Sunday’s game featured four home runs accounting for nine of thirteen runs. Monday’s game featured four more home runs, this time accounting for all seven of the runs! Here’s Monday’s list…
Taylor Teagarden – Three run shot in the second inning off Matt Cain
Andruw Jones – Solo shot in the fourth off of Matt Cain
Justin Smoak – Solo shot in the ninth off of Luis Perdomo
David Murphy – Two run shot in the 10th to win the game off of Felix Romero
That’s eight home runs in two games accounting for 16 runs. That’s some nice power. But then again, that should be no surprise to anyone who follows Texas Rangers baseball. Overall, we’re looking at ten hits, of which four were home runs, one was a double, and the other half were singles. It was another scattered hits day, as only Andruw Jones had more than a lone hit (home run and double).
The pitching. We had six guys on the mound this game. Only one of them is actually on the 40 man roster right now (Josh Rupe). The last two innings were thrown by three guys who won’t be with the club when we break (Kasey Kiker, Beau Vaughn, & AJ Murray). Those guys gave up one run (Kiker) between them. The other guys have a realistic shot, although if you had asked me a couple of weeks ago, the starter had zero chance, but seems to be pitching his way into contention. This of course is Mr. Anna Benson. However, we’ve seen this kind of NRI “bag of magic beans” before in spring training. If he does make the club, it had better not be for just two good starts, and cost us someone else off the 40 man roster (Doug Davis, anyone?) Anyway, Benson went six innings, giving up six hits and zero walks for three earned runs – a technical quality start. Not a bad performance, actually. Josh Rupe, who seems to be saving his spot, threw a scoreless inning, and Eddie Guardado had a blown save. He hasn’t been in 2009 what he was in 2008, his ERA is over 10 in the spring. Not exactly confidence building. If that doesn’t work out, call Mike Venafro. He’s not doing anything now. :)
What I found amusing tonight when I sat down to write this was the fact that it’s still March, and we played our thirty first spring training game. I know that’s because of the World Baseball Classic and all, but it still seems like a lot, even knowing that. Something else is I haven’t heard hardly anything about the WBC since the US was eliminated. I mean, I know it’s out there, but I’m not being hit in the face with it like I was before. When I wrote this paragraph, I didn’t even know who was in the finals, so I hit the site for the thing, and found out Japan won again. And it was a week ago. I didn’t even know it was over! Wow.