The last game of February brought the first win of the Rangers young season. They’re now 1-5-1. What a powerhouse!
Seriously though – the Rangers pitching was pretty good here. The Rangers used six pitchers in all, and combined, they only allowed five total hits. And all five of those came with the first two pitchers. The remaining guys (Robertson, Woods, Beliveau, & Yan) all threw scoreless frames.
Derek Holland started this in his final game before taking off for the World Baseball Classic. he threw four innings, allowed just three hits, and struck out two. Walked none. Pretty good outing. Josh Lindblom, which is a pretty solid candidate for the bullpen threw a frame. Allowed two hits, but no runs. So yeah, the pitching was pretty good this game.
Offensively, we had a big outburst. Eighteen hits. Jeff Baker led that for two games in a row, with three hits (now batting .429). We had like 3 or 4 guys with two hits each, and the rest were scattered.
Lance Berkman saw his first action of the spring, and went 1-2 with a walk, and two runs scored. He batted leadoff, which is one of those weird spring training things that you will never see in season.
Mike Olt also saw action in the outfield when he replaced Nelson Cruz, and from what I can read, handled himself well.
For all the hits, there wasn’t a ton of power. There was a little (3 doubles, 1 triple, 1 home run), but we also had 13 singles, so that was the main offensive thrust there in terms of quantity. There were also two walks thrown in for good measure.
But the story of this one was Holland’s outing (now has Spring era of 1.29), and also that Berkman was on the field – and given how much we’re paying for him, I want him on the field.
Hopefully we can get back to .500 quickly enough. Not liking this slow/sluggish/molasses type of start.