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Well, Vicente Padilla was not very good. Vladamir Guerrero was very good. That’s a really condensed version of the game results. I watched most of the game, but got too tired, and had to bail out – I was starting to fall asleep.
Thing is as I look at the box score in the morning, I didn’t realize just how ineffective our offense was. We had only four hits the whole game. We SHOULD have had one of those bizarre line scores where you had 6 or 7 runs and four hits. But we couldn’t follow through. Loaded the bases again and did nothing. Still have no hits with runners in scoring position, although we did get a sacrifice fly. Game 1’s loss didn’t bother me too much, since it was you know, “game one”. But this one was a bit worse.
Padilla was ineffective, although I really thought he was going to plunk Guerrero. Speaking of him, can we please WALK THE GUY? Why the heck are we pitching to him at all? He should be walked every single time he comes up to the plate. I mean why let him beat us over and over again anymore? Heck, even Buck Showalter walked Bonds with the bases loaded, I think we’re at that point with Vlad. Just walk him, no matter what. Box score said we did do that once, but he should have been walked EVERY time.
Ian Kinsler had another home run, and it was a no doubter, looked really great off the bat. As was said on TV last night, if he keeps doing that, I wonder how long he’ll stay down in the nine hole. He’s better “protection” for Teixeira than Sosa is at the moment. :)
Kenny Lofton continues to be what he was brought here for. He looked good to me, and he had a nice swing I thought on his double to right field.
Two more errors for the Rangers, that’s never good, and it’s worse when you consider we have four errors in two games. Blech.
My wife really liked the Red Angels alternate uniform. I’m a bit indifferent towards them.

Well, the Rangers opening day had a lot of themes from the past. One was that our pitching wasn’t up to the level that the opponent’s was. Another was a lot of wasted opportunities, both in the form of too many men left on base, and no hits with runners in scoring position. In fact, that’s the theme of this night. Twice we had two men on with nobody out and got nothing.
In fact, the only run we did get was a gift, as it came a couple of pitches after Anaheim catcher Mike Napoli dropped a foul ball, allowing Ian Kinsler to hit a home run. That was it. In fact, there was a very long stretch where we didn’t get any hits at all, something like 4 innings towards the end of the game.
Kenny Lofton was as advertised, walking to start the game, and immediately stealing second. That was his 600th steal of his career, and he added another one later on in the game. He is already everything you want in a leadoff hitter, and surprisingly, he got to lead off in three of his at bats, which is unusual in itself.
Gary Matthews was all over this game, making quite a few plays. He had six putouts in the outfield alone, and he also did commit an error out there, which led to a bases loaded opportunity for us, which we did not cash in on. He made a couple of great catches in the outfield – if it wasn’t for Gary, we probably would have more runs than we did.
Hank Blalock was our best offensive player, getting two of the only 5 hits overall we had. Tex & Lofton had singles, and there was the aforementioned home run by Kinsler to round it out. Not a lot of output – and we had John Lackey on the ropes early, we let him off the hook. He didn’t deserve that win, but then we didn’t step on his throat when he was down, either.
This was a surprisingly sloppy game, both sides committed two errors.
It was quite odd seeing Sammy Sosa in a Rangers uniform. I’d always seen that footage of him in a Rangers uni back in the 80’s in Fenway Park, but to see it now is quite bizarre, to tell you the truth.
A game we probably should have won. But still, it was nice to sit there on the couch with a few beers, scoring the game. Yeah, we lost, but I enjoyed watching the Rangers again.
I also just noticed I never did an update for the final spring training game two nights ago against the Brewers. At this point, I don’t think I’m going to bother. :)

Due to a lot of rain in the area today, the game that was to be played in Frisco tonight between the Rangers and the Brewers has been rained out. There will be no makeup game.

No word on the final 25 man day roster yet, as I understood things, it had to be submitted to the mlb offices some time today. Curious to see a list of all the official moves made. The Rangers announced they will announce the 25 man roster after Saturday night’s game.