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Ugh. In the first two innings, I felt like we were going to have a good second half of spring training. That died in the third inning. We went into the third up 6 to nothing. We left the top of the third losing 7-6. Then after the fourth, we were losing 9-7. Only two runs, and 5 more innings to play at that point, but it just felt bad. I did listen to this game over MLB.com’s Gameday Audio on the A’s feed. Was nice of them to have Eric Nadel & Victor Rojas on there as guests, and they made a couple of shoutouts to “Ranger fans listening”. Nice of them to be cognizant of that issue.
Anyway, in listening it felt like there wasn’t any pitching at all in the game. It was hit after hit after run scored, etc.. Total of 24 runs and 25 hits between the two teams – not much good pitching going on. In fact, Ron Mahay was the only real bright spot for us pitching wise, going two innings and giving up no hits, and no walks. Wes Littleton only pitched .1 of an inning and he didn’t give up anything, but that doesn’t really count, IMO. The other guys (Regilio, Hughes, & Bukvich) just stunk up the place.
Offensively, it was nice to see a couple of home runs from Sandy Alomar (that still seems weird talking about him as a Ranger), and Laynce Nix, who needs to turn it around in a hurry to keep from losing his starting job to Gary Matthews, who in my opinon has earned it. Scary moment in the first inning though as Teixeira got plunked with a pitch, and came out of the game after trying to stay in. It didn’t sound good listening to the game, and on Wednesday it doesn’t seem like it’s a big deal, but still – you never want to see that to one of your better players.
We’re awfully close to having the worst record in the majors during spring training. We’re already the worst in Cactus League play. We’re 6-14 (.300), and the next worst are the Royals at 7-11 (.400), and two games ahead of us. Over in Grapefruit League play, only the Marlins have a worse record than us at 6-15 (.295), but we’re pretty close to falling below them. :(
You can view my full update for this game here.

Well, we’ve reached the “unofficial” half way point of spring training (at least for me). This is the lone scheduled off day, and we reach this point with a winning percentage of 315, having gone 6-13. Most of the games (including Sunday’s) have been of the kind where our “regular” players are doing OK, but the guys who won’t be here come opening day are tanking the games, and are causing this record. The cliché of “it’s only spring training” leaps to mind here, but even with that, it’s still disturbing to see your team 6-13 with only 13 more games to go. That means we have to win 10 of the remaining 13 games to get to .500 for spring, and that’s not happening. I can see the DMN & FTW papers having a gloomy outlook.
Something that’s not gloomy is Ricardo Rodriguez’ performance in Spring Training. He’s looked really awesome the last few times out, and my gut feeling says that assuming Ranger management doesn’t screw it up and hand the job to RA Dickey or someone else, RicRod should be a great addition to the starting rotation. I rather like what he’s doing, which is something I can’t say about most any other of the starting pitchers. While no one has really stunk up the joint completely, RicRod just feels electric, and Sunday was no different. His line was 5IP, 0R, 6K, 1BB. Kameron Loe & Travis Hughes got torched, between the two of them, they gave up 7H, 6ER in 1.2IP. That was pretty much the game there.
Offensively, our leader of the day was an unusual one, it was Manny Alexander, who went 4 for 4 with 1 RBI, 2 runs scored, and a double. Alfonso Soriano had a mini hitting streak, going 2 for 5, increasing his total number of spring training hits to 4. Sandy Alomar, who has been mostly absent from spring training games that I’ve noticed went 2 for 4 as well, as did Kevin Mench.
I doubt much we’re going to get back to .500, but it would be nice to see us play a bit more consistently – hell, I’ll take good as spring training winds down.
You can view my full update for this game here.

I was finding myself in a weird position yesterday. I was rooting against my own starting pitcher. When a Ranger would catch the ball, I’d get mad. When Park would strike someone out, I’d be irritated. In fact, I got four and two thirds innings of that, as Chan Ho Park pitched well again for the second outing in a row. Only one of the 3 runs Park gave up were earned (thanks to Soriano). All told Park’s line was 4 hits, 3R, 1ER, 4K, OBB. No walks again. It’s even been a couple of outings since Park plunked someone with a HBP. The scary thing is if Park does this two more times in a row, people might start to believe he’s figured it out, and I just can’t bring myself to do that. I think it’s a given he’ll make the club out of camp, but how long will it last? Even if he does pitch well into the season, no one will believe it. They’ll wait for the other shoe to drop, for him to walk 5, give up 4 home runs, and hit 3, and then people will say “The real Chan Ho is back”. The three years before were an enigma. He was expected to pitch well, and didn’t. Now he’s NOT expected to pitch well (or even keep his job according to a lot of folks), so he goes and is having a fairly decent spring. I’m scared.
Other folks who aren’t doing what they’re supposed to are Laynce Nix, who still hasn’t gotten it going. He’s never really been a “tear it up and bat 340 hitter”, so I wonder how he’ll recover from his slow spring. Alfonso Soriano, who possibly still could be hurt, either physically, or can’t bring his mind to bear on getting past that mental barrier folks need to get past to get back to where they were playing wise. He’s got two hits out of about 5,000 at bats this spring, and he made two errors yesterday. Neither Nix nor Soriano are doing very well at all this spring, for whatever reason. With Gary Matthews doing really well, if Nix doesn’t get it together soon, he’s likely to find himself on the bench, or in AAA. Soriano will stay simply because of his contract, but if he keeps doing this into May, we might find Ian Kinsler at second, or someone else entirely. Who knows?
Anyway, about this game – we had a few longballs in the third (Young, Barajas) to give us a 3-2 lead in the third. The Angels tied it up in the 5th, and it stayed that way until extra innings, where we did what we usually do. Give up a couple in the top of the 10th, and then don’t score any ourselves. RA Dickey pitched the 10th, and was the losing pitcher, having given up both of those runs.
We play the Brewers on Sunday afternoon, hopefully we can pick up a win, something that has been hard to come by lately. Be nice to have a win going into our lone scheduled off day on Monday.
You can view my full update for this game here.