Well, this game was on TV. That part was good. Not a lot else was. :)
The Rangers were shut out in this game through the first seven innings. In fact, through about four or so at the start, Randy Wolf was perfect. The Rangers managed just five hits in the whole game, and in true Rangers fashion, two of them were home runs. But before we got to that there was a whole lot of nothing. Our bad day at the plate was finally stopped in the top of the eighth when Chris Davis hit an opposite field wind aided home run. That broke the shuout. In the ninth, when we had guys with uniform numbers above 90 playing the game, Andy Fox jacked a two run home run on a pitch that seemed at the time to be eyeball level. Was a no doubter. Two home runs and a double accounted for 3/5 of our hits. We had nothing really, and it wasn’t even as close as 11-4 “seems”.
Going the other way, Josh Rupe, who seems to be on the way down the pecking order gave up a home run on his first pitch thrown. Flashbacks to Rick Helling and the home opener in 1998 there? There was for me. Our pitching could be summed up as bad. The only guy who didn’t give up a run was newly acquired Jimmy Gobble, who threw one scoreless frame. Everyone else seemed to suck from the fountain of well.. SUCK.
The big highlight was the inning of Vin Scully. That was pretty cool having Vin do an inning of broadcast. It’s amazing when you think this guy started broadcasting Dodger games back in Brooklyn in 1950. I mean wow. The guy’s 82, and while he does seem old, he doesn’t have that “old man” slow speech. In just that short inning, you can see why he’s such a gem. I kind of have that in Philly to a lesser degree with Harry Kalas, but Scully is really smooth. Enjoyed that. I wouldn’t mind them doing the same thing again when the Dodgers are in Arlington this summer.
One amusing play was a grounder down the third base side that Metcalf got going away. Threw across the diamond, and it resulted in Chris Davis with his rear end on the ground straddling first base. Was a funny play to see.
Day off on Monday – which was useful as I was backed up, and had to write about Saturday and Sunday’s games on Monday night.
Vin Scully won’t be making the trip to Arlington this summer. He doesn’t travel east of the Rockies anymore. The Dodgers use to replace him on those games with Charley Steiner and Steve Lyons but I think I just read where Steiner will do radio and they hired a new guy I’m not familiar with to work on Lyons on those road games.
Scully mentioned during that inning that he hadn’t been to Dallas in a long time and the last one was a football game he called. The Dodgers were here several years ago so I guess he wasn’t on that trip either. I don’t believe he’s called football since the early 80’s.