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G8: Harrison’s groundball was working; Rangers win 4-1

Posted by on at http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2012_04_13_texmlb_minmlb_1&mode=wrap>MLB.com Recap

The Rangers hit the road for the first time in 2012, taking the show to the other parks.  Matt Harrison takes the hill in Target Field, a place that’s been pretty bad for the Rangers – we’ve only one once before tonight in the two seasons the place has been open to this point.   Matt went out there and did darned well, kept the streak of good starting pitching going.

Matt went eight innings, and quite easily, too.  Allowed seven hits and two walks, but he had his groundball working, which served him well.  Had a couple of double plays, and overall just had a bunch of groundballs.  He looked great.   Left the game with 111 pitches thrown, and at the time, there was discussion on TV about letting him come back out for the ninth.  He didn’t, but I would have liked to have seen him go for the complete game, to be honest. [Read more…]

G7: Rangers win on Thursday, 5-3 over Seattle

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Holland goes 7.1, allowing just two runs, getting the win.

Michael Young gets a home run.

Ian Kinsler & Michael Young both get three hits.

Two doubles, by Torrealba & Kinsler.

Kinsler also stole his first base of the season.  As did Adrian Beltre.

Rangers are 5-2 and in first place.  Nice way to finish up the last game of the first homestand.

G6: Nathan blows another; Rangers lose 4-3

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For awhile, I thought we were going to get two straight games that were 1-0 wins.  This game started out that way after the first run was plated in inning one by a Hamilton double and a Michael Young single.   It stayed that way for quite some time.   Colby Lewis was dealing – went 6.2 innings of shutout ball.  The Rangers were up 1-0 the entire time he was on the hill.  It wasn’t until the bottom of the seventh when some more runs scored.

The Mariners had pulled their starter (more on him later), and was replaced by Steve Delabar.  Who appeared to get the job done, and then hung one to Ian Kinsler who whalloped it over the left field wall to put us up 2-0.   What’s more surprising about this was the next at bat.  Was Elvis Andrus, who was battling until he too hit a home run to left center.  A home run for Elvis is not exactly a common occurrence.   This put us up 3-0 after seven.  Feeling good. [Read more…]

G5: Feliz comes through as starter; we win 1-0

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1-0 wins don’t happen very often at Rangers Ballpark.  There was some dialogue during the game about how infrequent it was.  I know the 2012 edition of the Rangers is supposed to be all about the pitching, but even with that, one doesn’t expect 1-0 games at Rangers ballpark.  That just doesn’t happen.  But it did.  The starter that I had the least confidence in going into this season took the hill; Neftali Feliz.   After what could kindly be called a rocky spring training for him, he went out there and pitched like I hoped he would, but didn’t actually expect would happen. [Read more…]

Rangers Nesting Dolls

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Look at what I found when doing some spring cleaning tonight.  I had totally forgotten about this giveaway!

G4: Rangers survive Darvish nightmare inning, win 11-5

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I was at this game, it was the first of the season for me.  I’ll be honest, I went because Yu Darvish was pitching.  I was sitting in Section 208 out over the left field wall, so I couldn’t get a good closeup view of what Darvish was throwing – but I WAS there.  That was the point.  I’m figuring somewhere down the line, Darvish will end up being a stud, and I wanted to say I was there for his first game.  And not be lying about it, unlike the half a million people who will say they were there and weren’t.   I got there early, as I was set to retake my photos for my seat selector feature here on my site.   That took me from just when gates opened at 5PM until about 6:40PM when I finally finished.   During that time, I got a handle on what Darvish mania was like.

[Read more…]

My new 2012 Seat Selector is online!

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I’ve been running this site since December 1998, and in that time there’s been two things on my site that no other Texas Rangers fan site has done that I’m aware of.

One is a history of the uniform numbers for the entire franchise history.   That one got me some notice.  Victor Rojas name checked me a few times with Eric Nadel on radio broadcasts regarding this when he was still with Texas.   You can view that here if you’d like.

The other is a feature that I call my “Seat Selector”.  It’s a feature that’s on many a website.  In fact, there’s an entire site dedicated to the concept (that you should check out if you haven’t).   Many a moon ago (back during the first season this site was active, which was 1999), I went around the park, took a picture of every section, and put it on the website.   But there’s more to the story than just that.   Check it out..

[Read more…]

G3: Harrison and Rangers shut out Sox, 5-0

Posted by on at http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2012_04_08_chamlb_texmlb_1&mode=wrap#gid=2012_04_08_chamlb_texmlb_1&mode=wrap>MLB.com Recap

This is another game that tested my ability to avoid the game score.  This was a Sunday night ESPN game, which meant I couldn’t see it.  I was gonna watch it on mlb.tv after the recap became available.  Something I didn’t know is that the ESPN Sunday night exclusive also controls when the recap will be available – even when the game is actually OVER.   Apparently, the Sunday night game can’t be replayed until 90 minutes after the game actually ends.  Which for this game meant I wasn’t able to start watching the game until about 11:57PM.  That is an incredibly late time to start a game – even though I was able to skip the commercials quite quickly.  mlb.tv game archives have the start of each top/bottom of an inning marked as a “chapter” (of sorts).   So when the last out is made, I just hit the right trigger on my Xbox 360 controller, and it goes straight to the next pitch.  That’s nice.   Anyway, I started watching, and got through about an hour or so, and had to stop around 1:10AM, as I was falling asleep.  Came back to the game in the morning, and finished watching around 8:15AM.  heh.  Had some contracters coming to do touchup work on a carpet install, so I had to hang around, but not get into anything, as I had to deal with the contractors.

Anyway, about the game… [Read more…]

G2: Rangers lose 3-2 on Nathan HR

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So starts the list of games I can’t see.  “Watched” this one on mlb at bat on the computer, since I couldn’t watch it on TV.  Listened to (most of) the radio broadcast.  It sounded to me like Derek Holland was a bit all over the place.

He technically was given a quality start, but let’s face it.  Six innings pitched, three earned runs (ERA of 4.50) barely qualifies.  Men far more erudite than me on the subject of baseball stats have argued that one, so I won’t go into extreme detail.   But Holland didn’t help himself with three walks over his six innings.   His overall line was six innings pitched, three hits, three earned runs, three walks, and five strikeouts.   Holland was a bit wobbly early on, but settled down after the Sox did their scoring against him, and put up three zeroes in the 4th through 6th innings.   Derek exited with 93 pitches, which for six innings was only three over the recommended limit, so he probably could have gone again.  Perhaps it was a gut feeling by Wash, or a “Hey, it’s his first outing, we’ll keep the count down a little” type of thing.  [Read more…]

Yu Darvish

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OK, I decided to go to the Texas Rangers game on Monday evening.  Wanted to see Yu Darvish.   I’ll be in Section 208.  Not the greatest seat, but it’s something.  :)