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In starting to write the commentary for this game, it occured to me just how many games we’ve had this season that have had at least ten runs by one side or the other. Looking back at 1999 so far, we’ve had 14 games that have had ten runs by one side or the other, and this is only game 44. That’s 32% of the games played. That’s a lot of runs. A breakdown:
April: We won two, and lost four
May: We won four and lost four
That makes us 6-8 in runs where one side scores 10 or more runs. That’s not all that good. With the Rangers offense, we should be expected to do that, but this stat can be translated down to one thing. Our pitching stinks (overall).
However, last night, that wasn’t true. We got the first really good outing from Mark Clark all season. He went 6.1 innings, throwing 125 pitches (I think that’s what the TV guys said), giving up 8 hits, and 3 earned runs. Not the most dominating performance, but for Clark, and for our staff, it was a great outing. Mike Munoz & Tim Crabtree, who have both been pitching extremely well of late finished up the game, giving up just one hit for no runs between the two of them. Our bullpen is doing great (hell, even Burkett pitched well (for him) out of the pen the other night).
Our hitting was in a groove, too. Juan Gonzalez had a great game, hitting two home runs, for a total of 5 RBI’s for the night (2 run HR & 3 run HR). Pudge also had a home run in the ninth inning, which extended his hitting streak to 14 games. Mark McLemore continues his hot hitting streak of 99, going 3 for 4. I don’t know where he’s been hiding all of this, but I like it! All the Ranger starters had at least one hit, except Clayton.
There were also some injuries last night. I didn’t see the first one, because I was watching the series finale of “Mad About You” with my wife, but apparently Mark McLemore left the game in the sixth with a tight left hamstring. I hope that’s not a real problem, as this is the second time in a week he left the game early with a hamstring tightness problem. Also, on Juan Gonzalez’s second home run, Quinton McCracken got really hurt. He went to jump to try and catch the ball, but his jump was mistimed. He hit the wall hard on the way up, not at the peak of the jump like it’s normally done. He hit his shoulder hard, and came straight down crumpled, and his knee appeared to hit very hard on the warning track. He didn’t get up at all, and after awhile he was stetchered off the field.
No matter what the player, no matter how much I dislike them professionally, I hate to see this happen to anyone. Don’t get me wrong – I like McCracken, but I just hate to see anyone injured like this at all. Looks like he’s going on the DL because of this. I know you’ll never see this, but Quinten – this Rangers fan hopes you get well soon!
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Not available.

This is the last of the Sunday night ESPN games this season for the Rangers. Our last Sunday appearance was our worst. However, I won’t have to listen to the uneducated oafes in the ESPN booth misprounounce the Ranger players’ names anymore. My god – can they get ANYTHING right? Cripes. The one thing I like about ESPN’s coverage is that they always show some really nice shots of the surrounding city the game is being played in – at least before the sun goes down anyway.
On to the game.. Oh man, I was lucky I had something else to do – I was sorting through some baseball cards, and was only peripherally paying attention to the game. The way the score was after the first, you would have thought John Burkett was starting. In fact, Burkett came in after .2 of the first inning, and pitched for six innings, not giving up a whole hell of a lot (by his own standards), and actually pitched the best game of the season for him.
One silly thing – before Morgan left the game, he did manage to get himself in the record books as the first pitcher to hit the same guy twice in one inning. We now have the highest starting rotation ERA thanks to last night – it’s over seven!! We did have a few late inning solo home runs (Mac, Juan, Raffy), but that was really it for us.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Not available.

I was out and about doing some shopping and visiting baseball card shops (I just started collecting cards again this year for the first time in about 20 years). I didn’t hear very much of the game at all, but I did manage to hear the top of the ninth while sitting in the parking lot in front of the Barnes & Noble in Dallas at the Northpark mall.
Was very cool to hear the call on the home run by Gonzalez. Was nice to see them pull out a late inning win – they hardly ever do that. Zimmerman didn’t pitch will, but shit.. It was his first bad outing. Perhaps the Ranger starting pitching disease is spreading. Hope not.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
I only got to hear the 8th and 9th innings of today’s game (on RealAudio) as I had just gotten off work at that time.
What I heard was the Rangers pulling out a victory when trailing after 8 innings for only the 2nd time in 20 tries.
Juan Gonzalez belted a 3-run shot in the 9th inning to put the Rangers up for good.
Jeff Zimmerman had a rare, poor outing.

