Well, here we go. I wasn’t expecting to listen to today’s game. I went to mlb.com to see about watching a box score refresh game, and saw that the Rangers game was on MLB’s Gameday audio with the Royals feed. So that was a nice bonus. Got to listen to the game, and the Royals announcers were pretty good. A lot of other team’s broadcasters bored me, but I didn’t mind listening to these guys, as they seemed to have a clue about the other team. Also, I briefly dropped in on the live chat on the DMN Rangers blog going on. There were several remarks by Jeff Wilson at the start saying that the Rangers game was not available to listen to – even when asked by someone if it was on mlb.com. One would think he’d actually LOOK before saying it wasn’t there.
Anyway… The bottom of the first inning Was a bomb of an inning. I didn’t get to hear all of it, as I was at work, but I did hear a bunch of it. As the Royals announcers said, “Michael Young was THAT guy – making the first and last out in an inning”. In between, we put up a six spot. I heard it right when the scoring started, which was a single by Nelson Cruz, scoring Kinsler & Hamilton. That was set up by a throwing error by Mark Teahan. After that, Hank Blalock jacked a HR onto the burm for another two runs. Murphy and Davis singled after that – with Davis’ sounding really good over the radio. Salty grounded out to score Murphy for the fifth, and the scoring was finished by an RBI single by Elvis Andrus. A heck of a way to get started in Spring Training.
Kris Benson was good in the first inning, allowing just a single, which was wiped out on a double play. The second inning wasn’t as smooth, as he allowed an enormous home run to Billy Butler.
However, Josh Hamilton and Nelson Cruz picked that up immediately by jacking their first home runs of the spring in the bottom of the second. Back to back jacks. Hank Blalock just barely missed making it back to back to back, getting a triple right after the two home runs. We’re just destroying the Royals early on in this one. :)
Mike Jacobs did have a big three run home run in the third off of Matt Harrison, which made the total runs scored by the Royals 4 in the third. Not a lot of great pitching so far (in fact, there wasn’t a 1-2-3 inning until the bottom of the fifth). It was 9-5 after two and a half innings.
Funny thing is, right after I wrote that, the pitching calmed down a bit. There was no more scoring until the bottom of the seventh. The middle was pretty well pitched. The Rangers plated three more runs in the bottom of the 7th and 8th combined, and the Royals came back with two runs against Bryan Corey in the top of the 9th.
The Rangers threw out nine pitchers in all this game. The amusing thing about that is that Kris Benson started the game, and was the only pitcher to go more than one inning (he went two). Pitchers 2-6 each went a full inning, and pitchers 7-9 went 2/3 of an inning. For the record, KC threw out six pitchers. :) Anyway, the pitchers the Rangers threw out there all did well, except for two. Matt Harrison gave up four earned runs on two home runs (Butler & Olivo), and Bryan Corey gave up two earned runs on one home run in his 0.2 innings of work. Kris Benson gave up the other run. Again on a home run.
In fact, Home runs were in plentiful supply. All told there were seven in the game. Four by Texas, three by Kansas City. Our offense was pretty much engaged in Spring game #1. We had twenty hits in all. We had seven players with two hits, and the remaining six were scattered amongst other guys. Hank Blalock had power going, getting a triple and a home run in his three at bats. In fact, he just missed a second home run with the triple he got. Justin Smoak was 2-2 as well, and it was pretty evenly scattered.
It’s nice to get the ball rolling again. As usual with games during weekdays, I missed a lot of it due to actual work and stuff. But it was really nice to be listening to a Rangers game again.
Oh, and finally.. According to the press notes for this game, it DOES count in the spring training standings. Traditionally this first charity game doesn’t count, and I was under the impression this one would be the same. However, the press notes listed this game as “Spring Game #1”, and that it would count, so we’re 1-0 now.
First Spring Training Game Lineup
Yeah, it’s the charity game. It doesn’t technically count in the spring training standings. But it is a game against another team. Here we go again!
