Rangerfans.com

This game was a game where you took advantage of the situation. The Rangers had just seven hits overall (and three by the same player; Milton Bradley). There was not a lot of concentrated offense here.
In fact, of the seven runs total in the game, just three of them were earned. Vicente Padilla was hit with that more than Joe Blanton was. Padilla only gave up one earned run, and the Rangers only had one error. The A’s, on the other hand had FOUR errors in the game, although one of them was that bogus foul ball where nothing actually happened foul.
Milton Bradley and Gerald Laird doubled, but everything else was a single, so there were no longballs here to account for the “efficient” runs. Joe Blanton only walked one. Heck, Ian Kinsler’s RBI was on a groundout to second base. Those kind of runs. :)
Josh Hamilton took an ofer this game, but made a quite spectacular catch in centerfield, to double off Daric Barton, who had gone all the way to third. It was quite the highlight catch, and I think a bit more cool than Gary Matthews catch from two seasons ago.
Our pen was good, too (Wright, Guardado, Benoit, Wilson). No runs allowed by those guys. Nice to see after the recent shaky appearances by Benoit.
VIcente Pidente earned the win, going 5.2 innings, giving up just five hits and four walks (too many walks). He was not as crisp as he has been in his other wins (VIcente threw 108 pitches), but it was enough to get the win.
We’re still not that great at 12-18, but the last week or so has been much improved over earlier in the season. Perhaps some of the local talk about Ron Washington’s head can go away for now.

Uh, hello? Is that really Sidney Ponson who did that? Did my ears deceive me? Perhaps it was because I was at work, and not listening as intently as I do at home. No way could Sidney Ponson go eight innings, give up just one run and striking out five. Not THAT guy. No way. That had to be some sort of typo.

Turns out it really was Sidney Ponson – the guy who couldn’t “pitch his way out of a bleeping paper bag” (Thanks Tom) for awhile now. It was his first win in the majors in a full calendar year. The same guy who last had what could be qualified as a “good season” in 2003 when he split the year between Baltimore and San Francisco. It was quite impressive to hear. Probably better to watch.

There were just eleven hits total by both teams. Nine of those were singles. The other two were solo home runs by the Rangers, accounting for all of our runs. The first was a leadoff home run by Ian Kinsler in the first, and the other was a shot from Ramon Vazquez in the sixth. The Royals pushed across their run in the third. But that was it. Little offense to speak of. We turned two double plays against Kansas City, which always helps.
The biggest surprise to me (sadly) was that we didn’t make any errors. There were a few lineup changes. Michael Young DH’ed, and Vazquez played short. Milton Bradley did not play at all, and Brandon Boggs started in left.

The game was very short, by far the shortest of the season, lasting just two hours and ten minutes. Given how much games cost anymore, I prefer longer – I feel like I get more value, but 2:10 is always nice to see from time to time.

This game got off to the start you want to see in a home game. Seven runs and multiple home runs before the second inning. We were up 7-0 after two, and 9-1 after five. But as some baseball players might tell you, a ton of runs (even 22 of them) isn’t always enough.

The Rangers got out to a 9-1 lead due to the longball. This was an extremely windy night, and even the changing of the wind with the Gold Club probably wasn’t responsible for this one – it was REALLY windy. It was one of those games where hot dog wrappers and All Star ballots were blowing all over the place. Not quite like that footage from Pittsburgh from the 80’s where it was a mini tornado, but there was enough of it. Kind of like this picture from the August 6, 2005 game…

That’s significant, since several of the home runs balls (David Murphy’s to left in particular) were severely assisted by the wind. Now they weren’t all windballs, but most were. One that was not was Josh Hamilton’s first career grand slam, which came in the second inning. That was Josh’s only hit of the night, but it was a good one.

There was a lot of offense, as the score would indicate. Every Rangers starter except Chris Shelton had at least one single. There were five home runs in all (Bradley, Murphy, Hamilton, Boggs, Laird). In addition to Hamilton’s first career grand slam, it was Brandon Boggs’ first ever major league home run. The other eight hits were singles.

Things were going great until the seventh inning when we couldn’t get anyone out. The Rangers threw out three pitchers in the seventh (Millwood, Francisco, Wright). Didn’t seem to make much difference. We gave up a five spot that inning, which made things 9-6 at that point. OK, nowhere near as good as 9-1, but we’re still winning. We got the lead up to 5 again with a two spot (Murphy’s HR) in the bottom of the seventh. Then we got to play nail biter again, as we gave up three more in the 8th and 9th, to make the game’s final score what it was.

Don’t like endings like that. Like when we get out 9-1, and the margin stays that way.

Still, a win is a win, and we’re now 10-18.

