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A much better game than the first two in the series – this looked like the Seattle series. There wasn’t a whole lot wrong with this game that I could tell other than Eric Gunderson, who looks like he probably pitched himself down to AAA when Mike Simms is ready to come back.
Mike Morgan is looking again like he’s going to be the steal of the offseason. Through 5 innings, Mike had pitched only 65 pitches with two hits (although one of them was a solo HR), and 85 pitches through 6 innings. There were a couple of 1-2-3 innings, and he looked pretty dominating. The seventh seems to be his limit so far this season – a double and then Ben Grieve singled in a run, so he got taken out before a whole lot of damage could be done. Was a great outing still, only giving up two runs on 4 hits. Jeff Zimmerman came in and pitched and retired just about everyone he faced, giving up only one hit over two innings, and 2 strikeouts. Once the hitters figure him out, he won’t be as dominating, but it’s still nice to have an arm like this. I’d be shocked if he was sent back down when Simms comes up.
The Rangers bats were a bit more awake than in the first two games of this series. Point in case.. The Rangers had nine hits through the first out in the fourth inning, which was more than they had in the first two games against the A’s combined! The fourth was a power inning for us. Todd Zeile had a big solo home run to left (there was a funny visual on TV of the ball bouncing down a flight of stairs), and then two pitches later, Lee Stevens hit what Bill Jones called a “titanic blast” to right field – the first back to back home runs by the Rangers for the year. Raffy also had a spectacular day; he was 4 for 4 with two RBI’s and a run scored – looked good. Probably would have had a double if he could run as fast as he normally does. Todd Zeile also had a great day on the field, making a couple of really great plays – lookd like the veteran third baseman we dealt for last year. :)
Silly play in the third – Goodwin was going to steal second, and the A’s shortstop (I think it was the shortstop) stood on the base waiting for the ball to come in, and the base itself came out of the ground and up in the air. Goodwin was called out (see photos below), but I have to wonder if the play would have gone the Rangers way if the base had stayed in the ground. Speaking of stolen bases, Lee Stevens had one, and it was his 5th in his career, and his first since 1997.
There was one really funny thing they did on the TV – they put Tom Grieve up on screen, and had a graphic that said “.000 batting average this season”. Thought that was rather funny. :) A great game – but our weak ass pitching is headed to Yankee Stadium next – I don’t feel very confident there at all. Can we have Sele & Morgan pitch there? :)
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
The Rangers’ salvaged what was almost a Lost Weekend by defeating the Oakland Athletics Sunday.
Paced by a great (for Texas pitching) outing by Mike Morgan, terrific defense from Todd Zeile and shutout relief from Jeff Zimmerman and John Wetteland, the Rangers held the A’s to 7 hits.
The Rangers’ banged out 15 hits, including 4 for Rafael Palmeiro, who finally saw his batting average eclipse .300 (he’s now hitting .333). Palmeiro also added a couple of RBI’s.
Texas hit back-to-back homers in the 4th when Zeile and Lee Stevens connected. That’s the first time this year they’ve done that.
With the pitching the Rangers got Sunday from Morgan, they could have beaten anyone. Here’s hoping it continues, as the Rangers travel to Yankee Stadium Tuesday to play the hated Yankees.

I was out during most of this game – didn’t see enough to make any commentary on it. Except this – man, Jason Giambi is killing us!
Commentary by Jim Weeks:
Jim was sick this weekend, and didn’t write any commentary for this game.

I was kinda tired when this game was on, and wasn’t really paying attention – I think I fell asleep twice watching it. Not to mention the fact it was a crap game – I don’t really feel like writing commentary about this game 3 days later. Now if we had WON by the score of 8-2, I might have felt like writing about it. :)
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
I can’t write a whole lot today. Then again, there’s not a lot to say about this game.
Aaron Sele, the most reliable Rangers’ starter so far this year, was rocked by the A’s Friday to pick up his first loss of the year.
The Rangers’ offense was missing as well – and final score: A’s 8, Rangers 2, was really more lopsided that it looks.
The Rangers managed only 3 hits (including a solo homer by Lee Stevens) while the A’s banged out 17, a season high for them.
Eric Gunderson would be in danger of losing his job if the Rangers had a reliable left-hander at AAA to replace him. Gunderson saw his ERA climb to over 11.00. The only alternatives are Mike Venafro, Rich Robertson and Matt Perisho; Perisho being the best of the lot. Still, a call-up seems unlikely.

