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his has been a good back and forth game with the Yankees which was nice that we kept up with them.
Kosovo air strikes started right when Rusty Greer hit a single and drove in Mac to tie the game 3-3. They kept interrupting the Ranger game a few times to report on what was going on there. That included a report from over there, and we got to hear President Clinton, too. He talked over the entire top of the 5th inning.
Rangers blew a big chance in the 6th – Goodwin had a triple with one out, then Mac walked, and Greer & Gonzalez struck out (Gonzalez with his usual swing at something way out of the strike zone and low). Damn! Also, Jeff Juden of the Yankees could NOT find the strike zone. Walked a ton of people, including almost beaning Clayton. However, did not allow a run. That kind of stuff really bugs me. Not once, but twice having an excellent opportunity, and doing nothing.
After a pretty decent game, the Rangers put in the guys who were going to be AAA anyway, Sheldon & Gallagher starting making errors, giving the Yankees a larger lead (3).
And then Ruben Mateo cracks another big Home run to tie the thing. Boy, this really is a back and forth game. Oh man!
And then the friggin errors do us in at the end. We gave up a couple runs in the top of the ninth primarly due to errors, and then we lost the game. Was nice to see us hang in there though – but I’m really starting to get annoyed by all the miscues. :(
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Finally, another game on the radio. I listened via Broadcast.com. Due to a server malfunction on their part, I missed most of the first and some of the 2nd innings. Paul Harvey was piped in for a while from some Oklahoma City station…so it wasn’t a total loss…..goooood day!
Anyway, the big “pitch-off” today was really nothing more than another crummy performance by Esteban Loaiza and an average Mike Morgan outing. Loaiza developed a blister and had to leave early. He was behind just about every hitter. I think he had 3 balls on 5 different hitters but wound up walking just one. Morgan sailed along his first 4 innings, then he gave up some hard hits and a couple of earned runs. The Rangers made two costly errors in the infield behind him.
As far the “pitch-off” goes, Morgan won easily. despite that bad inning before he left the game.
Ruben Mateo continues to play very well. He homered in his only at bat, a two-run smash that tied the game late. He’s now hit in 11 straight spring contests. You’d think he’s slated for AAA, but the kid can flat-out play baseball. I’m very excited about his progress. Oates says never say never, so he’s leaving his mind open about the young Dominican. How can he not? Mateo has been the story of the Rangers’ spring.
Mark McLemore seems to be making great strides, as he stole a couple of bases and made at least two outstanding plays at second base (according to the radio guys). I would have given him up for retirement after last year. Can you believe he’s just 34? With his past ailments, it seems he’s 54.
Anyway, the Rangers lost. The games seem to mean less and less this time of the spring, as now the blood curdles for the season to start. The team is off tomorrow, but I might write a commentary anyway, so look for it. :)

I’m getting really annoyed about not being able to hear the Rangers on the radio. I know it’s less than two weeks, and they’ll all be there, but dammit, I want Eric & Vince! :) If anyone’s actually reading these things, don’t forget, the Rangers are on TV in the Metroplex this Friday and Saturday for the first time.
After yesterday’s tough loss, it was nice to bounce back and get a tight win. Again our pitching looked pretty decent (even though we gave up 4), and Burkett had a decent outing. I hope there’s more good ones than bad ones for Burkey this year.
David Wells pitched really good against us again, which was shades of the 98 playoffs. I like David Wells because of his musical tastes, but dammit, he doesn’t have to pitch against us quite so good, does he? But, we got a balk out of him, though. :) We had some back to back longball today from Pudge & Todd Zeile, and
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
The pitching of the Texas Rangers continues to improve day-by-day, as proven in the game Tuesday. The Rangers won the game, 4 to 3 over the Blue Jays. But just like the three days prior, the big news is that four of the men in the five man rotation are pitching well.
Rangers’ starter John Burkett, who was terrible most of last year and in his first two outings this spring, pitched his second consecutive effective outing. Here’s a look at his last two spring outings:

