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The morning started off by reading a newspaper article in the Dallas Morning News about fans and how they feel about the Rangers. I was interviewed for this piece myself on Monday, and I ended up in there. Funny that the author quoted my remark about the Phillies losing 10,000 games as a franchise. :)

When I left Garland at around 9:30AM, it was pouring raining. I mean painfully raining. This was not good. I don’t like rainouts ever. I detest them on opening day. The weather forecast had rain on Tuesday & Wednesday, and into Thursday a bit, too. So I got to the ballpark, and ran into the first of the changes – the redone roads. I’m going to write a separate article on the external changes at the ballpark at some point in the next day or so, so I won’t get into it here, but it was confusing. I had to park way the heck out – in a place I have NEVER parked at in all the games I have ever gone to at the Ballpark in Arlington. That kind of bummed me out.

Fortunately though once I got past Dallas, the threat of rain seemed to go away, and I never saw any more the rest of the day (which was odd, as my wife said it poured REALLY hard several times back home in Garland).
I got into the park around 10:30 or so, and did my usual walk around the park. I watched some batting practice, and checked out new signage and things of that nature. I’m the only dork who comes to the park and spends as much time checking out signs and advertising as he does the batting practice. :) The usual things were there for opening day festivities. Some of them I really like that they’re always there – it just feels right. Then you sometimes get silly things happening. Like this:

One really bizarre thing I noticed. All the gift shop cash register computer systems were down. For the first time in ages, I never went to the big one in center field, but I checked out the small one behind home plate, as wel as the kiosks in the 200 level, and finally the one up top behind Section 325. Their registers were all down. Or the computers weren’t working right or something. That was major failure that you couldn’t buy merchandise on the Home opener. But even that kind of annoyance didn’t bother me. I was back and seeing this in person:

The time rolled around to the start of the pre-game festivities, which are always great. So I made it back to my seat (shown in a semi panoramic shot above). The only pre-game festivities I like better are the July 4th ones. Chuck Morgan always does a bang-up job with both of these, and 2008 was no different.

They carried out a giant flag, Rangers alumni were introduced (including Inky!), the Orioles players were introduced, then finally, the Rangers were introduced. What I found amusing is that of the coaching and staff that were announced on the field, the Japanese interpreter got the loudest applause and ovation. Coaches generally get polite applause (except for Rudy), but the Japanese interpreter seemed to get the loudest applause at that point. Made me chuckle. After the Rangers players were all introduced (I love that bit), the giant flag in center field was unfurled. This was a pretty darned huge flag. They were always big, but in the past they were smaller than this. This one was bloody’ gigantic!

Another tradition is the flying in of the bald eagle from center field, around the park, and onto his trainer’s hand on the pitching mound. I don’t know why I like seeing that, but it’s something else like Cotton Eyed Joe in the 7th inning stretch that is always there, and that’s comforting. Like we are “back”. :) Speaking of that, there’s the ubiquitous B1 bomber flyover.

And finally there was the first pitch ceremony. This year the pitch was thrown by Eric Nadel, who is celebrating his 30th year of broadcasting Rangers baseball. He was escorted to the mound (why? Do people get lost going there?) by Nolan Ryan, and the ball was caught by Jim Sundberg.

So finally, we get to the first pitch, and the actual baseball part of the day happens.

That’s where the fun ended, really. Local boy Jason Jennings took the hill for the Rangers, and almost immediately killed all the fun from the game. He walked the bases loaded in the first inning, but managed to escape damage in that frame. Sitting there in the stands watching him, it was obvious he wasn’t going to have any sort of control. I’ve seen games where pitchers come back after that and the light goes on. This wasn’t going to be the case today. Jennings went four innings in all, giving up seven hits and four walks, allowing four runs as well. It should have been a lot worse, IMO.

