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.

This game was all about home runs. There were quite a few of them.
Josh Hamilton – Two run shot in first inning off of Sean O’Sullivan
Josh Hamilton – Three run shot in second inning of of Sean O’Sullivan
Chris Davis – Solo shot in fifth off of Darren Oliver
Taylor Teagarden – Three run shot in seventh off of Marc Bulger
That wasn’t all the offense, mind you, but those four hits (of the 17 we had total) accounted for nine of the thirteen runs we had in total, so I’d say that was the game right there. While I didn’t hear or see it, the stories say that the home run by Chris Davis was probably the furthest hit of the spring. We don’t get distance calls in spring training (why not?), but the reports say it went totally over the berm and the party tent beyond that. Sounds like a titanic shot to me.
Two other hits were extra base jobs, both doubles (one by Chris Davis, one by Nelson Cruz). The remaining eleven hits were all singles. With seventeen hits total, you know there were several guys with multiple hits. A glance at the box score shows this to be true. Kinsler was 3-4, Young was 2-3, Hamilton was 2-5, Chris Davis was 3-4, even Elvis Andrus was 2-3. Everyone else had just one hit.
Brandon McCarthy started the game, and was OK. I’m unclear why he came out when he did (I can’t really figure that out by the box score), but he went four innings, gave up just two runs on six hits and no walks. Normally I’d pass that off on pitch count, but we don’t get that in spring box scores, either. Derrick Turnbow had the worst performance, giving up a three run home run to Torii Hunter in the sixth. Warner Madrigal & Frank Francisco each gave up a solo run in their respective innings. The only zeroes were CJ Wilson & Josh Rupe.
Nice to see the big sticks come out against a division foe. Hopefully that can continue into the regular season.

In a game that I knew was on the radio, but due to life, had no chance to listen to, the Rangers won 8-5 over their Surprise roommates.
Scott Feldman started this game, and if the recent rumors are to be believed, it might be one of his final starts for awhile. There’s a lot of talk about him going to the pen and giving the fifth starter spot to Mr. Anna Benson. Whether that’s smart or not, I don’t know, but Feldman didn’t help his case today. He went five innings, giving up six hits and a walk for a total of four earned runs. He did strike out six, though – that’s something good, but not enough to overcome the earned runs. He was briefly followed by Jimmy Gobble, who pitched just one third of an inning, before being relieved by Jason Jennings, who finished the game with a 3 and 2/3 inning performance to get the win. Jennings allowed just three hits, and one walk with four strikeouts for his shutout performance.
Offensively, we had ten hits that were pretty fairly well spread out. Only one Ranger had more than one, that was Nelson Cruz, who went 2-4, one of which was a two run home run in the first inning. Omar Vizquel & Frank Catalanotto had doubles. Hank Blalock & Jarrod Saltammachia had triples, and there was Cruz’ home run. However, the most important hit was by back of the book guy Marcus Lemon, who had a sac fly in the ninth, giving the Rangers the lead they would keep for the win.
I did miss this game, but had a lot of fun having an afternoon out with my daughter. Explained about a letter about the return and regular addresses, the stamp, and how the letter gets to where its’ going. Given how much time I’ve put into this site over the 11 years I’ve been doing it now, it’s quite easy to NOT do it do do something like explain to your kid how to mail a letter. Hopefully she likes the Rangers game we’re going to on Saturday as much. :)

After the fiasco of losing 11-10 to the Brewers, one was hoping for some redemption on Friday night. In a televised game, the Rangers went up against the Milwaukee Brewers. Kevin Millwood took the mound, and had a line that looked fairly ugly, even if it pretty much wasn’t his fault.
The good stuff in Kevin’s performance was that he went six innings and gave up just four hits. He did however, walk three, and allowed six runs, although three of them were unearned. That came after an Elvis Andrus error. If you take out the unearned runs, it qualified for a quality start, but it still was six runs surrendered. It just felt “bad”, even if the line wasn’t terribly awful. The three relievers was pretty decent. CJ Wilson had a scoreless inning with no hits, Derrick Turnbow went one, gave up a run on one hit and a walk, and Josh Rupe had a one hit no run inning. Wasn’t awful, but the three unearned runs really hurt this game.
Offensively, we were led by Chris Davis, Taylor Teagarden, & Michael Young. Young, in his first game back from the minor injury went 2-3 with a solo home run to right center field in the first inning. Teagarden went 3-3, although he didn’t have any RBI’s. Chris Davis, however, went 3-4, scoring twice, and with two RBI’s. He was definitely the leader here. His two RBI’s came on a two run home run in the sixth inning. Other offensive notes were three doubles (Andrus, Teagarden, & Davis), a triple by Taylor Teagarden, and the aforementioned home runs by Young & Davis.
Michael Young also had an error in addition to the Andrus one. A disappointing loss for sure, the three unearned runs in the first inning definitely were a major factor in this loss.

Oh, I could write about how Padilla and now departed Brendan Donnelly let the Diamondbacks back in the game. I could write about the two double plays in the first two innings, I could write about the hot line drive by Hamilton, I could write about the fact the Rangers were on TV, and how I’d rather have Vin Scully at 82 over Josh Lewin now. However, all I want to say is this…
DID YOU SEE THAT FREAKIN’ GRAND SLAM BY CHRIS DAVIS!?!?!?
THAT WAS THE WHOLE GAME RIGHT THERE!
I mean I didn’t want to write about anything else after that happened. hahahaha. :)

Quick – call Bud Selig! Expand spring training rosters, hold out pitchers or something. There was a tie! If we were playing the Brewers, I could get more mileage out of that.
Anyway, that really good feeling about Brandon McCarthy after the last start was pretty much squashed after he came out and pitched like Brandon McCarthy on Tuesday. His line shows 4.2 innings pitched, eight hits and three walks for six earned runs. That was a big pile of stink for sure. I still think he’s going to be better in 2009 than he has been since he got here, but that was not an encouraging outing. Of the eight hits he gave up, five of them were doubles, so he was getting smacked around a bit, it wasn’t just bloops and lucky falls. The rest of our pitching staff was pretty decent. Combined the four pitchers that followed McCarthy (Rupe, Turnbow, Wilson, Gobble) went 5.1 innings, gave up just five hits, and one run (Rupe), while walking nobody. Rupe did chime in with a wild pitch, however. I’m unclear if that led to a run or not, that’s not shown in the box score.
Offensively, we had fifteen hits, the highlights were a three run home run by Nelson Cruz, and a 2-3 with 2 RBI day by Satalamacchia. What I found interesting about this game was that of the nine guys we started the lineup with, every one of them was substituted for during the game, except for one. Andruw Jones started as DH and finished the game as DH. Everyone else who started didn’t finish the game. Find that amusing, I wonder if it’s a case “Please Andruw, catch fire, give us a reason to keep you on the roster”.
However, Michael Young leaving with an injury was not a good thing. He had to leave the game early with “an aggravated quadriceps” injury after the first inning. Ron Washington said that it was no big deal and that he’d be back Wednesday. If that was the case, why did you remove him at all then, if it’s “no big deal”. Something to keep an eye on.