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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.

I’m back with an update – sort of. I posted pages for the last three games (including today’s). However, I haven’t had the time to add commentary of my own, so I’m just posting them w/o that.
On Wednesday we beat the Diamondbacks pretty well 9-2. We then lost to the Giants by the score of 7-5, and today to the Padres 4-2.
Overall, we’re now 6-11 for the spring.

I unfortunately am too busy to create a page for this game. We won the game, but that’s about all I have time to write today. :)
If I find some time this evening, I might back create one, but for now, I don’t think I will have the time to do this. Today’s game might also get shafted. Gotta do the paycheck stuff first, ya know.

That winning streak of one is over. We lost the second of two split squad games on Tuesday to the Brewers by the score of 6-4. This game was on Rangers radio, but I didn’t get to hear much but the end of it. As my wife is now exactly 4 weeks from delivery, I’m trying not to spend time away from her if she wants to do something, or if she needs something, so boring her with a spring training radio broadcast wasn’t what I had in mind for the evening. We watched some of The Incredibles, which came out on DVD Tuesday.
I don’t have the time to write anything on Wednesday, as I’ve got a pile of work staring me in the face, so I’ll just let folks read the rest of the page update I have.

The Rangers finally won again for the first time in almost a week. We won the first of the day’s two games. This was the split squad game against the Rockies. We won 1-0 in 10 innings.
I sat here at work refreshing this page. I kept seeing the zeroes pile up in the line score. Got past the ninth, and I wondered how long they would continue a split squad game in extra innings. It was a fast mover, going 2:45 for 10 innings, but there were virtually zero runs, and no TV to bog things down, so that’s probably why these things move much faster in spring training. :)
Anyway, even before I saw a box score (which I still haven’t seen as I write this), I knew it would be all about pitching. 10 innings, and only one total run, there was definitely some pitching going on.
RicRod continues to show he is picking up right where he left off when he got hurt last summer. He went 4.2 innings gave up no runs, and just three hits. Ron Mahay & Erasmo Ramirez followed, and between the two of ’em, they pitched 4.1 innings. No runs, just two hits (both by Eraser). The final frame was pitched by Keith Stamler (a name I don’t recognize), and he got the win. Overall, 10IP, 0R, 5H, 6K, 5BB. I suppose the five walks are the worst thing, but we didn’t get burnt by ’em.
Offensively, obviously not much happened, either. He had a total of 9 hits. Only one player (Joaquin Arias, 2) had more than 1 hit. I would have loved to have seen this game myself, this must have been a fun one to behold.
You can view my full update for this game here.