He was followed by Jamey Wright who was pretty good in his time on the hill. Went 1.1 innings, and did give up two runs, but both were unearned due to a fielding error by Ian Kinsler. That error was the subject that caused me to turn off the KRLD post game call in show, because we had another mental zero call in and call Ian Kinsler “the worst fielding shortstop in the history of the Texas Rangers”. Oh Good Lord, it’s dumbasses like that who make me want to throw my radio out the window. SHUT UP! Anyway, the error led to the two unearned runs, putting the Orioles up 6-0 at that point. Jamey Wright did manage to pick off a runner, after throwing over there about 4 times. If you get picked off after the pitcher throws over there multiple times, then you deserve to be out.

The Rangers almost got a run in the second when Milton Bradley broke for home from third on a wild pitch. Problem the pitch wasn’t that wild and Bradley was thrown out trying to score. It ended up looking like this:

Our offense was rather frustrating, to be honest, as we had the bases loaded at least once, had men on base in every inning that I can recall except the first and ninth. We finally managed to get one across in the seventh on an Ian Kinsler single. Singles were the order of the day. Except for Gerald Laird’s double, everything we hit was a single. This was also our first game of the season without a home run. I don’t know if we would have scored enough to overcome the eight we gave up, but we probably should have had more than one run. Speaking of home runs, I kept hoping that this guy would jack one. He didn’t.

Marlon Byrd continues his crapfest that passes for his at bats in 2008, now at something like 0-17 I think to start the season. Big fat donut.

We lost, obviously, and it just felt weak. The Rangers have been playing better than that the last week, this didn’t feel like the same team.

The place cleared out pretty well once the Rangers started falling behind, but I think they were all sitting out on the streets. It took me almost an HOUR to get to 360 and actually get onto the highway from the Ballpark. That was nuts.
Speaking of delays.. Did anyone else in the park notice that the much hated delay was back? And it wasn’t just back a little, it was back A LOT! This makes listening to the game live in the stadium useless, as there’s a 10-12 second delay. When that first started, it got reduced to two seconds, and then removed totally. But it’s back again at the start of 2008. I’m HOPING that was an oversight, and it’s not the new norm. That would be zero fun for those of us who listen to the game at the park.

I normally don’t get on 360 going home, but there was an Ice cream store I wanted to visit. My wife grew up in Pittsburgh, and if you’re from that area, you know Brusters. When they opened one in Arlington last year, my wife said that we had to go. However, Brusters is 47.2 miles from my house in Garland, and with gas prices now, that kind of killed an ice cream trip. Since I was mostly there already, I went. Folks, the ice cream is awesome! It’s a tad on the expensive side, but holy crap was it worth it. Great ice cream. This is on 6301 South Cooper Road in Arlington. (UPDATE Dec 2019: They’re not there anymore).

Finally, I picked up my daughter’s Junior Rangers package. My little girl will be three in a week or so, and I’ve had her as a Jr Ranger now for three years. :) She’s been too small for the stuff they give out until now, so today I came home from the Ballpark with “treats” for her. There was a backpack, a picture of Rangers Captain (which she LOVED holding and showing Mommy & Daddy), a baseball cap, and a couple of wristbands. There’s also a coupon book which has vouchers for free kids tickets and a free gift for the kids once a month. It’s usually something like a poster, or a ticket to Six Flags, but sometimes you get really cool stuff like a bobblehead or a baseball.

One hidden cool thing in the kids pack is that you get a free kid’s ticket for select games each month, but in addition to that, you can also buy adult tickets at the same time for $6 each. It’s kind of like a cheap mini plan, because you can buy the $6 adult seat, and get the free kids ticket, and you have two seats for $6. I suppose you could buy the pack without a kid, and just make the $15 back for the package pretty quickly doing that. :)

Anyway, my daughter loved the stuff from the Rangers, so unless it’s a poster (which she wouldn’t be into yet), and it’s like a hat or a ball or something, I’ll be giving the things to her this year. I have to say I absolutely loved my little girl tonight telling me “Thank you Daddy for the presents from Rangers Captain!”. We told her they came from Rangers Captain (as it is the Jr Rangers club, and they have Captain all over the advertising for it). Here’s my last picture in this report. My just about three year old wearing the cap and the wristbands (which she did NOT want to take off AT ALL) doing that “kid smile”.

