Royce Clayton doesn’t hit many home runs, but when he does, he does it off someone good. Last night it was Darryl Kile giving up a homer to Royce in the 6th, tying the game; Royce’s second of the year. His other home run was last week in Arizona off Randy Johnson. Royce is playing and hitting better lately, but I get the feeling he’s still not all there.
All three Ranger runs were courtesy of the longball. The other one was Rafael Palmeiro in the bottom of the eighth inning, with a two run blast to win the game. He’s definitely Mr. Clutch this season, that’s for sure.
In a disturbing trend in the last month, Rick Helling pitched excellent, but didn’t get any runs, and was removed, and the bullpen swiped his run for him (again Zimmerman, who is now 7-0 in relief). It’s great that he’s pitching well, but our offense needs to wake up a bit earlier during Helling’s games. Helling is lowering his ERA, he’s down to 4.5. That’s still not that great, but considering how much up in the stratosphere it was after April, it’s great to see it somewhere near reality.
In the game, Tom Goodwin injured himself running from first to third, and had to come out of the game. It looked fairly bad when he was being helped off the field, and Roberto Kelly came in for him. With Mike Simms ready to come off the DL, I wonder what will happen. The Rangers said that Ruben Mateo will be in Arlington today, so that brings up an interesting scenario. If Goodwin goes on the DL, do they give the job to Kelly and activate Simms for backup? Do they call up Mateo, give him the job, leave Kelly as the backup (possibly pissing him off in the last year of his contract with us), and leave Simms on the DL (probably pissing him off, too)? Do we bring up Mateo, give the job to Kelly, and have Mateo as a backup? Do we activate Simms, give Kelly the job, with Simms as backup, and leave Mateo in AAA? It’s an intersting scenario. As I write this (1:45PM on Saturday the 12th), the decision still hasn’t been made (or I can’t find it on the net). I’m really curious to see what happens here.
Personally, I’d like to give it to Kelly and activate Simms, leaving Mateo in AAA. That is if the injury to Goodwin requires a trip to the DL, and it isn’t too long term. If it *IS* a long term thing, bring up Mateo give him the job, keep Kelly as a backup, and still activate Simms, and send one of the bullpen guys down to AAA. I think we’re out of options on Simms, and we have to expose him to the wire. I don’t really want to lose him.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Rafael Palmeiro’s 2 run homer in the 8th inning led the Rangers to a 3-2 comeback victory over the Rockies Friday.
Palmeiro just keeps coming through with the big hit – he has 4 of the last 5 game-winning RBI’s for the Rangers – all of them late in the ball game.
Jeff Zimmerman, now an amazing 7-0 with an ERA of 1.13 and John Wetteland shut down the Rockies in the last 2 innings.
These two have been outstanding as now the Rangers’ bullpen is 15-1 with 31 saves.
Rick Helling pitched well for 7 innings but Texas had a hard time scoring off of Darryl Kile.
Kile might wind up in a Rangers’ uniform before the trade deadline. This is a pitcher the Rangers wanted a couple of years ago but he chose Rockies’ money instead. The Rockies would want a couple of Minor League pitchers for him and probably Cesar King as well.
Tom Goodwin injured his hip during the game running the bases. There’s no word yet as I write this how serious an injury it is but this may well open the door for Ruben Mateo, by far the highest rated offensive prospect in baseball, who’s having a monster year at AAA.