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Another box score only game. No radio coverage with the Rangers, or with the opponent via MLB’s Gameday Audio. So much so that the Official Rangers site had a “Live box score” link on their site; that was the only way to “watch” the game.
Anyway, early on, it seemed like a rout after yesterday’s rout the other way. It was 9-1 after four innings. The big inning was of course the third where we put up a six spot. There were two home runs that inning, one from Gerald Laird, and Sammy Sosa’s second of the spring. This was all off Arizona starter Livan Hernandez, who also gave up a couple of doubles to Mark Teixeira & Kenny Lofton in his 3.1 innings of work. In all, Hernandez was on the hook for 10 hits, and all 9 Ranger runs (7 earned). The remainder of the Arizona bullpen kept the Rangers off the board in the 4.2 innings they pitched.
That’s significant, because the Rangers had one of their classic bullpen meltdowns late. The score was still 9-1 after six innings. Feeling good. Then after seven, they were up 9-5. OK, a four spot isn’t good, but we still have a comfortable lead. OK, after 8 it was 9-6. A tad concerned, but still not really worried. Then in the ninth it jumped to 9-8 – OH CRAP! While spring training games don’t give you a complete breakdown of what happened in what order, I can’t imagine that was fun to watch. I know a win is a win, and there’s all the platitudes of “these guys aren’t going to be with the club come April” (Cruceta, Vargas, Wood), and all that… But it seems a heck of a lot worse looking when watching it only on a linescore refresh on a website.
This isn’t helped by what I feel is way too many errors in the spring. Of the six official games we’ve played, only one was error free, and that was the 5-0 shutout of the Royals a couple of days ago. We’ve had a total of 8 errors so far in six games. When you have more errors than games played, things aren’t good. Yeah, yeah – it’s only game six, but I think you get my point.
G1: 2
G2: 1
G3: 0
G4: 1
G5: 2
G6: 2
On the positive side, John Koronka gave up nothing in his three innings of work. Kameron Loe gave up an unearned run in his three innings of work on 3 hits. Not bad for either of those guys. The wheels came off after that, but it was nice to see some zeros up there from guys who have a realistic shot of breaking camp with us.

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I actually got a chance to listen to this game on the radio. It was at work, and I saw that the Mariners radio coverage had this game on, and I was able to listen to it through my subscription to MLB Gameday Audio, so that was cool. The Mariners broadcasters were much better than some of the other “away” guys I’ve listened to – sometimes even though I can listen to a game in spring training, I don’t want to, because the announcers are horrendous!
Anyway, for most of this game, I was thinking that I was going to write a short piece on how much the Rangers hitters got donut. For the longest time, we had just one hit, and it took awhile to get that one. We went down 4-0 in the seventh, but managed to make a game out of it in the seventh, putting up a 3 spot. But it went downhill in the 9th, when we gave up a really ugly 6 spot, which was helped along by an error by Drew Meyer.
Our first blowout of the spring. Even though we were close in the 7th, it never felt like a game we should win from the start. This was the first win of the spring for the Mariners too – which is why the USS Mariner website was happy about it. :)

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This was the first game of the spring on TV, but it wasn’t quite the same. First off, the game was at 2PM, which meant that I wouldn’t be able to watch it. Second, it was the Rockies feed. For a TV starved baseball fan, it’s not bad, but it’s not “our guys”. In fact, when I got home from work, I tuned in the first inning or so, but stopped watching – I already knew what happened.
What did happen was a nice performance by Robinson Tejeda (who the Rockies’ announcers kept calling him Tejada, as in Miguel). Robinson went two innings (which seems to be the limit for any pitcher these first half dozen games or so), and gave up just two hits and no runs. From what I saw on TV, he looked sharp, although the Rockies coverage kept cutting to interviews with their players (not surprising). We again got good pitching from the rest of our staff used today. In fact, the two runs that Colorado got were unearned (off of Frankie Francisco). Frankie gave up a hit and two walks in his lone frame of work. Nobody else gave up any runs, which is encouraging. Our pitchers used Monday were Tejada, Josh Rupe, Francisco, Joaquin Benoit, Wes Littleton, AJ Murray, & Steven Rice. All zeroes (except Francisco).
Offensively, we scored our runs in three innings (third, fourth, seventh). Jerry Hairston & Ian Kinsler led the way, both going 2 for 3 and an RBI. The offensive theme of doubles that existed in 2006 was evident in this game too, as Brad Wilkerson, Ian Kinsler, & even Desi Relaford got one. Jason Botts cracked a triple, and Miguel Ojeda (our likely backup catcher in 07) hit one over the fence, too. Kinsler however, had five RBI for the day, which was the most of anyone.
I scanned through the game and saw some of this via the Colorado coverage. It’d be nice to see our TV guys sooner in the spring than later.