 

I’m really tired, and I wanted to catch up with the weekend’s games before the home opener tomorrow.
So I’ll take the cheap way out on this one. It was all Gerald Laird. 4-5 with 3 runs scored, SIX RBI’s, and three runs scored.
A heck of a day for anyone.
We come back home at 3-3, which again is more than what most people thought we would be at this point, so that’s a good thing.

Kevin Millwood is finally pitching like the guy we signed him to a couple of years ago. He’s pitched 14 innings over his two starts and has an ERA of 1.29. Fantastic numbers. Unfortunately, his W-L record is 0-2. He really looked good out there, had some nasty curveballs I can’t recall seeing before – looked almost like Zito in his prime curveballs. This is a very good thing. Kevin did have too many hits (12) for the innings he pitched (8). He did a great job.
However, Jeff Weaver was much better. Seven innings, three hits, and zero runs. In fact the 1 the Rangers got was a solo shot by David Murphy.
There’s not much else to say about this one other than it was a good old fashioned pitcher’s duel. Don’t get many of them anymore. As such, I’m not writing about the offense in this one.
Was a nice one to see if you like pitching.

11-6 doesn’t seem like a blowout, but until the 9th inning, it was 11-0, which most definitely qualifies as a blowout.
This game was started by Kason Gabbard, who arrived in Texas as a promising young pitcher, but has taken over the mantle of “highly erratic, fairly fragile”. On top of all that, his spring training ERA was 10.80. Not something that a pitching weak franchise really needs. Still, it was uniform number 13 out there on the hill for the Rangers this night, and he pitched like he was wearing #34 instead. OK, maybe not that great, but he was a major surprise. Gabbard’s line was 7 innings pitched, ZERO runs allowed on seven hits, two walks, and four k’s. OK, the Ryan comparison was silly, but it was a way better pitched game than I think any Rangers fan was expecting.
He was backed up by a lot of offense. Five doubles, a triple, and one home run. However, the home run was not your garden variety one – it was a grand slam by Ben Broussard. Josh Hamilton was 2-5 with 3 RBI’s, Ian Kinsler was 3-5 with 2 RBI’s and two runs scored, David Murphy was 2-4, heck Ramon Vazquez was 2-3 with a run scored. Was a nice night, and the grand slam certainly capped the offense.
It was a snoozer until the ninth inning. Up 11-0 going into the last half frame of the game, Dustin Nippert made his Rangers debut, and it was a big ol’ pile of stink. Let’s put it this way, when your ERA after your first appearance is 81.00, there’s no way to clean that up. It sucked. Hard.
It’s why I called an 11-6 game a blowout, as it really wasn’t “The Rangers” that gave up 6, it was Dustin Nippert. :)
Still, a win is a win. That’s good.

There were five runs scored this game. All of them were a direct result of the longball.
1) Jose Vidro’s solo shot on the second inning off Jason Jennings.
2) Jose Lopez’ three run shot in the fifth off of Jason Jennings.
3) Ben Broussard’s solo shot in the sixth off of Carlos Silva.
That was the major offense. The Rangers were kept pretty darned quiet. Other than that home run, we had merely just two hits. Those were both doubles. One by Milton Bradley and the other by Ian Kinsler. It was definitely a night where we had nothing going.
Thing is, Jason Jennings wasn’t all that bad, either. The two home runs were about the worst thing he did. Five innings, five hits, two walks, and four earned runs. Take away the longballs, and he did what Padilla did. Pitch “meh”, but with enough to get out of jams.
Jamey Wright followed Jason with three scoreless innings. Did his job. But unfortunately we couldn’t get anything going all night, and that was pretty much it for this one.