A short commentary today, as I’m kinda busy today at work again. I will say this. Wow – where was this pitching hiding? After the score got tied 3-3, the Rangers retired everyone – 20 in a row! Crabtree looked awesome, as did the other guys, but Crabby got Jay Buhner to strike out swinging on all three pitches, and Wetteland was awesome too! Now, if Helling can keep this up, his ERA might come down out of the stratosphere some more. It was a real shame he didn’t get the win – he really deserved it!
Also, Alicea & Kelly looked awesome again. These guys both signed two year contracts before the 98 season – both of their contracts are up after this season. I really hope we can sign both of them again – I like both these guys!
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Put away the hound dogs, cancel the call to the FBI and dim the scanning search lights; Rick Helling has been found and he’s alive and well in Seattle, Washington.
Rick Helling went 8 very strong innings Thursday, in what was by far his best outing of the year. He gave up just 3 runs on 5 hits and no walks, although one of the hits was a home run.
Exactly how good was Rick Helling? Well, for starters, his ERA dropped almost 5 full runs. His curveball, which has seemed to be missing longer than Jimmy Hoffa, was very visable Thursday afternoon in Seattle. He threw nine groundballs and had 4 strikeouts and you can’t even compare those numbers to his first 2 starts, when everything he threw seemed to be belted deep in the air by the opposition.
The Rangers’ bullpen combo of Tim Crabtree and John Wetteland – both throwing in the mid 90’s, simply came in and shut the door on the beleaguered Mariners in the 9th and 10th innings. Seattle has no bullpen at all and I’m beginning to wonder if Lou Piniella will last another 25 games as manager there.
The Rangers won the game in in the 10th inning, 4-3. The star offensively was their diminuative 2nd baseman Luis Alicea, subbing for the weak-knees of Mark McLemore. Alicea went 3 for 5 with 2 ribbies, including the go-ahead RBI in the 10th.
I really like seeing both Alicea and Roberto Kelly in the lineup together. Kelly has hit so well this year that he saw his batting average drop almost .100 points even though he went 2 for 5.
Juan Gonzalez continues to leave runners in scoring position with less than 2 outs. As Joe pointed out yesterday, he just isn’t doing the job offensively at the moment.
The Rangers got some very good news out of Florida, as Mike Simms began his Minor League rehab, going 2-2 with 2 walks for Charlotte of the Florida State League. The Rangers expect Simms back with the ballclub as early as the next homestand.
The best news of the evening though came from that old, familiar face, “Bulldog” Helling…who’s certain demise has been greatly exaggerated.

I’m kinda busy today, so I’m not going to be able to write much. A few points I noticed..

• Juan continues to not come through in big RBI situations. He’s getting RBI’s, but he again didn’t get much of anything with a bases loaded situation.
• Burkett was great the first time through the lineup, but after that, no so much so. That’s too bad, I thought he looked great the first three innings.
• Jeff Zimmerman – where’s this guy been? I still maintain it’s only two MLB appearances, but damn – he looks spectacular so far!
• This is the second time in two straight nights the word “fuck” got out over the air on TV.
• Ken Griffey Jr. – Oh man, what a catch – looked awesome! Thought Juan was going to get a couple RBI’s there, but he did one of those back to the plate catches.
• Lynn (my wife) commented that it seemed like the Kingdome looks dirty – like they don’t care about “cleaning it up” this season.
• Rusty Greer continues to have a great run at the Kingdome!
• I really hope the Rangers can do some sort of realignment move so all of our division people aren’t on the West coast anymore. 1AM finishes bite. I suppose it would be worse if I lived back home in Philly, though. :)
• Bases loaded is becoming an Achillies Heel for us – we don’t seem to want to do anything with them loaded. :(

Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Living here on the East Coast and being a morning person smile.gif (93 bytes), I didn’t get a chance to see or hear Wednesday’s game, so I’ll use this opportunity to reveal some things to you that you may have missed, by reviewing the boxscore and a few other notes:
Every 12.3 pitches John Burkett threw on Wednesday became a Mariners’ double…As badly as Burkett pitched Wednesday, his ERA actually lowered quite a bit…Every hitter in the Rangers’ lineup had at least one hit…Rusty Greer was on base 5 times for the second straight night, as he had a single, a double and 3 walks…Roberto Kelly hasn’t had the opportunity to play much this year, but perhaps he should play more often. He is hitting .615…the Rangers had 3 stolen bases, 2 by Goodwin and 1 by Clayton. Clayton should steal 20-25 bases…Juan Gonzalez left nine runners on base, although he was simply robbed by Ken Griffey on a line shot to the deepest part of the field (I did see that on ESPN’s Sportscenter)…Gonzalez has yet to homer this year, his longest drought ever, starting a season…As a team, the Rangers left 13 men on base, which is hard to fathom, considering they scored 9 runs on 17 hits…Seattle did give up 8 free passes on bases on balls…The Rangers are now hitting .322 as a team, with a whopping on-base percentage of .391…Anaheim lost again to the A’s, meaning the Rangers are back in first place all alone. The Rangers are the only team in the AL West with a winning record, not bad for a team that has horrible starting pitching…The Rangers have already won this series from Seattle. This is the second consecutive series the Rangers have beaten the Mariners in the Kingdome, something I don’t think they have accomplished since the early 1980’s…No midweek blues for the Red Shoes: Texas has played 2 games on Tuesday and 2 on Wednesday and have won all 4.
Lastly and without commentary, let’s have a look at Burkett’s two starts this season:

DATE   ip  h  r er bb so hr
April  9  2.2 7  5 5  0  2  2
April 14  4.1 8  4 4  1  6  0
---------------------------------------
totals    7.0 15 9 9  1  8  2  ERA-11.57