         IP H R ER BB SO HR
03-18-99 5  3 1 1  1  2  0
Tuesday  5  3 2 2  0  6  0
-----------------------------
totals   10 6 3 3  1  8  0

Have a look at the last 4 games by the Rangers’ starters:

              IP  H R ER BB SO HR
Rick Helling   5  7 2 2  2  2  0
Aaron Sele     5  1 1 1  0  6  1
Mark Clark     5  6 3 3  1  2  0
Burkett        5  3 2 2  0  6  0
--------------------------------
totals        20 17 7 8  3 18  1

Those last 4 starts have an earned run average of 3.60. While that’s not earth-shattering, it’s impressive news for fans of the feeble-armed Rangers.
There continues to be trouble with one spot in the rotation however; the one belonging to Esteban Loaiza. He’s been just plain bad in his last two outings: (5.2 IP, 9 hits, 6 earned runs). Johnny Oates, who had declared Loaiza the starter before spring play ever began, declared yesterday that on Wednesday Loaiza will be pitching for his rotation life. On the horizon is veteran Mike Morgan, who’s been nothing short of spectacular this spring. Tomorrow, they will duel in a “pitch-off”, with the winner getting the #5 spot in the rotation, according to an article in Tuesday’s Dallas Morning News. There’s even talk of the Rangers possibly trading Loaiza, so it’s apparent the Rangers are unhappy with the way he’s performed.
Meanwhile. lefty Mike Munoz has really stepped it up the last couple of weeks. At first, he didn’t look all that impressive according to the stats. However, his last 6 outings have been a completely different story:

              IP H R ER BB SO HR
outing 1      2  2 0 0  0  2  0
outing 2    1.1  1 0 0  1  1  0
outing 3     .1  0 0 0  0  0  0
outing 4      1  2 1 1  0  3  1
outing 5      2  2 0 0  0  1  0
outing 6      2  2 0 0  0  0  0
----------------------------------
ERA 1.04)   8.2  9 1 1  1  7  1

On the offensive side, which rarely is a worry, Ivan Rodriguez and Todd Zeile hit back-to-back homers today, the first for Pudge, and the second for Todd. Rodriguez added 2 RBI’s as well.

A tough loss, but we did get pretty decent pitching again, which was nice to see. I really hope that holds up over the course of the season.
Mark Clark is really starting to look like another good pickup for Doug Melvin – I thought that when we first got him, but it’s nice to be seeing Clark prove that theory correct. We’re starting to become more focued, it seems, and that’s good, I’d like to hit opening day with a good stride.
We pitched against Justin Thompson, someone I’d love to have here in Arlington, but unfortunately, he’s the ace of Detroit, I don’t see that ever happening. :) Actually, I traded for him on my computer baseball game (I love to play Hardball 6), so he’s a Ranger in my mind. :)
More errors (OK, only one) today. It seems that every game that goes by has some sort of error, and it’s starting to irk me. We had a big problem with that in 97, and it didn’t get a whole lot better in 98. I hope we can get a lid on this soon.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Ah, another spring weekday, another day without the Rangers on the radio. The Rangers lost a tough one on Monday 3-2 to the Detroit Tigers.
Despite the loss, the Rangers’ pitching continues to improve. This is the 3rd straight ballgame that the Ranger hurlers have pitched well. Mark Clark gave up 3 runs in 5 innings, but it appears wasn’t hit hard. He only walked one. His control has been excellent this spring – and throughout his career. He’s a true control pitcher.
Juan Gonzalez just keeps hitting. Today he rapped out a couple of singles and drove in another 2 runs. Last year Gonzalez was in great shape and stayed off the disabled list. They say this year he’s in even better shape. Perhaps being in such great shape will again keep him healthy all year.
Justin Thompson, the lefty who will be the opening day starter for Detroit when they meet the Rangers in two weeks, pitched well for Detroit. Let’s hope the Rangers have his number when they meet again.