Ian Kinsler, 2B
Michael Young, 3B
Josh Hamilton, CF
Nelson Cruz, RF
Hank Blalock, DH
David Murphy, LF
Chris Davis, 1B
Jarrod Saltalamacchia, C
Elvis Andrus, SS
Spring Training TV & MLB Network
It’s been previously stated that the local Rangers coverage is carrying five games this year. That news is now a week or so old. However, today MLB Network published their broadcast schedule of games for spring training. They’re running several games, but not all of them are live. A decent amount are live, but not all of them. The first thing I did was check the Rangers appearances.
They are listed as being on the schedule three times. March 14th, March 27th, and April 1st. Two of these three dates are already on the local TV broadcast schedule. The third (April 1st) was not. However, April 1st is the one game of the three that isn’t live. According to the existing schedule, that game will be played at 1PM Central Time. The MLBN schedule says it will air at 4PM local time. If you can avoid the score until the game comes on MLBN, it is an additional game you can check out.
Today’s Random Ramblings
Another day, another few random comments from me about recent stories:
Josh Hamilton Quits Again: There was a story in the DMN on Monday about Josh giving up chewing tobacco at the request of his kids. I can’t say I have a problem with that. The stuff is fairly disgusting, IMO. I’ve become a big fan of his. I have started passing his book around my church so people will know his story. Especially those that aren’t big baseball fans. Might pull some of ’em in. :) Anyway, this line from the article was particularly effective at getting the point across:
“You know it’s bad when your 3-year-old holds up a water bottle, and asks if daddy spit in this before she drinks out of it,” said Hamilton, referring to his daughter Sierra. “That’s when you know it’s a problem.”
What’s more encouraging about that is Josh said he broke the habit by asking the elders of his church to lay hands on him and pray. That’s great that he came to God to rid himself of a vice like that. God is Good!
Justin Smoak: You know, even if you do no research at all on the Rangers’ minor leagues, you can’t help but pick up on the guys who are going to be a big deal. By osmosis. Just being in the same town as Jamey Newberg, you just know the guys to watch out for even if you never saw or heard or read anything about them. That’s the feeling I get about Smoak from Jamey. DMN had an article about him today. It had some seriously high praise for him, saying:
Special adviser Mel Didier, who has been in baseball more than 50 years, said Smoak is a more complete switch-hitter than Mickey Mantle and Mark Teixeira were at this stage.
Wow.
Michael Young Fourth: The intrasquad games played on Monday contained a surprise. Michael Young batting fourth. It’s an interesting proposition, and something that I’ve always wondered about. When I was young and growing up, the thinking was that you put your best hitter fourth. That’s why it’s called “cleanup”. The idea is that the first three guys would be on the bases, and the fourth, the guy MOST LIKELY to drive them in was the cleanup batter. Generally that’s a big home run guy (for me it was Mike Schmidt), or at least it used to be. Generally fourth is still a power guy, but the cleanup slot has lost its prestige to the third slot. Somewhere along the line, it became the way things are done to put your best hitter third. Which is where Michael Young has been a lot the last few years. But he was fourth here. Granted, it’s the first spring intrasquad game, so it’s not a major deal here, but it’s an intriguing proposition. With Bradley gone, we do need protection for Hamilton, I’ll be curious to see if Michael young doesn’t end up behind Hamilton once the real games get started.
Vernon Wells: Joey M over at BBtiA has a nice article about what might have happened had Vernon Wells decided to sign here a couple of years ago when he was a free agent. At the time it was WIDELY expected he would, being a local boy, and a friend of Michael Young’s, but he stayed in Toronto. If he had signed here, I’d say we probably wouldn’t have Josh Hamilton at this point.
Spring Video: The Ft Worth Star Telegram Baseball Blog (“Foul Territory“) has been posting a lot of cool video of batting practice, impromptu interviews and the like. I’m not going to list them all, but there’s some good stuff there. If you’re reading this, then you probably know about it already, but just in case you didn’t.. There you go.
Nelson Cruz: A lot of fans (myself included) seem to think that Cruz may have finally broken the AAAA label he had, and had the lightbulb go off. One hopes that it will stick with him. Rangers history is littered with guys who have great August and Septembers, but when it comes time for next season, stink up the joint. Cruz hit a grand slam in the intrasquad opener, which is a good sign, and is just one hit obviously, but it’s a nice “oh please let that be real” moment. :)
Mailbag Stuff: The mailbag segment with TR Sullivan and the official site is back. While the usual moronic questions of “trade x for y” (without any thought given to the question) are at a minimum, I do have to say I was a bit disturbed by the thought that mlb.com thought it wasn’t needed and had actually taken it away. With Even Grant’s newsletter gone now, this is the only regular one like that Yeah, Jamey has started doing that, but his is less frequent. I wonder if the FTST will start doing this.
