- P Antonio Alfonseca activated from DL
- IF D’Angelo Jimenez designated for assignment [ Link ]
G57: Rangers beat Royals Tuesday, 6-2
First off, let me say it was nice to see the Rangers win in Kansas City. It seems to me that we’ve had this mental block there where we can’t win in recent years. Course this year with the Royals already 150 games back and 0-500 this season it seems, we had a shot. :)
Texas retains their hold on first place with a win in Kansas City. Kevin Millwood took the hill for Texas. On the road this year, he’s been the same pitcher he was last year, no walks at all (until tonight), and a bunch of strikeouts with an ERA under 3. At home he’s been well, not that pitcher. But on the road, he’s been great. Tonight he labored a lot. His overall line shows a quality start (7 innings pitched, 2 earned runs, 7 hits, 5 K, 1 BB), but he really labored. He had I think over 60 pitches (or clsoe to it) after 3, and from some of the camera shots they were showing of him in the dugout between innings, he seemed flushed, like the heat was a bother to him. Still, you can’t argue with the ultimate line, and that’s the mark of a good top of the rotation guy. Even when he’s not dominating, he finds a way to get the job done, and he did. A well deserved win, I thought.
Offensively, we got several more doubles (4, Young, Tex, Mench, & Laird) – we’re leading the AL in doubles as a team. Our home runs are down this year, but our doubles are way up. Speaking of home runs, we got a couple of those, too. One from Brad Wilkerson (filling the 666 nonsense we’re hearing about today – Uniform #6 got a HR out of the 6 hole on 6/6/06), and one from Ian Kinsler. Kinsler’s double was alomst another home run, so he had some nice power tonight, as well as three RBI’s. We had 11 hits in all, and they were nicely scattered – only Mark Teixeira didn’t get at least one hit.
As for Kansas City? Well, they still have a nice ballpark even if it’s been bombed with advertisements the last 5 years or so. It is still a park I want to travel to see. Oh yeah, the other memorable moment for Kansas City reliever Danny Bautista uncorked a wild pitch that bounced off the ground and ended up (according to Josh Lewin) about twenty rows into the stands. That reminds me of that old classic baseball clip you see in blooper reels of a Yankees pitcher (forget who now) who goes to pitch, and the ball goes flying way out of his hands straight up, and lands on that screen that is behind home plate in Yankee Stadium, and rolls back down towards the field of play. If you’ve watched enough blooper reels, you should know that pitch. It’s been that kind of year for the Royals when I remember that kind of thing for them in a game, and not anything “good”.
TR Sullivan’s Weekly Mailbag
If you’re reading my site, then I’m sure you know this already. Former Ft Worth Star Telegram reporter TR Sullivan is the beat writer now for texasrangers.com/mlb.com on the Rangers. Anyway, the weekly mailbag feature has been pretty much a useless one, as it used to be filled with questions like “When will the Rangers get some hitting?” and “When will Hicks spend some money?” – real hard hitting questions there.
Anyway, since TR took over the quality of the questions has gone up. I’ve read them all the time, but never said much about it. However, in the issue sent out this past Monday, TR used a question I sent. Here’s what I asked:
I have a question about tying the All Star Game to the World Series home-field advantage. When it was first implemented, there were quite a few statements made about it being a “two-year experiment”, and that the idea would have to be voted on again by the player’s union after those two seasons were up. I know we’re a year or two past that now, and haven’t seen any formal announcement of it being extended, how long, etc. What is the actual formal status of the “This one counts” All-Star Game stuff? Was it approved indefinitely? Is there a chance it will be revoked/changed/altered? I’d really like to find out this information.
TR replied with this:
The Players Association has approved of its use through the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, which runs through this year. It will likely be an issue — albeit a minor one — in the upcoming negotiations. The owners want it, but there are players who have been vocally opposed to it.
My response is good. I doubt it will much change, but I really would much rather home field be tied to something more concrete like which league has the better record in the regular season. Not the All Star game win. I understand the owners wanting the All Star game to count for something. I’m not against that, but I’m not for tying the World Series to that. Tie it to something else; although I don’t know what to tie it to at the moment.
What would you do?
G54, 55, 56: Rangers take two of three from White Sox
I got pretty sick on Friday evening, and it carried over through Saturday and into Sunday.
Because of that, I fell asleep watching Friday night’s game three seperate times, and Saturday night’s wasn’t much better. While I was conciuous I was dealing with some issues that decorum prohibits me from discussing here. Suffice it to say my mind wasn’t all there. I’ll look back at the games, and write something quick about them.
