In the first of the two split squad games, the Rangers played against the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles in Phoenix. While this was the road game, it wasn’t the usual road spring game in that about half our regulars were here, and half were left behind in Surprise to play the other game. Really seemed like a split squad from a quick glance at the scorecard.
Anyway, the Rangers jumped out early in this one. In the first inning, Josh Hamilton hit a two run home run, and then was immediately followed by a solo home run by Nelson Cruz. And then.. well, that was it. All of our scoring was done by the fourth batter of the game. We had just three more hits the entire rest of the game (one of them was a second hit by Hamilton). So a promising started just ended there with a “promising start”.
Of course, the big ol’ “4” in the error column of the linescore has a lot to say about it. Two of the errors were by pitchers (Mathis & Harrison). Duran missed a catch, and Adam Melhuse threw one away. Sloppy play there for sure. Only one run was unearned, and we did turn four double plays in the game.
Pretty much all of the Dodgers offense was also early. Our starter in this one was Doug Mathis, who went three innings, allowing three of the four Dodger runs (one was the aforementioned unearned one). The Rangers threw eight pitchers out there in all, which is a huge number when you consider that Mathis threw three innings. The only other Ranger pitcher to give up a run was the final one, Thomas Diamond who walked two, not really helping himself at all.
Somewhat annoying that we got out to that kind of start and then nothing.
Fun note in that the Rangers did not take Andruw Jones with them in the split squad game against the Dodgers. :)