The Rangers took the first of two Texas exhibition games against their most played spring foe, Kansas City. KC came north with Texas from Surprise with us to Frisco. I didn’t see or hear any of this game, as it was not available anywhere. I suppose I could have gone out to Frisco to see the game, but I was busy with family stuff. Which will always win out over a baseball game.
Had I been there, I would have wondered with everyone else why Vicente Padilla came out of the game early on. He exited after just two pretty good innings. Two hits, one earned run, and that’s it. Out. That’s the kind of line you have in game 5 of Spring Training, not game 35. It was said he had stiffness in his forearm. After the game, they didn’t seem to be too concerned about it, but you never want to see that kind of thing with your #2 guy in his final spring appearance.
Brandon McCarthy followed him, went four innings, giving up just three hits and a run in what I assume was the rest of the time Padilla was going to be out there. Turnbow, Jennings, & Strop followed, and did not allow any more runs.
Offensively, we had nine hits in all. Nelson Cruz & Elvis had two hits each, the rest were scattered. Four of the hits were doubles, five were singles. Not a ton of power, but we still had a bunch of doubles as per usual. More than enough to win.