A pitchers duel! This game rocked! I loved it, even though we lost. Helling made only one bad pitch all night, and it burned him. A 3 run home run to CJ in the late innings. However, Helling was masterful otherwise. Our normally huge offense didn’t cover the mistake, but we were up against another pitcher (Sidney Ponson) that really shut us down too, we were lucky to get the two we got.
Helling pitched the first complete game by a Ranger all season – unfortunately it was a complete game loss. :( There really isn’t a whole lot to say about this game other than Raffy remained red hot. Pitching was the story here, and there was little offense to speak of.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Great pitching will win most ballgames. Saturday, there was an exception to the rule.
Rick Helling pitched a complete game, seven-hitter. 99 times out of 100, Helling is going to win those type games. Friday is was one-uppped by O’s pitcher Sidney Ponson, who threw a complete game, six-hitter.
It was hard for either team to generate any offense. Raffy Palmeiro, perhaps the hottest hitter in baseball right now, homered against his former mates and for a while, the Rangers led 1-0.
Then Charles Johnson, who is red-hot himself as of late, blasted a 3-run homer off of Helling in the 7th inning. That was the ballgame.
This was the first game in the Major Leagues this year, where both pitchers pitched a complete game.

I had forgotten this game was on at work, and I turned it on right before the back-to-back-to-back home runs. Unfortunately, that’s about all I got to hear, as I was fairly busy with work. But I did get to hear that! :)
Our first day game win of the year.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
In what was most assuredly the most exciting Rangers’ game of the year to date, the Rangers took turns bombing ex-mate Bobby Witt and beat the Rays 7-6.
The Rangers belted 4 homers off Witt, including 3 in a row in the 5th inning, by Pudge, Palmeiro and Zeile. This ties a record the club set last year against the White Sox. It also tied a team record for most HR in an inning.
So while the offense clicked, Mark Clark again was – by normal standards – ineffective – but to Rangers’ standards, effective enough.
The key to the game however goes to the superb pitching of one Jeff Zimmerman, easily the Most Valuable Player so far this year for the Rangers – and perhaps the MVP so far in the league. He’s done nothing but record outs – important outs. Wednesday, his 2.1 innings began when Venafro allowed the tying run (6-6 at that point in the 6th) to score on an infield single/bad throw. Zimmerman came in, struck out Canseco and then proceeded to attack the Rays like an overgrown field in July – he simply mowed them down.
The Rangers hang on ever so tightly to first place as Oakland remains a heartbeat away.

Well, I was at this game, and I didn’t feel like anything really bad was happening. We went down 2-0 in the first inning, but other than a Canseco home run (like anyone could stop that right now), I didn’t feel like Morgan pitched bad at all.
We just couldn’t score. We left something like 14 runners on base all told, and it was really obvious at the game we weren’t connecting. Your offense can’t win every game, but you should get the runs when you get the chance. We didn’t last night. However, the double play killed us last night – we hit into five of them. Pudge hit into two himself! Ugh.
On another note, Zimmerman continues to impress. Last night, when he struck out Canseco in the ninth, I haven’t seen such a reaction. Not only to the strikeout, but Canseco took a really huge swing and missed for the first strike – he almost fell over. Man, did that get an ovation at the park!
Found out after the game that Burkett had been sent to the bullpen, and Mr. Cinderella story, Ryan Glynn had been given his spot in the rotation and will start next Tuesday in Tampa Bay.
Also, Mark McLemore left the game after the fourth with a sore knee. I really hope that’s not the same problem that’s plagued him the last few years. He’s had a kickass season, and I don’t want to see it ruined. I was starting to have hope that Mac might turn it around and get resigned – I like him.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Starting pitching has been the Rangers #1 enemy this year. They may have found out their #2 enemy in the game last night.
The Rangers grounded into a team-high 5 twin-killings Tuesday, including the ultimate deadly one in the bottom of the ninth, as the Rangers lost their third game in a row, 5-4 against the now-you-better-take-them-seriously Devil Rays.
Even though the Rangers had 14 hits and 4 bases on balls, they plated just 4 players. Texas leads the majors in grounding into double plays and last night was the first game of the year where you can point directly at the GIDP for this one.
Raffy Palmeiro went 4-5 with all 4 RBI and is now hitting .370. Rusty Greer had a hit and walked 3 times, driving up his OBA.
Mike Morgan, who pitched better than the numbers might indicate, was the games’ losing pitcher.

Ugh. After the second inning, I started watching the Stars game as well as the Pittsburgh Penguins game. I’m going tonight to game two – they had better not have a fiasco like this three nights in a row.
I feel bad for Burkett. I like him. I always have. It appears that unless lightning strikes, he’s done after this year.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Let’s cut to the meat of the matter. This game can easily be summed up by this part of the boxscore:

Pitcher        ip h r  er bb so hr era(game) era(year)
Burkett (L,0-3) 4 8 12 12 5  2  3  27.00     13.24

John Burkett set a new Ranger record for most earned runs in a game, erasing Bobby Witt’s previous record of 11.
Rusty Greer popped a 2-run homer in the first and that’s about all Texas could muster. Rusty now has 36 RBI’s and he might be having his best season ever.