Rangerfans.com

Short and sweet update.
Edinson Volquez looked like what he was touted to be when everyone was touting the “DVD” pitchers.
Frank Catalanotto shouldn’t have been pinch hit for, despite the righty/lefty thing. He deserved the shot at history.
Cat had a great night, and fueled our offense. Nice to see after the horrid start to the season he had.

This is the kind of game that Ron Washington has said he loves to see. Well pitched, close, and a more traditional kind of game than the slugfest, no pitching contests we seem to still get into way too much year after year.
It started with Vicente Padilla, who looked a lot like the 2006 version of himself, not the guy who has been wearing #44 most of the year in 2007. Padilla went 6, giving up no runs on just two hits. He walked two and struck out five. Only tossed ninety balls – probably could have gone more, not sure why he came out when he did. Wes Littleton followed, and wasn’t as good, going less than an inning (0.2), and giving up the two KC runs on a home run ball hit by John Buck, the KC catcher. Littleton was followed by Bill White, the surprising September callup, who made his major league debut this game, going 0.2 innings, striking out one, and giving up one hit. But no runs. A nice performance for Bill. Ranger pitching was closed down by Jamey Wright, and Joaquin Benoit, who got the save. Rather well pitched game in all. Nine innings, six hits, two runs, two walks, seven strikeouts. Nice combined line.
The Rangers didn’t have a lot of offense either, but got it when it counted. In all we had just six hits, and all were singles, except one. Catalanotto had one, Young had two, Wilkerson had one, and Blalock had two. Blalock had the only non single hit; a double.
As Wash likes, a nice low scoring game that the Rangers cam out on top of.

The game just ended. I’ll have more to say later. But since I was online, I thought I’d post a marker now. :)
Edit: Don’t have time to write today at work, again too busy.

I thought about using the Simpsons clip with Homer and “I’ve seen teams suck before..”, but I just used that a couple of weeks ago. But it was appropriate. The Rangers stunk up the joint pretty good, losing to Kansas City, 8-1.
Ugh. What is it with them? If they were good, it wouldn’t be so much of a puzzle, but they’re not. Gah!

A lot happened in this game, but if you’re a Rangers fan, the thing that was probably the coolest thing was the return of Hank Blalock. This was his first game action since going on the DL back in May. Was nice seeing the Hammer at the plate again. Especially with Mark Teixeira gone, I think this team needs a shot of “familiar” instead of seeing a parade of guys from AAA this year like we have. That’s usually good, but this fan was happy to see someone familiar instead of someone trying to make their mark, know what I mean?
Anyway, Hank went 2 for 4, but the second one was the memorable one. It was a grand slam in the 8th off of Scot Shields, a guy who usually torments us. Was quite nice to see that. In fact, all eight of our runs were off of the longball. Blalock’s grand slam was four, Ian Kinsler’s home run was two, and Brad Wilkerson’s home run was two more for a total of 8 runs. While one would like a more balanced attack, you can’t argue with the results; we won the game.
Kason Gabbard started the game for us, and didn’t pitch all that well. Went six innings, gave up 5 hits, which isn’t too bad, but also walked 5 (bad), and gave up 5 earned runs. I like the 5-5-5 deal from Domino’s Pizza, but definitely not from my starting pitchers. Wes Littleton came in, and was almost perfect in his two innings of work, only walking one batter, and nothing else. CJ Wilson gave up two earned runs in his relief appearance, and tried to give the game to Anaheim, but didn’t break. He earned the save, and we got the win.
Now we go home to play the Royals, a team we should utterly destroy, but never seem to be able to beat.

For some reason I always find it amusing when we win a game over an opponent by the same score they just beat us by the day before. I can’t explain that. :)
As this was September 1st, this means it’s time for callups. We brought up two guys, both of which would have likely been here anyway if it wasn’t for extenuating circumstances (injury, punishment). Neither is your classic “September callup”. These would be Hank Blalock, who was activated from the 60 day disabled list. He didn’t play in the game, but it was nice to see his name off the DL. Edinson Volquez was also brought up, and started the game.
Edinson had a few too many pitches (94 in 5 innings), but pitched well enough to get the win. In his five frames, Edinson gave up 7 hits, 2 walks, and three earned runs. Struck out four. Not dominating, but not really bad, either. I’m sure he’ll be in the mix for the starting rotation in 2008. Jamey Wright pitched well in relief. He’s been like Benoit in that regard. He’s pitched extremely well out of the pen, not so much as a starter. Wright went three scoreless innings and looked pretty decent. He gave way to Joaquin Benoit & CJ Wilson, who combined try to give the game to the Angels, but we hung on in the end.
One amusing note was Marlon Byrd. In one of the middle frames, a ball was popped up to him in center, and he completely lost it in the sun. When it finally came down, he had to twist out of the way to save himself from being bonked in the head. It was comical, but fortunately it didn’t cost any runs. Next time up though Byrd deposited a Dustin Moseley pitch into the bullpen, redeeming himself. That was the only home run the Rangers had this game. We did have three doubles (Byrd, Murphy, Wilkkkkkerson) and a triple (Kinsler). Byrd went 3-5, Kinsler was 2-3, and Salty was 2-4. A pretty nice offensive game.
Not a fan of our games on national TV, I much prefer our own guys. I wonder what Tom Grieve does on days like that? Play golf? :)
Michael Young Watch: 1-5. .304 average, 164 hits (36 to go in 26 games)