The injury report: Today’s Dallas Morning News is reporting that Wetteland might start the season on the disabled list, and today’s radio broadcast wasn’t so gloomy, but they didn’t sing praises about his recovery, either. He’s been ordered not to pitch for four days in order to give his body some time to heal. Johnny Oates was worried he was overcompensating, and gave him some extra rest. The radio guys also said that Luis Alicea was going to have an MRI tomorrow morning to determine what’s going on with him.
On the plus side, Ruben Mateo came back in the game today after missing some, and hit a pinch hit two run home run, which was way cool to hear (would have been nicer to see, but we finally get pre-season TV baseball next weekend). Also, the guys were saying that Raffy has set a date to return to game play for next weekend. Let’s see.
This sounded like a very well rounded team game (for the most part). Aaron Sele pitched by far his best game of the spring so far, only allowing 1 hit (unfortunately, that hit was a home run). He struck out six Reds in the five innings he pitched. They were all called strikeouts. That could have been due to the umpire in question. I remember this guy from my time listening to Phillies games in the National League. Still, Sele sounded like he was sharp today Patterson, though, didn’t do the same. He pitched one inning, and gave up a couple of runs. He didn’t sound like he had it in control at all. Jonathan Johnson, on the other hand, did! He pitched two perfect innings, which is always great to hear. Eric Gunderson came in and got a save, too.
There was some nice hitting today, including the aforementioned HR by Mateo, and several doubles. Milt Cuyler also sounded really sharp today, which was nice to see, as I have a gut feeling we’ll need some extra depth this year. Great game!
Commentary by Jim Weeks:
The Rangers erupted for 4 runs in the sixth inning Sunday and dyed the Reds, 5-3. The Rangers scored 2 of their runs in the inning when pinch-hitter Ruben Mateo slammed a 2-run shot off Dennis Reyes. Mateo is now 9 for his last 16 (.563) with 3 homers, a double, 4 walks and 8 RBIs. He’s also hit in his last 8 straight exhibition contests, the longest such streak by any Ranger this spring.
The story of the game however, was the greedy pitching of Aaron Sele, who limited the Reds to just one hit over 5 innings, while striking out 6. As good as Helling was on Saturday, Sele was even moreso on Sunday.
Eric Gunderson picked up a save and continued pitching well this spring. Gunderson’s probably had one of the lefty jobs in the bullpen all along, as long as he pitched decently. By all accounts, he’s pitched pretty well.
The Rangers limited the Redlegs to just 5 hits overall and was by far the best pitched game they’ve had all spring. This is very encouraging sign, especially after the good performance yesterday by Helling.
The Rangers have now won 2 in a row and are 9-7-1, despite starting off the spring 1 and 4.

My wife and I were out this afternoon doing some shopping, and I totally forgot the game was on the radio – I didn’t get to listen to any of it, unfortunately. By the time we remembered it was on, it was 3:30, and the game was already over. :(
Fortunately, we have Jim’s commentary to back me up here. :)
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
The Rangers won today for the first time in their last 3 exhibition games, led by a Juan Gonzalez 3-run homer and the pitching of Rick Helling.
It was Gonzo’s 2nd homer this spring. He’s been hitting extremely well but not for much power. The two-time AL MVP also added a single.
Rusty Greer remains hot, going 3 for 3 today. It’s good to see the 3 & 4 guys in the lineup hitting so well with just a little over a couple weeks until the season starts. Tom Goodwin added a couple of hits as well.
Helling surrended 2 runs and 2 walks in 5 innings, which for any Texas pitcher is good news. The way this team scores, if the starters’ ERA can stay around 4.50, they’ll pick up a lot of wins.
Hyped rookies Mike Zywicka and Kelly Dransfeldt have played a lot this spring but both have done virtually nothing offensively. I wouldn’t be surprised to see both in AAA camp by the next cut. I do think Ruben Mateo will make that cut however, and who knows how long he will be around after that.

