Mark Teixeira had a home run, his 29th of the season. So did Hank Blalock. So did Alfonso Soriano. So did Mark DeRosa for cryin out loud! All five of our runs came on the longball. Was a power night, although with a power night sometimes comes not much else. Which is the case, because outside of the home runs, we had just three other hits in the entire game. Most of this off of Bruce Chen, a journeyman who seems to have found some consistency with Baltimore, not unlike John Wasdin with us.
But that’s not really the story of the game. Why did we lose this one? Oh yeah, C.J. Wilson really stunk up the joint. I mean, we’ve had some bad pitching this year, but wow, that was a steaming pile of… well, you know. His line was 2.2 innings pitched, 9 hits, 8 earned runs, two walks, no strikeouts. That’s just positively atrocious. James Baldwin also gave up two runs, but over 4 plus innings, which isn’t too awful. However, the surprise of the night was Steve Karsay, who went two innings, giving up nothing in his Ranger debut. That’s something we need to see more of out of the pen.
We also put Mark Holtz & John Wetteland into the Rangers HOF this night. As per usual, local TV coverage totally botched it and didn’t show us the ceremony. We saw pieces of it, but they cut away in the middle of people talking. Once again, local TV management needs to be shot, as I don’t need to hear how Ford is the Best in Texas, and I don’t need to hear how Dodge things I should be grabbing life by the horns. I should be watching the pre-game ceremony, you twits!
You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.
Devil Rays series
I’m busy trying to wrap up a project today at work for the weekend, so I likely won’t have time to update for the last two games in the Devil Rays series.
Was nice to see us find the can of whoopass and unleash it last night against the Rays. Too bad we couldn’t actually do that regularly, we might have a shot at making a run at it, but this team is just too inconsistant for that.
Good to see Phil Nevin get in the groove last night going 3 for 4, scoring four times. He had a homer, a double, and a single. Good night for him. Hopefully the first couple of games were just jitters.
Baltimore comes in this weekend, minus Rafael “Giambi” Palmeiro. I’m also really annoyed that the Oates ceremony isn’t on TV before the game (if you get the Newberg Report, I was the the reader he was talking about who told him it won’t be on TV). Thanks Fox. By picking this game for national, we lose not only our own coverage guys, but we don’t get the pre-game ceremony. That’s doubly annoying as I can’t go – even though I have a ticket, so I was hoping to see it.
Steve Karsay up from AA, Ron Mahay DFA’ed
In a move that strikes me as a desperation move than anything else, Steve Karsay was purchased from AA Frisco today (did he bring anything from Ikea?
Mahay hasn’t been pitching well this year, so I suppose it’s probably good in that regard, but Karsay isn’t exactly lighting the world on fire for me – I suppose he’s up for the “veteran leadership” thing we always hear about guys who have been around for awhile, but I feel it’s more the “fresh arm” reason.
It’s not quite a “yawn” move, but it doesn’t strike me as anything that’s gonna strike fear in the hearts of any of our opponents.
G106: Rangers lose again to Devil Rays 8-5
I didn’t have any time to write an update on this today, but even if I did, there wasn’t much good to talk about. Blech.
Roster Transaction
- P Ron Mahay designated for assignment
- P Steve Karsay purchased from AA [
link ]
More on Raffy
There’s a story that was posted late last night about Raffy’s steroid case. From the article..
Rafael Palmeiro’s positive steroid test was for stanozolol, a powerful anabolic steroid that is not available in dietary supplements, according to a newspaper report.
If that’s true, then it seems to appear that he did lie about this, but it also says that the testing was done AFTER his grand jury case, so there’s probably no Congressional perjury issue anymore. But wow, does this look bad. If you look at my Raffy posts for the last few days, I sort of defended him, but if this is true, I fail to see how the “never intentionally took” claim can fly, assuming it is this Stanozolol.
Sigh.
G105: Rangers lose slugfest to the Devil Rays 10-8
Uh, hello? Do we have any pitching? I didn’t think we’d fall apart this badly with Kenny out on suspension. Wow.
Chris Young seems to have hit a wall, and that’s bad since there’s two months left in the season. He went and gave up 7 earned runs on 8 hits (with one BB and 1 HR) in his 3.1 Innings pitched. He also had 82 pitches over this time frame. That’s the mark of a really struggling pitcher. James Baldwin wasn’t much better, giving up 2 ER on his 2.2IP. Brocail, Gryboski, & Loe weren’t bad, but the first two did a bunch of damage.
Offensively, we tried to stay in the game. Was one of those “no pitching, score a bunch of runs back and forth” games. We pulled to within 9-8 after 6 innings, but that was it for scoring save for a lone run the Rays got in the top of the 9th. Carl Crawford was the start of this game – man can this guy fly. Was nuts watching him get triples to the left field corner.
Also, I see where there was a fireworks problem at the ballpark – a minor fire issue on the roof, and the Kids park in center field was evacuated. I wonder if that’s what those two sets of fireworks that went off in center field was about during the game last night. When they showed the smoke, it seemed like a different kind of smoke than we normally see for fireworks (meaning the smoke is normally up in the air, not right off the roof like that shot was on TV).
You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.
Rangers extend radio deal with KRLD
In an article in today’s Ft Worth Star, Kathleen O Brien reports that KRLD and the Rangers will announce a 5 year extension of the deal that permits KRLD to broadcast Rangers games. While I don’t have a problem with their reception (generally), I do have a problem in that KRLD has eliminated the call-in show after the games.
As I have a really long drive home from the ballpark, the postgame show that is on usually is over about halfway home. For years I loved the post game show on my drive back to Garland from Arlington. It was a lifeline if there was any kind of traffic jam.
I would have liked a move to FM radio however, if for clearer broadcasting. I really hope KRLD will return the post game call in show to the air. I miss that a lot. Anyone else?
Ryan Franklin, too
Well, another “major” player has been suspended. This time Ryan Franklin of the Seattle Mariners. This doesn’t have anything to do with the Rangers, really – just wanted to note it.
Link.
Raffy’s still the “biggest name” player, though.
More on Raffy
After thinking about it a bit, I think Raffy will still get into the HOF, but I’m sure there will be a bunch of doubts. Jason Stark had a bunch to say on this issue in his column on ESPN. Check it out. My favorite quote from him:
Would I vote for a guy with 3,000 hits and almost 600 homers for the Hall of Fame? Yeah, I would. On the first ballot. And every ballot.
It’s some kind of commentary on the bizarro world we live in these days that stuff like this is now a subject for serious debate. But steroids have done that for us.
Jason also feels that when it actually is time to vote on Raffy for the HOF, the 5 year period after a player retires will probably cool off a lot of people’s thoughts. Right now it’s a hot issue, people are passionate about it, but I suspect it won’t be that “big a deal” in 2010 (assuming Raffy retires after this year). Although, I wonder what kind of heat a team may take for signing Raffy in this offseason, assuming he wants to continue. His contract is up after this season.
Also, it appears that the Rangers have cancelled a pre-game ceremony meant to honor Raffy when the Orioles visit town this weekend. I can’t say I’m surprised by that.
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