One of the guys who has been a phenom this spring has been the White Sox pitcher Brandon McCarthy. His line has been fabulous. But not anymore. The Rangers torched him. McCarthy gave up 9 hits and 7 earned runs in 3.2 IP. The amusing thing is that none of the other White Sox pitchers gave up anything. We had scored all our runs in the second (5) and third (2) innings. After that, donut. Cotts, Hermanson, & Walker kept the Ranger bats under check for 5.1 innings. But the pasting we put on McCarthy was more than enough.
In the pasting was a home run by Hank Blalock (his first of the spring). In total, Blalock and 3 RBI’s. Gerald Laird had two, and Adrian Gonzalez had one. In fact Gonzalez went 3 for 4, and is looking more like a guy who is ready to come up to the majors in my eyes. I suspect if he doesn’t make it up this season, he might get moved, unless we’re holding on to him incase Teixeira/Boras wants insane money for Tex to stay. Richard Hidalgo also went 2 for 4, and is looking like an awesome acquisition so far this spring. Alfonso Soriano seems to have broken out of his slump, going 2 for 3 this game, although from what I’m reading, he still isn’t at 100%, and it might be mental.
Pitching wise, Ryan Drese pitched like he was in mid season form, going 6 innings, 5 hits, and just one earned run. The only downside is that he walked 4 and only struck out 3. But still, he got the job done, and has earned the opening game nod from Buck Showalter; Kenny Rogers gets the home opener. Our other pitchers (Nunez, Tejera, Wasdin, & Brocail) gave up just one run (it was Tejera) over their combined 3 IP.
Overall, a very well played game. Too bad we haven’t had more of these this spring.
You can view my full report for this game here.