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Game 3 of the spring was one I didn’t get to listen to at all. I was tied up almost all afternoon with church duties, which is good. I love the Lord and am happy to serve, but it does sometimes push other things aside, which for today was the Rangers game. Didn’t hear any of it. So we’re onto another recap based on reading a box score after the fact. :)
The biggest story (for me, not for national writers) was how well the Rangers pitching was. Obviously a shutout is always good, but looking down the respective stats in the box score, we gave up only three hits and walked just two. That’s five baserunners for Kansas City for the entire game. Quite an accomplishment.
Brandon McCarthy was by all accounts the pitcher we thought he’d be when we sent away John Danks. He’s gonna have to be for some of the Ranger fans to accept that trade going forward. In fact, if you go just by line scores, McCarthy, Scott Feldman, & Franklyn German all had the same line. Two innings pitched, one hit, no runs. However, something’s not right there, as the Ranger box score for pitching only shows seven innings pitched, that’s not right. Two innings are missing from the box score. :) Edit: Oh wait, in looking at another box score, it appears Bruce Chen also pitched, and he was better, going two innings, giving up no hits. :)
Offensively, the big headline was that Sammy Sosa got his first home run of the spring. Several wire stories were glad to point out that it was his first home run since August 4, 2005 when he was with Baltimore. That was Sammy’s only hit of the day, but it got more attention than the other numbers for our team (Marlon Byrd 2-3, Joaquin Arias 2-2, Nate Gold 2-4, Ian Kinsler 1-1 with HR, 2 RBI). If Sosa makes the team (which my gut feeling is he will unless he totally tanks in March), then we’ll be hearing a lot about Sosa’s 1-5 instead of someone going 3-4 with 5 RBI’s.
But I will look at this as a very well pitched game, not one about Sosa’s home run. Makes me feel good about taking Brandon McCarthy on the two fantasy drafts I’ve participated in so far. :)

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Game 2 of the spring was another one that I wasn’t able to pay close attention to. If only there was TiVo for radio. :) Saturday was watch the baby day (who is a toddler now), so I couldn’t really pay attention. I did have the game on the radio, but didn’t pay much attention to it, because one is always watching the toddler run around the house. One funny thing about that, I don’t think she understood that I had a radio on, because she would hear Eric & Vic talk, but it wasn’t in a place where either of our usual stereos at home is, so she’s not used to voices coming from the kitchen table like that. She would walk over there a few times, give the radio a funny look, and then walk away. :)
After checking out the recaps and box scores online, it appeared to be a rather back and forth kind of game. I’ve seen worse than this in terms of lead changes, but it was a game that both teams lost the lead. Rangers starter Vicente Padilla was decent in his two innings. Just gave up two hits and one run – a solo home run to Mark Teahen. Oddly enough, of the six other pitchers the Rangers used, the one with the worst line was Rick Bauer, who gave up four hits and two earned runs in his one inning. Bauer was the winning pitcher, too! Line scores don’t show you how well the pitchers pitched in terms of crispness, but nobody had a really bad line score at all – even Bauer. In total, Rangers pitching gave up 13 hits and 5 runs. More hits than you’d want to see, but with that many, you’d’ expect more than 5 runs given up, so that wasn’t bad. Ian Kinsler also committed an error in the field.
It’s hard to put together a name who “leads the offense” during spring training – especially early on. That’s because people don’t stay in the game long enough generally to get 4-5 at bats to have a 4-5 day or so. Still, having said that, the closest would be Hank Blalock who went 2 for 3 with an RBI. The remaining 10 hits were scattered, not a player had more than one except Blalock. There were several doubles in this game (Hairston, Kinsler, Botts, & Lofton). The Rangers didn’t hit any home runs, and we were one for two (Wilkerson was successful, Arias was not) in stolen base attempts. Kind of interesting that we see stolen base attempts in the stats, didn’t see much of that at all with Showalter. Oh yeah, and Sammy Sosa got a single in his first at bat which was played via local TV on recaps. Have to show that, eh? :)
From what little I did hear on the radio, it was nice to have Eric & Victor back. I’ll be glad when they’re on every day in April. :)

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The first official spring training game was against, who else. The Kansas City Royals. We have traditionally opened against them several times in a row since we’ve moved spring operations to Surprise, AZ. So the next couple of reports will probably have the same names in it. But that’s the most exciting part about doing a recap for Friday’s game. It’s all we get. I enter the 9th season doing this website, and the one thing I’ve said many times in the past is I hate these games where all we get are the recap sheets. Can’t hear ’em can’t see ’em. Now that I’ve got my regular annual gripe about that out of the way…
I’m thoroughly embarrassed I missed all this earlier. I do websites for a side business, and was dealing with some server issues relating to one of them, and the fact we were starting games completely slipped my mind. Not that it would have made much difference due to it being a “box score only” game, but still – I should have said something. :)
The “A” game was a loss to the Royals by the score of 8-6. This game can be summed up in a couple of words – “John Koronka got bombed”. In a performance worthy of Chan Ho Park or Mark Clark, John gave up a six spot in the fourth inning (after pitching a shutout third). That was essentially the game there from the Royals offensive standpoint. In fact, Alex Gonzalez for the Royals was the only guy to get more than a lone hit (two). The only other Ranger pitcher to give up a run was Wes Littleton (1). Willie Eyre also gave up one, but it was unearned. Kameron Loe, Edinson Volquez, & Jack Benoit all pitched shutout ball. Take out Koronka, and it was a decently pitched game.
Offensively, we had the same thing as KC did. Of our 10 hits, only one player had two (Catalanotto, two doubles), the rest were scattered. However, two of those were home runs, by Guillermo Quiroz & Victor Diaz.
Fresh off his contract, Mike Young committed one of the two errors the Rangers made this game (yeah, yeah – I know. But I still got a chuckle out of it).
There was also a B game earlier in the morning where Kevin Millwood made his spring debut, as did Sammy Sosa. You never get box scores for B games, so I can’t find Millwood’s line. Although of course, the press reported that Sammy Sosa went 0-3 with a walk and a couple of strikeouts. Couldn’t pass up that info, eh? :)
Still, it’s nice to get the juices flowing again – nice to be writing again.
Couldn’t find a combined box score/recap at MLB’s site, the line/box score is below. I’ll only do that for games that I can’t find a combined recap/box score link at mlb.com for during spring training.

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