As I watched the score on this game come in over the sportswire, I saw that we managed to put together a comeback, which was cool. I was thinking that comebacks are cool, but I hate to rely on them, as you generally get disappointed when you have to come back all the time. Then I saw we were going in to the bottom of the 9th, and then D’oh!, extra innings. Watched them go by, and once it got to the 12th, I figured there wouldn’t be any more. There weren’t, the game ended in a tie in the middle of the bottom of the 12th, but for a slightly different reason. According to the newswire, THE GAME WAS CALLED A TIE AFTER BOTH TEAMS RAN OUT OF PITCHERS. I thought that was pretty funny. I know things like that happen in pre-season, but it was still silly to see it reported that way. :)
Three hours and 38 minutes is a long time for a spring training game! It was nice to see several of our guys keep a hot streak going (where was that in the playoffs? ). Hope Venafro isn’t hurt too bad, but I would have been surprised if he made the club anyway. The erratic Loaiza showed up today, it seemed. I know it’s only three runs, but with all the stink the Rangers are making about Loaiza “stepping it up” this year, I don’t think they’ll put up a lot with the “really awesome pitching one day, crappy the next time” stuff that he’s known for.
On a seperate note, the Rangers site hasn’t been updated with Media notes in the last couple of days. Hopefully they get that rolling again soon.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
The Rangers and Phillies tied a spring contest today 6-6. The game wasn’t on the radio (this is not a recording!) again, so I just waited for the boxscore like a good little boy and tried to stay out of trouble in the meantime.
It looks like the Rangers ran out of pitchers in this 12 inning affair after lefty Mike Venafro took one off the arm. I hope he isn’t too seriously injured, although his chances of making the team dim everyday.
Gregg Zahn, Ruben Mateo, Juan Gonzalez and Rusty Greer all continued their hot streaks and it’s good to see Mark McLemore get a couple of hits. He’s a big key for the Rangers this year and if he doesn’t get on base like they expect him to, it might mean the Rangers will be forced to make a move for one until Kelly Dransfeldt is ready. Royce Clayton also had a couple hits for the good guys.
Esteban Loaiza, who reportedly pitched well in his last outing despite bad numbers, looks to have pitched pretty poorly today, considering he walked a couple of batters and gave up 3 runs in 3 innings.
Danny Patterson, Eric Gunderson, Tony Fossas and Venafro all had scoreless outings. Eric Gunderson seems to be locking up one of the lefty spots in the bullpen. Jeff Zimmerman pitched today as well and despite giving up a run, he still looks to have a hold of one spot in the pen. He might be the last cut of the spring.
The Rangers are hitting well as a team, as they are hitting about .296 after this game.

Oh great. Another big inning against us. We were up 1-0 for awhile, and then in the fifth inning, we give up five runs. This is starting to become a disturbing pattern. We made a run at it towards the end of the game, and closed the big gap (at the time 8-1) to 9-7, but we still lost. A bit busy this afternoon – I don’t have the time to write much here. However, we did have another error. :( Mike Morgan is starting to look like someone who will stick, which is odd considering this would be his 11th team. :)
Was nice to see a rally in the making, makes we wish we had two more innings. :)
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Argh! If there’s one thing I have learned in all the years I have been a fan of the Rangers, it’s that losing two games in one day is no fun. The Rangers fell again to the Twins in the second half of today’s double-dip 9 to 7 (another 7 inning game).
There’s not a whole lot good to say about this game. It’s safe to say that Mike Morgan not only has a job for his 11th team (a MLB record) but that the Rangers will be counting on him to get them out of a lot of fires this year. Really good teams have a guy in the pen like Morgan, a guy who can come in and start when he is needed or break out the fire extinguisher in the 5th inning of a ballgame. Plus he can pitch almost anytime he’s needed. His nickname is “Rubberarm”. It looks like he pitched well again today and I’m not surprised.
The spring pyromaniacs (the scrapple from the bullpen who probably aren’t going to make the team) were at it again in game two. Matt Perisho, Jonathan Johnson and Mike Munoz all need to get out of the first-aid kit for their burns.
Hopefully, Perisho (who’s coming off arm surgery) and Johnson (who’s not coming off of anything but another lousy year in the minors) will probably be pining away at the AAA camp in a week or so. Who knows about Munoz; he’s someone Johnny Oates has said good things about in the papers, despite his rather lousy performances.
Gregg Zahn, who hit under .200 last year in Florida, remains hot, belting another homer today. Ruben Mateo remains red hot too, whipping out another couple of hits and knocking in another couple of runs. You know, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Mateo captures the imagination of Oates and Doug Melvin this spring and makes this ballclub. I read that there was serious talk in the winter about releasing Tom Goodwin outright, because Melvin was assured by the people at Tulsa that Mateo was ready to play in the big leagues. He might struggle offensively at first, but would he struggle any worse than when Tom Goodwin struggles? It’s something that Oates and Melvin will have to go over carefully in the next couple of weeks. My guess is that Mateo goes to AAA and if Goodwin struggles at all, then Goodwin will be benched or traded.