My subject says it all, I think. The only thing I can think of to write about Jennings is that according to several post game stories, he got hurt during the game. If that’s true, and something really is wrong, it could be a graceful way out. Jennings looked good early on, and had a few fantastic moments, but he’s making Mark Clark look good now. Time for something else there.
Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention something that I always love seeing – someone make their major league debut. Tonight it was Brandon Boggs. Pinch hitting for Frank Catalanotto, Boggs worked the count to I think 3-1, and then jacked a low and away pitch into right center for his first major league hit. In fact, Boggs got another hit on his second at bat, so he’s 2-2 so far in the majors.
The game left lifeless, and that’s because of the crappy feeling you get early on when down 5-0 after the first two innings.
But in more interesting news, the Philadelphia Eagles are suing Terrell Owens over money he did not pay them back. Go Philly! :)

It’s been awhile since we’ve had a game like this. We were out in front early, and kept it – no looking back. We’ve not had many of those. We’re usually down 4 or 5 to nothing in the first inning, and we have to hope. Not this time.
Milton Bradley had a no doubter of a three run home run in the bottom of the first. His home run got me to say something I haven’t said much this season – GOODBYE! the second the ball hit the bat. There was no doubt about this one. One funny thing I was surprised that Josh didn’t talk about with the home run was some guy near where the ball landed had his popcorn fly up in the air – and it looked like a pretty full bucket. Whether it was an accident or he was throwing it at the ball is unknown, but popcorn was a flyin’ when the ball went over the fence. That wasn’t the only home run of the game for the Rangers. Josh Hamilton & Jason Botts also launched balls over the stands (but no more popcorn).
But this game wasn’t about the offense, even though there was a lot of it. It was about Vicente Padilla looking very much like the pitcher that Arizona and Philadelphia hoped he would be. Looked strong, pretty good pitch count (121 for nine innings), and most importantly, a complete game shutout. We haven’t had one of those in several years now, and I could go for seeing more of those. We all could. Question is next time out, which Padilla are we going to get? He needs to string together several of these before I think people will really buy into him. I don’t mean complete game shutouts (although that’d be nice), just good strong outings. On the whole, he’s been better in 2008, but I don’t think Rangers fans are ready to completely buy into him just yet.
Josh Hamilton and Michael Young both had three hits, not a huge surprise there. Gerald Laird was 2-5 and is now batting .269. Respectable, definitely an improvement over last year. If he keeps going up, I suspect he’ll get traded in July.
Ian Kinsler had two hits in the #1 hole, and has an OBP of .359. Not bad at all, but you’d like a little better from the leadoff guy.
This was a good game. Something we needed. Next up are the Kansas City Royals starting on Tuesday. They’re not as light a touch as they used to be, so we better keep our heads about us.

Our huge one game winning streak is over, having been thrashed by the Twins 12-6 on Saturday night. To be honest, I wasn’t filled with confidence when the game started. That’s mostly because of who was starting for us. Sidney Ponson. I’m thinking – GREAT. It’s April 26th, and we’re already using guys to start games for us that are now journeymen trying to resurrect a career, and if they don’t make it here, they’re done. I have issues with that for two reasons. First, that we’re using guys like Ponson, and second that we’re considered the last line. Can’t make it in Texas? Well, you’re done then. That’s fairly annoying.
So anyway, Sir Sidney Ponson took the hill for the Rangers. Didn’t look too bad early on, actually. His pitches had a lot of movement on them, and actually looked decent. His line is actually pretty good too, so he’ll probably stay in rotation for awhile, now with Brandon McInjury going to be out for awhile. Ponson’s line was 5.1 innings, seven hits, one walk, and five runs, although only ONE was earned. Finished with an ERA of 1.69 for his work.
Yeah, four unearned runs. That’s thanks to more errors by the Rangers. In all we had THREE errors (plus a passed ball by Saltamacchia). One of the errors was by Ponson himself, the others by Ramon Vazquez, and one by Michael Young. The one by Vazquez was one I saw happen, and it was just “Come one dude, you can make THAT”. The fielding does seem extremely sloppy this season.
Of course when the team gives up sixteen hits and twelve runs, there’s not going to be much in the way of great pitching lines. In fact, only Franklyn German gave up a donut, and he went just 0.2 innings. Blech.
Offensively, we had twelve hits. All were singles except one double by Josh Hamilton, who seems to be going to left field an awful lot. David Murphy was 2-5 with three RBI’s, and is turning into quite a steal from Boston last year. Josh Hamilton was 3-4, and Ian Kinsler was 2-5. Not much power, and we did have a decent number of hits, and of course, we left a dozen men on base.
Ron Washington looked fairly blah in what little of the post game interview I saw. Looked pretty flat. Whether it’s a product of the team just being bad, or everyone (except me) seemingly calling for his head, I don’t know, but the team does seem fairly lifeless now.