Well, tonight was a game that I was hoping would be against the Angels, actually. Vicente Padilla and the Angels is always something fun to watch. We didn’t get that. We got the Mariners. And we got Felix Hernandez, who always bothers me because “King Felix” is like fingernails on a chalkboard. Not because of his pitching – he’s a great young pitcher. But the ego and arrogance of the nickname. Oh well.

Last night we made Erik Bedard work. This night we made Felix Hernandez field. He fielded his position a few times tonight, and made plays that were seriously close – the point where you’d think both went the wrong way without 15 different angles on the replay. In all, Hernandez had a great game. Seven innings, five hits, three walks, and only one run allowed – even it was unearned.

Vicente Padilla also only allowed one run, although he allowed a bit too many other things. Like eight hits and three walks in six innings. However, it was just one run allowed (this one was earned).

The thing is, one word that could describe this game was sloppy. The Rangers had three errors, and the Mariners had two. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your point of view), both teams managed to escape real damage. The Rangers loaded the bases twice in the middle innings – nothing. In all, the Rangers left 10 men on base, and the Mariners left 15 – Good Lord, that’s a lot of wasted opportunities!

The game certainly had a roller coaster feel to it. From the wasted opportunities, to the feeling of winning in the top of the 8th, to the “Oh crap” feeling in the bottom of the 8th to back on top again in the 9th. To top it off, you had a bit of queasiness in the bottom of the ninth feeling they were going to let it get away. Fortunately, we ended up on top of the roller coaster, and that was because of Josh Hamilton.

Yeah, that’s a not relevant picture, but it is a funny one, so I wanted to use it. Josh made two really great plays in the outfield. The Willie Mays style catch and crash into the wall one, plus one where he ran a really huge distance across the outfield to catch a ball were both really awesome to watch. On top of that, he hit a game winning two run home run in the top of the ninth off of JJ Putz to give us the win. Was a great night for Josh Hamilton, and a nice win for the Rangers. As was said on TV, you don’t want to start the season, or leave your first stop on a trip with an ofer. Ugh.

A few pitching comments: We had another wild pitch leading to a run. That’s not good to see ever, and especially two days in a row. Padilla allowed a lot of baserunners, but was able to get out of it when he needed to. That was nice to see.

Just for the heck of it… Richie Sexson looks bad. USSMariner thinks so, too. ;)

Kevin Millwood’s good news from the 2008 opener is that his ERA is zero. The bad news is that he’s also 0-1.

The start time for this game was rather odd. 5:40PM Central time is hard for me, as I get off of work at 6PM, and as such it was difficult to avoid the score. Oh, I know where to avoid, but the temptation to check it out as it’s happening was rough. So I got home, and ate dinner, played with my little girl a bit in the back yard, and then settled in to watch the game after it had technically ended. Dinner tonight was hot dogs, too, so I was ready to go.

I started watching the game with a Stella Artois and my Palm so I can score the game in hand. Like most Rangers fans I was quite excited seven pitches into the season when Michael Young deposited a Erik Bedard pitch over both Brad Wilkerson and the WaMu logos for a one run lead in the top of the first. When you’re emotionally invested into a team like that, a home run seven pitches into the season brings up visions of 100 win seasons, playoff wins, etc, etc, etc. I was jazzed at that point. The other cool thing is that Bedard was NOT as advertised. He went to full counts on a ton of Ranger hitters, and was out of the game in the fifth due to a rather high pitch count. He still only gave up one run, so it’s not like he was terrible, but wow did he have to work for what he got in this one.

Kevin Millwood was pitching like he was the #1 starter. Kevin’s was let down by some defensive issues in the field in the sixth. Michael Young couldn’t handle a hot smash from Ichiro for an error, which led to the two unearned runs Kevin gave up in the sixth. He did look really good. Josh & Tom spent a lot of time talking about how he looks better, new conditioning and all that, and it did look good. When he got into some minor trouble, he was able to pitch his way out. He wasn’t being helped by the home plate umpire who seemed to be squeezing him at points.