Again, we’re not on KRLD (grrr), so there’s little to talk about (from my standpoint, anyway) that is game specific. I did kind of watch the line score developing off the sports ticker, and it was 1-0 for the longest time, I thought pitching was doing well. Then I turn in and see a big 6 spot for the Twins. Burkett was tagged for the loss, even though four of the Twin runs came off a slam against Wetteland. Burkett did pretty good, pitching five innings and allowing only one run and three hits. Kind of a shame then that he got tagged for the loss, as our runs didn’t come until after Wetteland allowed six friggin runs in one inning! Wetteland isn’t doing that great so far this spring. Of course, he’s coming off a surgery, so he has more of an excuse than some others who are struggling this spring.
We did have a couple of home runs by our guys (Mateo & Clayton), but that was all the offense. We also had another error today. I haven’t actually sat down and counted them, but it really seems like we’re making far more errors than we did last year, and last year wasn’t that great. :( I know, I know, it’s still Spring Training, but I still don’t like to see them, anyway.
Other: Boy, Kerry Wood sure is taking a beating. Out all of 99, and could conceivably miss 2000 as well! Yikes!
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
The Rangers came up losers 7-2 to Minnesota Thursday in the first game of a rare spring doubleheader, ending a 5 game win team streak. I can only think of one other time that the Rangers ever played a spring doubleheader and that was several years back.
This game was only played to a 7 inning conclusion, since travel by bus is the norm in the spring, the Twins obviously didn’t want the hassle of fighting alligators *and* old ladies all night long on some God-forsaken Florida highway to Fort Myers (I can say that since I live only 150 miles from Fort Myers). This game wasn’t on radio anywhere, so you’ll have to forgive me if my accounts from the box score aren’t very accurate. I got stuck listening to the only all-AL Grapefruit game on the web today; Boston and Tampa Bay. It was bad anough listening to those Beantown announcers yesterday and today I got a second-helping. Oh well.
Rangers’ starter John Burkett came up with a good outing, throwing 5 strong innings and giving up just 1 run on 3 hits. This is his first good outing this spring and it’s without-a-doubt the strongest outing by a Rangers starter all spring.
Unfortunately, John Wetteland looks like he was shelled again. In his last 2 outings (2 IP) this spring, he’s given up a hefty 12 runs on 11 hits and 2 homers. Makes me wonder if his ankle and elbow really are ok. If they aren’t, the Rangers will have another large problem on their hands other than the disabilities of Mike Simms and Rafael Palmeiro.
Ruben Mateo continues to have an auspicious spring. In this game, the young Dominican went 1 for 1 with a homer and an RBI. In his last 5 games, Mateo is 5 for 9 with 2 homers, 2 doubles and 3 RBIs.
Rusty Greer had a couple of hits for the Rangers and Pudge Rodriguez had 2 as well, including a double. Royce Clayton hit a HR in the final frame but also commited his third error of the spring.