Glendon Rusch continues to pitch his way into the plans for the season. He’s done very well this spring, and yesterday’s outing was no different. He went 4 innings, giving up just a lone run on 4 hits. He only struck out one, but he walked no one. In fact, none of our pitchers walked anyone the entire day – which is a big shocker. There’s also an article about Rusch on the Rangers site here. While I’m all for a pitcher that can do well for us pitching, Rusch is a non roster invite which means he’d have to be added to the 40 man roster. That means of course dropping someone. Unless some of our “won’t play” players (like Rusty Greer) haven’t already been moved to the 60 day DL. Don’t know. I’ll ask Jamey Newberg, he might know.
Rusch gave up the only run of the day, as I said before. The other pitchers we used (Powell, Cordero, Shouse, Mahay), all gave up no runs, with no walks, and on a total of only two hits (both by Powell). Was an extremely well pitched game.
Offensively, Michael Young is the star of the game. He went 3 for 4 with 2 RBI’s, and 2 runs scored. He also stole a base, too. In fact, we had four stolen bases yesterday (Young, E Young, Soriano, and Laird (!)). That’s uncharacteristic of the Rangers. Although with most of our big boppers gone from the team now, that might be something we see more often. Speaking of Laird, he too had another great day, going 2 for 3, scoring twice. He keeps that up, and the current talk of trading Einar Diaz somewhere will probably be more than just talk.
One nice side point is that we did this all against Greg Maddux. All 6 runs came against a Hall of Fame pitcher. Gotta love that.
Line Score CAC FINAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E - - - - - - - - - - - - CHICAGO CUBS 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 6 1 TEXAS 0 1 3 2 0 0 0 0 x 6 9 0 FINAL WP - GLENDON RUSCH (1-0) LP - GREG MADDUX (0-1) TIME: 2:10 ATT: 9,509 Box Score CHICAGO CUBS (1) AT TEXAS (6) CHICAGO CUBS AB R H BI TEXAS AB R H BI T Walker 2b 3 0 0 0 M Young ss 4 2 3 2 F Martinez 2b 1 0 0 0 M Alexander ss 0 0 0 0 C Patterson cf 3 0 0 0 H Blalock 3b 3 0 1 1 C Murray cf 1 0 0 0 D Newhan pr 0 0 0 0 S Sosa rf 3 0 0 0 A Soriano 2b 4 1 1 0 D Kelton rf 1 0 0 0 J Bourgeois 2b 0 0 0 0 A Ramirez 3b 2 1 2 0 B Fullmer dh 3 0 0 0 B Selby 3b 2 0 0 0 H Perry 1b 3 0 1 2 D Lee dh 3 0 0 0 R Nivar cf 1 0 0 0 N Jackson ph 1 0 0 0 E Young lf 3 1 0 0 T Hollandsworth 1 2 0 2 1 A Gonzalez 1b 1 0 0 0 S Mcclain 1b 2 0 0 0 K Mench rf 4 0 1 1 A Gonzalez ss 2 0 0 0 J Tyner lf 0 0 0 0 R Martinez ss 1 0 0 0 L Nix cf 4 0 0 0 R Theriot ss 0 0 0 0 G Laird c 3 2 2 0 J Dubois lf 2 0 1 0 T Hubbard lf 1 0 0 0 M Barrett c 2 0 1 0 P Bako c 1 0 0 0 TOTALS 33 1 6 1 TOTALS 33 6 9 6 CHICAGO CUBS 010 000 000 -- 1 TEXAS 013 200 00x -- 6 E--T Walker. LOB--CHICAGO CUBS 5, TEXAS 5. 2B--M Barrett, M Young 2, G Laird, K Mench. 3B--A Ramirez. SB--G Laird 1 (2), A Soriano 1 (2), E Young 1 (2), M Young 1 (2). CS--B Fullmer. IP H R ER BB SO HR CHICAGO CUBS G Maddux (L,0-1) 4 8 6 5 0 2 0 M Wuertz 2 0 0 0 1 1 0 B Corey 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 J Borowski 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 TEXAS G Rusch (W,1-0) 4 4 1 1 0 1 0 J Powell 2 2 0 0 0 2 0 F Cordero 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 B Shouse 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 R Mahay 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 HBP--H Blalock by B Corey. SO--CHN: P Bako, T Hubbard, N Jackson, D Lee, C Patterson, T Walker. TEX: L Nix 3, B Fullmer, M Young. BB--TEX: B Fullmer. T--2:10. A--9,509.