Friday: (W: 4-3) Kameron Loe & Jon Garland had similar lines, going 6 or so innings, giving up 3 earned runs (although Loe gave up twice as many hits (10-5) as Garland did). The bullpens were the story here. Chicago’s gave up one run, ours none. That was the difference. We had one home run (Wilkerson), and three doubles tonight (Tex, Young, & Matthews). Francisco Cordero picked up the win (his 5th), and I think puts him up there with our team leaders in wins. Otsuka got his 10th save. [ MLB.com Recap ]
Saturday: (L: 8-6) Vicente Padilla was pulled early in this game after throwing only 3.1IP. He gave up 7 hits and 7ER on 3BB and 4K. That was pretty much the game there. Chicago put up a rather ugly 7 spot in the fourth inning, and while we got a ltitle momentum back with a 3 spot in the top of the fifth, we couldn’t rally enough. We lost the game 8-6. Gary Matthews continued to be hot going 3 for 5 with 2 doubles, and a run scored. Blalock & Young were also 3-5. We had 13 hits overall, but it just wasn’t enough, we couldn’t overcome the pitching of Padilla tonight. [ MLB.com Recap ]
Sunday: (W: 10-2): This was the game I knew the least about actually. I was feeling better Sunday, so I did some errands. I did hear parts of the game as I was driving around town, but it’s hard to get a grasp when you hear half an inning here, a few batters there. Looking at the line, John Rheinecker pitched his second great start in a row, and is now 2-0 with us. Rhien went 8 innings, giving up just 2ER on 7 hits with no walks and four strikeouts. Another well pitched game from him; hopefully that can conitnue, as I can’t see us sending out someone who is pitching that well. We bombed Mark Buehrle to the tune of 6 earned runs over 7 innings pitched. Mark didn’t help himself with four walks, either. Jerry Hairston Jr got into the action, and did make an error in his first Ranger game. Hairston went 0-4, but did walk once and scored. Mark Teixeira was red hot this game, going 4-5 with two doubles. But as hot as he was, it didn’t compare to Gerald Laird. Laird was 4 for 5 also, but had two doubles AND two home runs with 4 RBI’s. A great day for Gerald – hopefully the tide starts to turn back to him, as I don’t think Barajas will be here next year. Time to give Gerald his job back that he lost due to injury. [ MLB.com Recap ]
Tomorrow night we go into Kansas City for game against the woeful Royals. I’m sure we’ll lose 2 out of 3, as we seem to have a mental block that disallows us from playing good there.
Jason Hart
- 1B Jason Hart acquired from Minnesota Twins via trade for PTBNL
G53: Rangers bombed by Mariners, 14-5
Mama said there’d be days like this.
There’d be days like this momma said.
OK, it’s game 53, and we haven’t had much in the way of total shellackings. There’s always a handful of those you have to suffer through in a season. Nothing much good generally comes out of them. This night was no better.
No one escaped. We sent four pitchers out there (Koronka, Benoit, Bauer, Wilson), and all four of them stunk up the joint, although Benoit the least of them. The combined line for the four pitchers was 9IP, 18 hits, 14 earned runs, 6 walks (although none by Koronka), and 6 strikeouts. Koronka gave up the lone home run allowed by Ranger pitching.
The only good bit was in the fifth inning when Gary Matthews Jr hit a grand slam, I believe our second in two days. I also seem to recall that we now hold the major league record for grand slams or something in 2006.
As ugly as this game was, we still took two out of three, and a series win is always good.
Nevin Traded
- DH Phil Nevin traded with $ to the Cubs for OF Jerry Hairston, Jr. [ Link ]
Phil Nevin traded to Cubs
Apparently Phil Nevin has been traded to the Cubs. No further details available. What little is known at the time I type this is available here on the Dallas Morning News site.
UPDATE: Phil has been traded to the Cubs with $ for Jerry Hairston Jr. There’s a brief story about it on the Rangers site here. There’s also a wire story about it here.
UPDATE #2: Here’s a Cubs fan take on the trade.
G52: Rangers survive 4 errors, win 6-4 on Tuesday
I didn’t see much of this game, as I had some household responsibilities tonight. I did see some of it, and from the Rangers point of view, I saw the most important inning, the third. I wasn’t happy at the top of the third when we were down 3-0, as Millwood seems to continue his streak of not pitching well in Arlington.