One moment that made me chuckle was the argument that ensued between home plate umpire Jim Joyce and Ron Washington over Milton Bradley. Bradley was hit in the foot by a pitch, and went to first, but Joyce didn’t see it, and ruled he wasn’t hit. So he came back after some mild discussion with Washington, and then the next pitch was a ball, he threw his bat away (a bit hard, IMO) and went to first. Bradley never said a word to the umpire, and just went to first. Ron Washington came out and said a few things, and apparently someone from the Rangers dugout did too, as there was a very clear camera shot of Joyce bitching at someone. What’s funny about that is Bradley has a reputation (as Carl Everett did when he came here) of arguments with umpires. His first game as a Ranger, and there’s confrontation. It just amused me.

Anyway, the game went on with the Rangers leading 1-0 for awhile. After the aforementioned error led to us being down 2-1, Millwood was pulled after six innings, and Kaz Fukumori made his Rangers debut. His spring ERA of zero must have been in play, as his outing today more than made up for it. Only one third of an inning pitched, and in that time, he gave up two hits, two walks, three earned runs, and to top it off, had two wild pitches – one directly leading to a run. A rather ghastly debut, leaving his ERA at 81.00. At least it wasn’t as bad as Tom Gordon for the Phillies yesterday, whose ERA is 135 after his 0.1 innings on the mound.

Fukumori was followed up by Franklyn German, who did keep his spring performance intact, by going 1.2 innings, and not giving up any more runs. German looked good.

Offensively we were quite literally led by Michael Young. He had the home run in the first, but also went 3-5 for the game, now batting .600 after the first game. Hits were at a premium despite Bedard’s struggles. In all the Rangers had seven hits, Michael Young having three of them. David Murphy had two, and the other two were Josh Hamilton and Ian Kinsler. All were singles except the home run. The best thing though was the way the players worked the count at the plate. Something we’re not used to seeing from the boys in Arlington – and I don’t mean the team that will be in Jerryland. I mean the real boys from Arlington – the Texas Rangers.

Gerald Laird threw out two baserunners in the game; that was always exciting to see.
Nobody likes to be 0-1 after the first game, but the euphoria you get from the start of Game 1 was certainly diminished. I don’t feel really beat down, but I was definitely LET down. Doesn’t get any better tonight as we face Felix Hernandez.

That’s always an embarrassing headline to write. In theory, one should never lose to one’s own minor league team. Still, that’s what our Rangers did. Yeah, it’s the last game, yeah it doesn’t even count in the SPRING standings. But still, you don’t want to lose that for pride. But my guess is nobody will talk about it, since all the movement now is towards tomorrow in Seattle when the season opens for real.
Kason Gabbard had a real Chan Ho Park moment in this game. He started off with four perfect innings. Then he totally lost it, and gave up four runs in the fifth inning, then returned to pitch a scoreless sixth. When you five four perfect in a row, then just give it up like that, it just screams “MENTAL LAPSE” to me. Still, five out of six innings pitched with no runs is very encouraging. Kea Kometani & Bill White gave up the other three runs.
The Rangers offense was pretty non existent. Makes you wonder how hard they really tried against their AA team; perhaps they didn’t want to show them up? Who knows. Ian Kinsler (homer), Marlon Byrd (single), and Michael Young (single) were the only “regular” Rangers with hits. We had seven hits in all, but the other four were from subs (Jason Ellison, Casey Benjamin, Adam Melhuse, Joaquin Arias).
So that’s it. Another spring comes to a close. Our final spring training record was 17-11-2. A pretty decent spring, and we have several batters on tears, and our bullpen is looking pretty good. Starting pitching is a question mark, but when is it not, really?
Unless your name is Randy Galloway, you’ve got to have a decent feeling going into the 2008 season.