Two days to go until the first game on the radio! :)
For Anthony Andro
To everyone else, this is text meant for Anthony Andro of the Ft Worth Star Telegram.
Anthony, here’s a properly formatted text box score. It can be done with MT/Typepad. You just have to use the tags I sent you in email. Let me know if you need any help with this.
If you’re reading this on a Kindle, hopefully it isn’t too messed up. :)
Line Score ML FINAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E - - - - - - - - - - - - TEXAS 1 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 1 6 9 0 HOUSTON 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 5 3 (FINAL) BATTERIES: TEX - DARREN OLIVER, PAT MAHOMES (7TH), MARK PETKOVSEK (8TH), JEFF ZIMMERMAN (9TH) AND IVAN RODRIGUEZ HOU - SCOTT ELARTON, JAY POWELL (8TH), JOE SLUSARSKI (9TH) AND BRAD AUSMUS WP - DARREN OLIVER (6-2) LP - SCOTT ELARTON (4-7) SAVE - NONE HOME RUNS: TEX - ALEX RODRIGUEZ (20) OFF ELARTON IN THE 5TH, 2 ON HOU - CRAIG BIGGIO (8) OFF D OLIVER IN THE 1ST, 0 ON CRAIG BIGGIO (9) OFF D OLIVER IN THE 3RD, 0 ON TIME: 2:51 ATT: 43,277 PROBABLES: ANA - SCOTT SCHOENEWEIS (6-4, 3.71) TEX - ROB BELL (NR) COL - PEDRO ASTACIO (5-7, 5.28) HOU - SHANE REYNOLDS (6-5, 4.94) Box Score TEXAS (6) VS HOUSTON (2) - FINAL TEXAS ab r h rbi bb so lob avg Catalanotto 2b 4 1 1 0 1 0 1 .306 I Rodriguez c 5 2 2 1 0 1 2 .286 A Rodriguez ss 4 1 3 3 0 0 0 .327 R Palmeiro 1b 3 0 0 0 1 1 1 .257 Sierra rf 3 0 0 1 0 1 2 .319 Petkovsek p 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 Je Zimmerman p 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 Kapler cf 4 0 0 0 0 0 3 .276 Lamb 3b 4 1 1 0 0 0 0 .250 Ledee lf 4 1 1 0 0 2 1 .167 D Oliver p 2 0 1 0 0 1 0 .400 Mahomes p 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.000 Porter rf 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 .293 Totals 33 6 9 6 2 6 10 BATTING: HR - A Rodriguez (20, 5th inning off Elarton 2 on, 1 out). S - D Oliver. SF - Sierra, Porter. RBI - Sierra (24), I Rodriguez (33), A Rodriguez 3 (60), Porter (3). Runners left in scoring position, 2 out - Kapler 2. GIDP - I Rodriguez, R Palmeiro. Team LOB - 5. FIELDING: DP: 1 (A Rodriguez-R Palmeiro). HOUSTON ab r h rbi bb so lob avg Biggio 2b 4 2 2 2 0 0 1 .307 Lugo ss 4 0 1 0 0 2 0 .263 Bagwell 1b 3 0 0 0 1 2 1 .277 L Berkman lf 3 0 2 0 1 1 0 .330 Alou rf 4 0 0 0 0 0 4 .355 Hidalgo cf 4 0 0 0 0 1 0 .276 Castilla 3b 3 0 0 0 0 1 0 .238 b-Vizcaino ph 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 .277 Ausmus c 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 .210 Elarton p 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 .083 a-C Hayes ph 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 .189 Ja Powell p 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 Slusarski p 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 Totals 31 2 5 2 3 8 6 a-walked for Elarton in the 7th; b-struck out for Castilla in the 9th. BATTING: HR - Biggio 2 (9, 1st inning off D Oliver 0 on, 0 out, 3rd inning off D Oliver 0 on, 1 out). RBI - Biggio 2 (30). Runners left in scoring position, 2 out - Alou 1, Bagwell 1. GIDP - Alou. Team LOB - 5. FIELDING: E - Lugo 2 (13, ground ball, throw); Ja Powell (1, throw). DP: 2 (Lugo-Biggio-Bagwell, Bagwell-Lugo-Ja Powell). -------------------------------------------------- Texas - 100 040 001 -- 6 Houston - 101 000 000 -- 2 -------------------------------------------------- TEXAS ip h r er bb so hr era D Oliver (W, 6-2) 6 2/3 5 2 2 3 5 2 5.96 Mahomes (H, 3) 1/3 0 0 0 0 0 0 7.30 Petkovsek (H, 4) 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 6.17 Je Zimmerman 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 3.58 HOUSTON ip h r er bb so hr era Elarton (L, 4-7) 7 7 5 5 2 5 1 6.52 Ja Powell 1 2 1 0 0 0 0 3.93 Slusarski 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 8.40 Ja Powell pitched to 2 batters in the 9th. WP - D Oliver. Pitches-strikes: Elarton 124-82; Ja Powell 19-14; Slusarski 12-8; D Oliver 102-68; Mahomes 4-2; Petkovsek 19-12; Je Zimmerman 9-7. Ground balls-fly balls: Elarton 14-2; Ja Powell 3-0; Slusarski 1-1; D Oliver 7-8; Mahomes 0-1; Petkovsek 0-1; Je Zimmerman 1-1. Batters faced: Elarton 29; Ja Powell 6; Slusarski 3; D Oliver 27; Mahomes 1; Petkovsek 3; Je Zimmerman 3. UMPIRES: HP--Chuck Meriwether. 1B--Brian Onora. 2B--Mike Fichter. 3B--John Hirschbeck. T--2:51. Att--43,277. Indoors. ML TEXAS AT HOUSTON NOTE: THE HOME RUN BY HOUSTON'S CRAIG BIGGIO LED OFF THE BOTTOM OF THE FIRST INNING. THE HOME RUN EXTENDED BIGGIO'S HITTING STREAK TO 17 GAMES.
2009 TV Schedule Released
In addition to the Anna Benson signing news, the Rangers also released their 2009 TV schedule. It’s available as a pdf download from the Rangers site (not the usual webpage story). You can grab it here. I’ve decided to comment on some of the text contained within the press release.
First off, they say “the majority of” Rangers games will be broadcast in HD this season. As this will be my first full season with an HDTV, I’m interested in that. I am curious to see what “majority of” means, as that could mean anywhere from 82-161 games. We shall see. They also have not announced what games are HD yet.
Texas Rangers local television rights holder FOX Sports Southwest today announced the team’s 2009 TV schedule. The 158-game local package includes an all-time high 133 games on FOX Sports Southwest, 24 over-the-air telecasts on KDFI My 27 in Dallas-Fort Worth
First off, the schedule says 158 game local package. The remaining four games are scheduled to be broadcast. One of them is on ESPN (May 3), and the other three are Saturday afternoon Fox National games (May 16, May 23, & Aug 8). So all 162 games are going to be on this year.
However, If I was viewing Rangers games on JUST rabbit ears (no cable or satellite), I’d be pissed at this. Of the 162, only 28 are on free over the air TV (24 on Ch 27, and 4 on Ch 4). Most of those are bunched towards the front end of the season, too. If you go look at my site’s schedule page, you’ll see the breakdown. Of those 28 over the air games, 7 are in April, 8 are in May, 7 are in June, zero in July, 1 in August, and 5 in Sep/Oct. It’s pretty stacked towards the early part of the season. On top of that, after May 26th, every single free over the air game is a Saturday. While this doesn’t affect me, if you’re an older viewer who does rely only on rabbit years, you’re moving to radio mostly, because you’ve just had a major dent put in your viewing.
Josh Lewin begins his eighth season as the television voice of the Rangers. He’ll be joined by former Rangers player and general manager Tom Grieve, who is back for his 15th season as analyst. Jim Knox returns for his 10th season as roving reporter on home games.