But then the bottom of the third Mike Young jacked a ball into the bullpen which put us within a run, we were down 3-2 at the time. Then Mark Teixeira singled. Hank Blalock followed up with another single, and then Mark DeRosa walked, loading the bases for Brad Wilkerson. Wilkerson hit what he says he thought was a sac fly to right, but it kept carrying and carrying and it cleared the wall for a grand slam. That put us up 6-2, and it felt good.
But then we tried to give it away from that point on. We had a total of four errors tonight. We hung on, and for the second night in a row, Carl Everett ended the game. Last night it was a fly to right, tonight it was a called strikeout that brought out just a tad of the Boston era Carl Everett. Course Raul Ibanez did his best Boston Everett impression in the first after being called out on a strike.
The Mariners seem again to be a “not much going on” team. They just look lethargic. If you want to see what Mariner fans are thinking, check out the USS Mariner site. They’re practically in complete revolt over there.
I don’t have much else to add to this, not having seen most of the game, but a win is a win. We’ve now won three in a row, and have a 28-24 record, and were technically 4.5 games up in the West at the end of the game. However, before we get all excited about that, it’s the worst record of a division leaader of the six divisions. A division lead is always a good thing, but when you’re the lowest seed in that department it doesn’t fare well for the playoffs, IMO. If you take the Rangers record and plop it into the other divisions, this is where they’d stand.
AL East:
Fourth place, behind Boston, New York, & Toronto, 2.5 games back
AL Central:
Third, behind the Tigers & White Sox, 6 games back
NL East:
Second, behind the Mets, 2.5 games back
NL Central:
Tied second with Reds, behind Cardinals, 5 games back
NL West:
Third, behind Diamondbacks & Dodgers, 2.5 games back
While it’s fun to say we’re in first place, it’s not the greatest first place. If we were 10 games over 500 or something I might be more excited about it. It’s a cautious excitement for now.
Also, congrats to Chris Young, who came close to a no hitter, taking it into 8 tonight against the Rockies.
Eric Nadel a Ranger For Life
Tuesday’s DMN is running an article saying that there will be contact extensions given to the broadcast team (although they don’t mention the Spanish radio guys in this).
According to the article, Victor Rojas, Tom Grieve, & Josh Lewin will receive either three or four year extensions, depending on who it is. Eric Nadel will also get a deal that will make him a “Ranger for Life”. What that technically means, I guess we’ll find out later today. But it’s nice to see this. These are all “extensions”, so I’m not sure exactly when all their contracts run out. Kind of amsuing this popped up, as I was wondering what the contact status of these guys was anyway earlier on Monday. Also in the article is the note that Josh Lewin will increase his workload from 130 to 155 games a year. Quite frankly, I think it should be 162, I never liked the sub. Again, I have nothing against Bill Land, but Land broadcasts don’t have the same pulse as a Lewin broadcast. TOm Grieve seems to be a mirror of who is with him. When Bill Jones was the other seat, the broadcasts weren’t as lively, either. Josh Lewin really brings out “TAG”. And that’s a good thing.
The article also mentions that Eric Nadel will now be doing games for over 30 years. It’s nice to have that kind of continuity in a broadcaster. I grew up in Philly, and Philly baseball means Harry Kalas. It also means Richie Ashburn, but he’s been gone awhile now. Actually, Richie Ashburn equates to Tom Grieve pretty well. The only difference between Ashburn and Grieve is that Ashburn was never the GM of the club. They both played and both broadcasted for quite awhile after playing. Ashburn & Kalas mean a lot to this kid growing up in Philly. It’s nice to have Eric Nadel around – I get the same feeling from him. Whenever you hear Eric Nadel talk about broadcasters (and in particular Mark Holtz), he always downplays himself. Sorry Eric – you don’t have 28 years with a team and not be good. If you were as bad as you seem to make yourself out to be in speeches, you wouldn’t have been here this long. Eric is the same treasure to my baseball ears that Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn were.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to point out one of the lesser known pages on my site. It’s the broadcaster history page, which shows all the TV and radio broadcasters going back to 1972. There’s some big names in there which some people might not be aware broadcasted Rangers games. I speak of Don Drysdale, Tom Vandergriff, & Jon Miller.
UPDATE @ 2PM: The Rangers site has the official announcement about these extensions up now. You can read it here.
This morning I emailed Victor Rojas to congratulate him on the extension, and he told me his contract now runs through the year 2010. That’s a piece of info I did not see in either story (he said it wasn’t a secret, so that’s why I said it here).
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