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Started listening to this game over the MLB feed via the Devil Rays, but after a couple of innings, the feed cut out – I got nothing but silence. Bummer. Anyway, while I was listening, I have to say I was mostly bored with their announcing. It seems that I can’t really enjoy anyone except Harry Kalas in Philadelphia, or our guys here in Texas.
Doug Davis pitched well, going 6 innings, and giving up just one run on 5 hits, with 5K’s and 1BB. Good line. Our relief is doing well, too – Seanez continues to do well, I think he’ll stick. Juan Pena, who we just got in a trade gave up the other run – everyone else put up donuts (Cordero & Van Poppel).
Santiago Perez had the best day at the plate, going 3 for 4 and scoring two runs. Catalanotto was 2 for 4 as well. Looking good for opening day insofar as having a decent team put together. Just who that team will be is yet another story. :)

This game was good and bad for Dave Burba. Good that he pitched pretty well, great that he had some batting going on with a home run and a single that he stretched into a double – but bad in that he appeared to pull a hamstring running out the double. He came out of the game shortly after that, and it was announced as being a “minor” hamstring – no one seemed too concerned, but whenever you hear the word “hamstring”, it’s never good, IMHO.
On the other side, it was all Rangers. The two runs Burba allowed early on were all that was allowed. We sent quite a few pitchers to the hill including Rocker (who appeared to be very good), and none of them allowed anything.
For our offense we had two home runs, including the aforementioned home run by pitcher Dave Burba, as well as another by Juan Gonzalez. The other runs we got came mostly in big clumps, with 3 in the second, and 5 in the 4th. Nice to see a big win after losing quite a few, and three in a row. We now need to string together a few heading into the regular season.
Next Friday – baseball returns to the Ballpark! I’ll be there Saturday afternoon; if anyone else is going, drop me an email, we might be able to say hi! :)

Kenny Rogers has probably been our most dominating pitcher this pre-season. Yesterday was not his best outing. He didn’t pitch particularly bad, but he wasn’t exactly crisp either. He gave up 4 runs in five innings off of 10 hits.
On the flip side, we had a few home runs which were good to hear. Carl Everett & ARod both homered (on consecutive pitches) in the first – and Juan followed with one of his own in the third. That was it for our offense, though. Four runs on three home runs. The Pirates pitching was a bit better than ours – their starter (Josh Fogg) also gave up four runs the same as Rogers, but their pen gave up nothing for the final 4 innings. We gave up one – Colby Lewis pitched the final 4 innings himself.
After our big stretch of winning games in a row, we now have a pretty big stretch of not winning much at all. :(

No commentary due to me being sick – don’t remember much about this game 2 days later. :)

No commentary due to me being sick – don’t remember much about this game 3 days later. :)

Got to listen to most of this game over the Internet via mlb.com while I was at work, as they carried the Rays radio coverage. Was pretty funny to hear Eric Nadel there, as he was a “guest” on the Rays coverage, he talked mostly about Hank Blalock. I suspect Blalock will start at third, unless he completely falls apart the next two weeks. Question is, do we keep Mike Lamb? If we could trade Lamb and the guy we just got yesterday for Justin Duchscherer for a decent middle of the rotation guy (someone from Baltimore? They need a young third baseman), it could work. Anyway, back to this game..
Dave Burba sounded decent here. He wasn’t dominating (although it took less than 10 pitches his last inning of work), but he did have a good line. 6IP, 1ER, and only two hits. A good performance there. Rocker gave up a home run, and didn’t look all that good, but Powell & Miceli weren’t bad either. Overall, a good pitching day.
Was really nice to see us win in the bottom of the 9th with a HR by Gabe Kapler. I really hope we can find a way to make our outfield situation work, as I don’t want to lose Kapler. Speaking of that, Carl Everett played DH today in a major league game and went 1 for 4. I suspect he’ll be ready, but will be treated gingerly at the start. Can’t wait for the start of the season – less than two weeks now!

Ugh. Four in a row. They can’t make up their minds, can they? 6 straight wins, then 4 straight losses. No fun.
Didn’t get to listen to the game, plus work combined for no commentary from me today.