Tom Grieve is quite good. Lewin I’ve kind of cooled on lately. While I don’t actively dislike him like some of the other local fans do, I was kind of hoping Josh would take the San Diego job, and let Vic get promoted (although his new gig with MLB Network trumps this). Unfortunately, we are getting a 10th anniversary of Jim Knox. Ugh. I really really wish we wouldn’t have dumped Craig Miller and John Rhadigan for Knox. This means another season of “It’s the second inning, we go to Jim Knox”, or translated “It’s the second inning, reach for the Tivo skip while we talk to people in the Fox Box we couldn’t care any less about”.
John Rhadigan and Dana Larson host RANGERS LIVE with Ric Renner and Emily Jones reporting. RANGERS LIVE home game shows once again will originate from a set on the left field concourse level at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, giving fans attending games an opportunity to watch the live broadcasts in person.
Ric Renner is another guy that can go. He’s too hyper annoying, and most of the people he interviews have this look of “Can we please get someone else?” Rhadigan, Larson, & Jones are all fine. Renner is another use of the TiVo skip button. I do wonder about the post game show, though. They had Mark McLemore on for a lot of those. I saw him turn up as an in studio analyst with MLB Network this past week. I wonder if that’s his new gig.
The press release also talks about the ancillary shows they will be having again this season, including “Lunch with the Rangers”, “Rangers Live” (pre & post game), and “Rangers Insider”. In addition, there will be Rangers discussions on the Fox Sports shows “In My Own Words”, “Spotlight”, & “Under the Lights”.
Finally, if you’re not a Metroplex viewer, this news might be of interest to you:
Games on FOX Sports Southwest will be shown on cable and satellite television systems in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and parts of New Mexico. FOX Sports Southwest also has created a Rangers broadcast syndication network to distribute the 25 over-the-air games carried in Dallas-Fort Worth to television stations in the team’s outer markets. Participating affiliates will be announced later.
Make sure and check out the entire press release here (pdf download).
Rangers sign Kris Benson
It was announced on Saturday that the Rangers have signed Kris Benson to a minor league contract with an invite to spring training. This is pretty much a zero move. I can’t imagine this amounting to much of anything. This just feels like the Kip Wells move in 2006. Meh.
The only realy good thing about having Kris Benson on the team would be his wife Anna. See below. The only downside to THAT is that they’d send Jim Knox over to interview her, and as much as I’d want to see Anna Benson on TV, I’d prefer Jim Knox not be there, too.
Kris Benson
- P Kris Benson signed to a 1 year minor league contract w/ invite to spring training [ Link ]
Huge Bomb of Signings
- The following players were all signed to 1 year contracts for salaries ranging between $400,000 and $435,000: pitchers John Bannister, Scott Feldman, Kason Gabbard, Matt Harrison, Tommy Hunter, Luis Mendoza, Dustin Nippert, Omar Poveda and Josh Rupe, catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, infielders Jose Vallejo and Joaquin Arias and outfielders Brandon Boggs, Greg Golson, Nelson Cruz and David Murphy. [ Link ]
Batting Stance Guy
I originally posted this video back in July of 2008, but I wanted to bump it up again as I was showing a friend of mine some BSG stuff, so I thought I’d bump it back up and add on.
Thanks to my site visitor Baldwin Smith for pointing out the embedded video above. It’s a rather amusing video of the “Batting Stance Guy” doing his take on various Texas Rangers players both current and past. His rendition of Hank Blalock made me laugh out loud. Same thing for his Kenny Rogers one at the end of the video. :)
Thought y’all would want to see this.
UPDATE Feb 2009: Batting Stance Guy’s website can be reached at well.. http://www.battingstanceguy.com. He has several team specific videos besides this one. However, one video I urge you to watch is the one linked here. BSG made an appearance on the Hot Stove program on MLB Network back in January where he talks about how he does all of this. He also runs through a bunch of players called out by the three MLBN guys (Victor Rojas, Harold Reynolds, & Mitch Williams). His take on Andre Dawson is quite hysterical, and to see him do Harold Reynolds right in front of him is great. Of course, he does Joe Carter in front of Mitch Williams as well. Definitely check out this video (and go watch MLB Network).
UPDATE #2: BSG was on again Feb 25th, and did all Reds in front of Barry Larkin & Sean Casey. Check this one out, too.
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