The season starts. However, I don’t much care for games that START at 9:45PM. Blech. We need to move out of this division, just so the locals here can watch games at a more human hour Could be worse, when I was growing up in Philly, when the Phillies were in Los Angeles or San Diego, games would start at 10:05! Ugh.. However, it was nice to have “real” Ranger baseball on the TV again. Thank god basketball is done, too. Really sick and tired of seeing college basketball on my TV. I wish it was that which was facing a lockout and a season off instead of hockey. Anyway, it was nice to have Josh & Tom back. They of course, wasted no time getting into their routine (which I enjoyed) – they were talking about movies almost right away. :)
It was Kenny Rogers vs Tim Hudson. I wasn’t expecting greatness out of the game, but when we had a bunch of runners on early, I said we had better take advantage of it, as you don’t get a ton of opportunities against Tim Hudson. We actually had quite a few baserunners, and while we scored four times this game, we left far too many men on. It’s only the first game, so I won’t freak out about it, but I don’t like to start the season on a bad trend like that. Kenny Rogers pitched pretty decently. It wasn’t the greatest I’ve seen him pitch, but he wasn’t bad, going 7 innings, giving up three runs, qualifying for a quality start. He didn’t seem terribly crisp, but he was effective when he had to be. A nice outing by him. His Oakland streak continues. :)
Offensively, we never seemed to be able to follow through on the opportunities presented to us. We left quite a few people on base. I’m not sure how many at the moment, but I think it was around 10 or 12 or so. The new guys were good. Fullmer was as advertised. Hard player, can whack the ball, will have his jersey open. :) Can’t wait to see him face Ben Weber of the Angels. Alfonso Soriano did what he normally does, except strike out. He didn’t do that. He went 1 for 3 with a walk and a hit batter, so he had a decent OBP. I did feel that Soriano got ripped on the error he was charged with. It should have been a it. Mark Teix
I also can’t let this go without saying it’s good that we locked up Mike Young through 2008. That’s a great move on our part – I just wish it hadn’t taken so long. I also think that after next year we need to do the same with Nix, provided he shows improvement. Along these lines, I did say something my wife laughed at when Soriano came up the first time. I said “You’d better do good so we can trade your ass in July.” :)
We lost. Despite all that, I enjoyed watching the game. I just wish it wasn’t so late when the games started.