There’s been a lot of talk that Kevin Millwood is in a “contract year” (even though he technically isn’t). There’s a lot of talk that he’s in better shape and has lost a bunch of weight, and is supposed to be better in 2009. I recall hearing similar type things before last season, too. Anyways, Kevin started today’s game, and this early, the starters pretty much never go beyond two innings. That’s what happened here, too. However, Kevin was quite good in his two innings. He allowed no runs, only a single hit, and struck out three Royals. An encouraging first outing.
The Ranger pitchers that followed him, however. Not so encouraging. Especially Derek Holland, who gave up two solo home runs (and a couple of walks) in his frame of work. Doug Mathis also gave up a bunch (four hits, one walk, two earned runs), although his work was over two innings, not just one. However, Eddie Guardado gave up the most, three runs in his inning of work. He didn’t help himself, really. He loaded the bases (couple of hits, a walk), then gave up a bases clearing triple. Wasn’t all bad, though. Willie Eyre & Joe Torres both pitched scoreless innings.
Offensively, we didn’t put up much. The Royals helped a little with two errors, but we couldn’t translate those into anything really useful (one of the errors did lead to one unearned run). The high point was another home run by Josh Hamilton, but no Ranger had more than one hit, it was a pretty spread out offense, not the kind that leads to a ton of runs.
Got to listen to Rangers coverage. I coudn’t listen on a real radio, I had to listen on MLB Gameday at my computer, so the move to FM was lost on me (Gameday audio sounds somewhat tinny). Anyway, I got to hear Dave Barnett for the first time. I have the same opinion of him I did when I first heard Victor Rojas when he replaced Vince Cotroneo. Which is basically “OK, no major gaffes, voice is not grating, I can probably get used to that”. Radio announce adulation comes from time, not from anything (in my opinion) that happens generally, so I’ll need time to get used to him.