Pudge Rodriguez beat the Seattle Mariners 9-6 last night (OK, the real score was 15-6, but 9 of the 15 were Pudge’s). He whacked a third deck home run in the first inning, scoring three runs. That was only the 21st person to hit a ball up there in the history of the Kingdome. He then went on to hit a two run single in the second, which possibly could have been more than just a single if Jay Buhner didn’t make a really awesome sliding stop of the ball headed to the wall. That put Pudge’s RBI total at 5 for the first two innings. Then comes the third. With the bases loaded, Pudge fouls off a really good pitch for him to hit – if you were watching this on TV, they showed a closeup of Pudge after he fouled off the ball, and he knew it. Then a couple of pitches later came what Bill Jones described as “The ultimate hanging curve ball” that Pudge almost put into the third deck again in left field.
It was Pudge’s first ever grand slam, and boy did he know it. When the ball went, he started running down the first base line, and most of that time was spent looking in the dugout smiling. As he was going around the bases, he was bursting with smiles. It’s funny, as my wife Lynn had just commented not 2 minutes before that you hardly ever see Pudge smile at all during the game. That gave Pudge 9 RBI’s. He had a chance the next at bat to tie the AL record at 11, but he popped out. He was then taken out for Zaun in a complete rout. What a night for Pudge! Check out the pics below for some of the smiling. :)
As great as this was, it wasn’t all that happened tonight that was good. Mike Morgan was really good through the first 6 innings he pitched. The first three innings were perfect – as was the fifth inning. He had only allowed three hits through the end of the sixth inning – although two of them were solo home runs. He was also really economical with his pitching – he had only thrown 24 pitches through the first 3 innings, and a total of 48 through the first 5. Not sure what his final pitch count was, though. He did seem to run out of gas in the 7th, allowing two doubles, and then a home run to bring the run count to 5. Still – it was the best starting pitching performance this season outside of Aaron Sele (who wears glasses – I didn’t know that. Sele was shown in the dugout wearing glasses). One other thing about Morgan. Grieve said this was the first time that Mike Morgan had beaten the Mariners since 1979(!). They also joked that if Mike Morgan is still pitching next season, he’ll be the first pitcher ever to pitch in four decades, and 2 centuries. :) When you look at him, he doesn’t seem like he’s been around quite that long.
After Morgan, we brought in Jeff Zimmerman, who made his major league pitching debut and pitched for 1 2/3 innings, striking out 4 batters of the 6 he faced (one of which was former Ranger Domingo Cedeno & Edgar Martinez). Zimmerman looked VERY impressive. After Zimmerman, Danny Patterson came in for the ninth, and allowed one run (total of 6). Patterson seemed just “OK”. He wasn’t bad, but wasn’t great, either.
One bad thing, though – Raffy came out in the first inning after an RBI single to right with a slightly pulled hamstring. He’s listed as day to day, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the knee surgery – but anytime you hear the word “hamstring”, you worry.
In unbaseball remarks, there were two VERY funny Ranger commercials on TV last night. The first was one about Nolan Ryan and the Hall of Fame, and the other was one of the regular Ranger commercials with John Wetteland. I’m going to try and get them on tape in the next few days – when I do, I’ll have ’em here as downloads. One final thing. The final batter for the Mariners popped up, and when he did, you could quite clearly hear someone screaming “FUCK”. Not sure who it was for sure, but after the out, Danny Patterson was quite clearly shown going “SHIT” & “FUCK” (if you could read lips, that is). :)
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
It looks like Rodriguez is back in Seattle. Future Hall of Famer Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez, that is.
Pudge set a new Texas Rangers’ individual record by bustin’ out the whoopin’ stick and driving in nine runs as the Rangers proved they weren’t the only team with pitching problems – as they destroyed the Mariners, 15 to 6. The 9 RBI’s break a record set by Jose Canseco which was later tied by Juan Gonzalez at 8.
Pudge went nuts in this game, hitting a three-run homer, a grand slam and he hit a couple of singles. The Rangers’ offense thrived off Seattle starter Ken Cloude, who was making his 1999 debut. After this outing, his ERA sits at 37.80. If he could give up a few more earned runs, maybe Doug Melvin will try and make a trade for him…tongue firmly implanted in cheek.
The Rangers literally hate playing in Seattle. In the mid-1990’s, Rangers’ radio announcer Eric Nadel appropriately nicknamed the dome the “House of Horrors” and for good reason – they rarely win there. But they had no problems Tuesday. Just about every Ranger went goo-goo with the bat, (Rusty Greer had 4 hits and a walk, for example). The score was 13-0 before 3 innings were up. End of ball game, time for bed…yawn.
We’ve bitched and moaned the first week of the season about the Rangers’ pitching, but look at Seattle’s pitching, which is touted to be much better than the Rangers’ staff.
Going into the game, the Rangers weren’t even close to being the worst pitching team in the American League. Now just try and imagine two worse pitching teams. Along with the Detroit Tigers, the Seattle Mariners reside statistically. The Mariners now have a team ERA of 7.38. That’s 1/100ths of a run lower than the Tigers.
Ranger Mike Morgan became the first pitcher other than Aaron Sele to even pitch long enough to qualify for a win. Morgan wasn’t perfect, but pitching in the Mariners’ Pinball Arena, at least he survived, despite giving up 3 home runs in 6.1 innings.
Jeff Zimmerman, just called up to provide relief in the bullpen, pitched superbly. He struck out 4 in 1.1 scoreless innings. He’s a welcome addition to this staff.
I may still complain about bad pitching in future columns, but I have come to realize that the grass is not always greener on the other side, folks. Especially, in this case, when the grass is artificial.