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Uh, excuse me? Did someone replace Chan Ho Park last night with someone else? I sat there watching Chan Ho Park pitch, and damned if he didn’t seem like a totally different pitcher. His fastball was sharp and had movement on it, and his curveball. Yikes – it looked like Barry Zito’s curveball. It was absolutely amazing how awesome he pitched. It was by far – no comparison the best pitching performance he had in a Ranger uniform. Nothing was even close. Park gave up seven hits over his seven innings, and struck out eight – a lot of them on called third strikes. Unfortunately, a short sequence in the 6th inning cost him the game. He gave up a triple on a ball that was botched by Kevin Mench in right. A single followed, and then his only mistake was hit over the fence. Park came back the next inning and was brilliant again. It’s a real shame that we couldn’t get any runs to cover that small mistake, because Park really deserved a win the way he was pitching.

Unfortunately, Mark Mulder was the opposing pitcher. Mulder gave up even less. Mulder gave up 5 hits over his seven innings, and just one run.

We never got much going offensively, and the one run we did score was a small ball run – scoring on an a fielder’s choice that never left the infield. I’ll take this pitching performance from Chan Ho Park any day. It was quite amazing to watch.

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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.

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Saturday’s game was rained out and canceled too. That means we close out spring training on a five game losing streak. Today’s game was going to be an agreed upon eleven inning game, too because yesterday’s was rained out. I wonder what we’re going to do for pitcher’s work now.

It’s too bad, as I’m sick this weekend with a fever, and was looking forward to the game on TV this afternoon. Oh well. The real deal starts Monday night. I miss first game of the season in our home park. I hope that comes back next year.

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Nothing to report here. A rainout. As it’s this late in the season, it won’t be made up, either. Probably good, as I have a fever, and I don’t think I’ll still be awake when the game was scheduled to come on in about three hours from when I’m writing this.

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A big back and forth game. Michael Tucker had a great game, with a double, triple, & HR. I kind of wished I could see this game, and not just hear it, as I don’t get to see games from SF all that often.

Chan Ho Park was just “OK”. One not so great inning and a few decent ones combining for an “eh” outing. Possibly bad news about Park, though having to come out of the game. All the stories say he’s fine, but with his history the last two years? Can’t say it’s not worrying at the least.

I’m up in the air about the reports in the paper today about Milton Bradley being a Ranger. On one hand, he’s a tremendous baseball player. He’s got skills like you’d die to get. However, he’s one colossal ass. I’m really torn as to whether we want him or not. Plus I wonder how he’ll get along with Buck Showalter, who is himself a hardass (but I like that in a manager).

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I’m feeling sick, so I won’t spend a lot of time on this, but I will say this.. Rodriguez allowed 8 runs, 4 earned. That’s 4 unearned runs, and just one error on our ledger. That must have been a whopper of an error. Game shortened by rain. That’s it for Surprise. We break camp tomorrow. No word on Mike Young’s contract extension, or Glendon Rusch’s situation as I write this at about 5:30PM on Wed.

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