a six spot in the bottom of the fourth, and then an EIGHT spot in the bottom of the eighth.
That was just ugly. Bleargh.

Before this game started, I told my wife it was the Dodgers, and I wanted to watch it on TV in the hopes that the Dodgers and Rangers would do something that happened in spring training the previous year. For one inning, the Dodgers and Rangers switched broadcast teams, which means we got Vin Scully doing the game. So I was looking forward to that, and then Scully got hurt this past week, and he did a Dodgers game, but he did the other split squad game back and their own park.
Still, it was nice to see the Rangers on TV. David Murphy, who on paper looks to have a hard time getting regular playing time in 2010, made a case for himself today. His first two at bats were a home run and a triple. Which immediately brings forth the idea of a cycle. That didn’t happen, mind you, but it set a tone for him. Later on, our Rule 5 guy, Matt Brown had his own home run. Taylor Teagarden had a double, and that accounted for half of our eight hits being extra bases. So we had some power this game.
Colby Lewis started this game, and I have to confess he looked better than I remembered him looking. His Japanese strikeout stuff was on display here, as he had six of them in his five innings of work. I wouldn’t call the outing dominating, but he certainly did well. Five innings, five hits, one walk, and two earned runs, one of which was on a solo home run he allowed. Had too many pitches for my taste (79). That’s not an obscenely huge number. In fact, it’s only four pitches over “recommended”, but it just felt like a lot more than that.
The only other pitcher the Rangers used was Derek Holland, who really hasn’t had a a dominating spring. Four innings, six hits, one walk, and three earned runs. Derek was charged with the blown save and the loss.
We had a shot to come back late, and blew it when we left a couple of men on base late (I think 2nd & 3rd). We didn’t, and those kind of losses bug me more than others, as we COULD have won. The kind of games that teams like the Yankees always seem to find a way to win.

This sentence from the mlb recap says it all, IMO..

Brandon McCarthy allowed Marte’s grand slam and threw 42 pitches in the first inning.

After the fourth batter of the game, Brandon McCarthy & the Rangers were down 4-0. That was the entire tone of the game. McCarthy actually settled down a bit after the grand slam, and allowed just one more run in his four innings of work. However, Luis Mendoza was just as bad, and Pedro Strop also allowed a bunch (although some of his were unearned).
Blah. That’s about it for this game.