Found out at the start of the game that Esteban Loaiza was put on the 15 day DL, with no expected return date, as he had his hand smashed in a car door by his wife, and showed up at the ballpark at noon with his hand in some sort of cast or bandage. That was the first the Rangers found out about it, and had to make a quick roster move, sending Loaiza to the DL, and calling up Ryan Glynn. About the game itself…
Oh man, how do you talk about this one? It was a disaster from the getgo. It’s a game where we gave up four home runs to Albert Belle & Charles Johnson, Aaron Sele pitched 99 pitches in 2.2 innings, jacked the team ERA back up pretty bad again… Jim’s remarks below blamed Loaiza for not reporting his accident. Today’s DMN has a quote from Johnny saying that he doesn’t blame Loaiza directly, not reporting this kind of thing is rampant in the majors, he said about 90% of players don’t report this kind of thing. This was our chance to sweep the Orioles for the first time in a four game series since our first year as the Rangers in July of 1972. It didn’t happen, obviously.
Good stuff:
- Kelly Dransfeldt hit his first major league home run today. It was a real corker, too. Way out into left field. Felt good for him. TV coverage showed the ushers escorting the person who caught the ball out, presumably to swap it for some presents.
- Ryan Glynn, making his first major league apparance today struck out Cal Ripken for his first out. Presumably they took that ball out of the game, too.
- Jon Shave doubled in a run in the bottom of the eighth.
- Tom Goodwin tripled in the bottom of the ninth, scoring Dransfeldt.
I suppose the interesting thing was the apperance of Ryan Glynn in the ninth inning. At the start of the game, he wasn’t even in the state of Texas. Monday Morning’s Dallas Morning news had a great article on how Glynn got the call, and made it to the game in time to pitch in the ninth. Some might question the call to get him in now, but in a game like this, it wouldn’t HURT to put the kid out there, even if he got knocked around (which he did a little).
Games like this suck, but hell, at least the 16 runs were all at once. Whether the Orioles scored 6 or 16, it was enough to beat us, although it won’t help our ERA. Not that it much matters, I think assuming we win, it’ll still be with a stratospheric ERA anyway. Too bad, I had hopes for our pitching coming into this season.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
The Rangers’ hopeful sweep of the Orioles was swept away rather omniously Sunday afternoon. The Orioles pounded out 24 hits (yes, 24) in a 16-5 bombing of the Rangers.
You could place the blame of this loss on several players but let’s start with Aaron Sele.
Sele was woeful; in 2.2 innings he threw 99 pitches – or more than 12 pitches for each out he recorded. And that was the good news. The bad news is he gave up 11 hits, 4 bases on balls and 9 earned runs.
Sele was the Rangers’ best starting pitcher in April.
You could also put part of the blame on Esteban Loaiza – who didn’t even get into the game. Loaiza broke his hand after the game Saturday evening in a freak accident. However, he failed to inform anyone of the incident until a couple hours before game time. Therefore, the Rangers were without a long reliever until the 8th inning when Ryan Glynn (AAA) made it to the ballpark. Oates probably would have pulled Sele in the the 1st inning instead of in the 3rd.
Not that it would have made much a difference.
Offensively, the Rangers had 11 hits, including a 3-run 2nd inning, but did little else and certainly they didn’t have enough to beat the O’s on Sunday.
The Oakland A’s are just a 1/2 a game behind the Rangers. If Oakland can pick up another starting pitcher, the Rangers are in trouble.