At the start of the season, I remembered thinking that Mark Clark would be really good for us, and win over 15 games or something like that. He may yet still do that, but I start to wonder when he’s gonna turn it around. It’s sad, but I think we’d be better off with Bobby Witt (3-0, 4.11, 35 IP), Darren Oliver (2-1, 2.72, 39.2 IP), & Julio Santana (1-3, 9.00, 26 IP) based on what they’ve done this year so far! Well, maybe not Santana, but he’s still better than some of what we have (Burkett – 0-2, 12.00, 9 IP & Clark 2-3, 7.85, 36.2 IP).
Six Ranger pitchers, and not a whole lot good out of any of ’em tonight. That’s really all I have to say about the pitching in tonight’s game.
This game’s offense started rather interestingly. I was running an errand after work, and heard the first inning or two on my car radio. Wow! What a start. Two home runs to start the game by two guys who hardly ever hit any home runs – the HR by Goody was only his tenth career home run! However, after that Rusty Greer had a single, and Pat Hentgen shut down the Rangers for a good number of innings. The Rangers next broke through when Juan hit a solo home run in the sixth. Matter of fact, *ALL* of the Rangers runs in this game were due to the longball, as Juan hit a 3 run HR his next time up, which means he personally was responsible for 4 of the 6 runs the Rangers got, and all 6 were long ball RBI’s – a very American League way of doing things. :)
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
The Rangers lost 9-6 to Toronto Friday.
The game began with Tom Goodwin and Mark McLemore doing something they never have done and will probably never do again; they homered back-to-back. Two batters 2-0 Rangers.
Mark Clark, who has been almost as bad as John Burkett, continued to struggle and surrendered 4 runs in the bottom of the first after Goodwin and McLemore staked him to a magical 2-0 lead. Old nemesis Carlos Delgado hit a 2-run blast for the Jays in helping destroy the Ranger lead.
It got worse. The Jays scored 5 runs off Clark in less than 4 innings. He walked 4 hitters, gave up 7 hits and even uncorked a wild pitch. For each out he recorded in the game, he gave up a baserunner. Simply put, he stunk.
Juan Gonzalez hit a couple more home runs, giving him 7. His 4 RBIs give hime 27, which puts him 2nd in the American League. The reigning AL MVP has been red hot the last two weeks.
There is good news. Anaheim, Seattle and Oakland all lost and none of these teams has any shown any consistancy this year.