This one can be traced to the big old ugly number in the top of the second inning by the Dodgers. They plated seven runners. If that wasn’t ugly enough, they surrounded it with a run in the first, and two in the third. The score was 10-5 after three innings. Pitching was NOT the name of this game.
Kevin Millwood led the stink brigade this game. Mark Clark & Chan Ho Park only dreamed about being this bad. Three innings, twelve hits, two walks, TEN earned runs. The only saving grace of that is that none of them were home runs, but that’s really weak. Millwood faced 21 batters in his three innings of work, and ten of them scored. That’s pretty awful. Of the remaining three runs the Dodgers scored, only one of them was earned (against Mr. Anna Benson), although Benson threw the same amount of innings as Stinky Kevin, and surrendered one tenth of the runs.
We were kind of out of it the entire game. Never led, much less be tied (excluding the 0-0 start of the game score).
Offensively the leader this game was Brandon Boggs. He went 3-5 with an RBI and two runs scored. In fact, the longball was the order of the day for the Rangers, and if it wasn’t for that 7 spot we gave up, we probably would have won this. The four home runs were by Brandon Boggs (solo shot), Hank Blalock, Andruw Jones (two run), and Taylor Teagarden, who had a three run home run. In fact, that’s all seven runs the Rangers scored right there. Good classic Rangers – 100% of our runs on the longball. :) Jones’ home run was his first of the spring, and I’m sure Ned Colletti loved that little factoid.

I don’t have much time to write about this one, I didn’t even think about writing about it (as I was too busy at work today) until after today’s game had already started.
I did get to hear a little of it. I had to spread some weed killer down on my lawn, so I slapped on the headphones,and walked around out there. After that was over, I played some MLB:09 the Show and listened some more, and then my family and I had to go to a Sunday night church event, so I had to stop. At the time I stopped, the score was tied 2-2. I missed the big party.
That was Greg Golson’s grand slam in the ninth which sealed the win, if it didn’t win it. That was definitely the big offensive highlight, as the rest of the offense was scattered. Which seems to be a pattern so far this spring.
Pitching wise, nobody embarrassed themselves out there Matt Harrison gave up both runs the Cubs got over his three innings of work.
Sorry about the cut short. I didn’t want to take a complete mulligan, but I didn’t have time to sit here and invest a lot of time into this report. :)

The first Rangers game on TV this season comes way earlier in camp than it usually does. I talked about the schedule before, so this isn’t new, but we have five TV games this year, as opposed to the usual two. As with most Spring Ranger games, it was filled with ads for the team itself, the gift shop, tickets, etc.. That’s not a problem, just stating what I saw.
BTW, there was a “commercial” that ran twice during the game talking about new scoreboards and such featuring Chuck Morgan. On Wednesday, I’m going out to the Ballpark, Chuck Morgan was kind enough to let me come out there and take a few pictures of what the stuff looks like. I’ll bring those to you when I get them done.
As for the game itself, it was lightning fast. It was 2:03. When I told my wife about that, she said “That’s a big surprise, given the usual substitutions in the spring”. It did make me think. There were no subs made during play. All the subs were start of inning ones that don’t delay anything. And other than the trip to the mound in the ninth with the trainer, there were no mound visits that I recall, either. Extremely fast game. That did help keep the chatter down with people in the booth you don’t care to see (Mayor of Surprise, woman from Southwest Airlines – does anyone except them really care?)
Still, part of what made the game move was pitching. We had a lot of the good kind. In all, each team had just seven hits. The only Ranger to give up a run was Eddie Guardado in the ninth. Vicente Padilla was especially good. He went four gave up no runs on just a single hit. Outstanding. Dustin Nippert went two innings on three hits. Warner Madrigal & Elizardo Ramirez also tossed scoreless single innings. Even Guardado who gave up the lone run had just one hit.
Offensively, the only guys who really appeared to have anything going on were David Murphy, who finally got the first run of the game in the fifth with a solo home run. Murph was 2-3 overall. The other guy was Andruw Jones, who was 2-4 with a double (which was a dicey call, it should have been a single and an error I think). The only other run came on a Josh Hamilton sac fly, which was not too far away from being a grand slam as I recall.
Taylor Teagarden threw out two Sox trying to steal – both times it wasn’t funny – they were dead on nailed. That was nice to see.
I would have preferred a slightly longer game for the first one on TV, but I couldn’t complain too much. Was nice to see the Rangers back on TV with a new game (not the games that turn up on ESPN Classic or MLBN now). :)

Meh. The first game of the season I got mad at, and it only took nine games, none of them really counted, either.
We were hanging in there, hanging in there, were losing 4-2 after six innings. We scored two to tie in the sixth, and then three more in the seventh to take a lead. Then we blew it, let them tie the game in the bottom of the eighth, and then lose the game by allowing the Royals to walk off with the win.
Netfali Feliz was the one that had a hard time and gave up the three runs to let them tie it after we had taken the lead.
Brandon Boggs had a good game. 3-5 with a double, a home run, 3 RBI’s, and two runs scored. Since this was a spring training game, those stats doubly didn’t count.
Darnit!

For the second straight game, both the Rangers and their opponent were kept in check offensively – at least hits wise. In yesterday’s game, both the Royals & Rangers had six hits. In today’s game, the Padres had five hits, and the Rangers had six.
Amusing thing about the Rangers six hits is that two guys (Kinsler, Hamilton) had two each. That left just two other guys with hits at all (Blalock & Metcalf). While we’re looking at those kind of numbers, three of the six hits were doubles (Kinsler, Hamilton, Blalock). A strength of ours in 2008, that was. One of the remaining three was a home run (Kinsler again). So it was a pretty power heavy set of hits, even if there weren’t a lot of them.
Kinsler did the 2-2-2 thing. Two hits, two RBI’s and two runs scored.
Elvis Andrus had his first stolen base of the spring, too.
Taylor Teagarden threw out David Eckstein trying to steal (while Benson was on the mound).
Scott Feldman though was perfect on the mound. In his two innings, he gave up donut. Spring training box scores generalky don’t have the number of pitches, so I can’t comment on how easily the two innings went, but that many zeroes (the good ones) are always a good thing to see on a pitcher’s linescore. The remainder of the Rangers pitchers (we used six more) were all pretty decent. Derrick Turnbow was the only one who really wasn’t. He gave up just one run, although he probably should have given up more, since he walked THREE in one inning. In fact, he didn’t give up any actual hits, so one of those walks was with the bases loaded, apparently. Mr. Anna Benson also threw two innings in direct relief of Feldman, and he too gave up no runs. I don’t know what to make of him. He’s bounced around, not been much of anything the last few years. Although he could be OK in a Sydney Ponson sort of way if he holds it together.
In all a nice win (even if I was in meetings all day and couldn’t listen) We’re now 5-3 in spring training, which is always a good thing.

After a scheduled day off on Tuesday, the Rangers bounced back into action against their usual and most common spring training foe, the Royals. I didn’t get to see or hear anything from this game – I got tied up with work again, and this is a box score only report. :)
This game had pretty decent pitching for the most part. For Texas, Kevin Millwood started the game, and threw three scoreless innings, giving up just two hits, one walk, and punching out a pair of Royals. I believe that’s the first Ranger pitcher to go three innings this spring. A good sign. He was followed by four relievers. Two of them (Derek Holland & Doug Mathis) threw two innings apiece, and Willie Eyre & Frank Francisco threw a single inning each. Holland & Mathis gave up the two runs (one each). The run off of Mathis was a home run. In all, the Royal hitters had just six hits the entire game. Two of them by Coco Crisp. One of the others was by Crisp’s replacement, so the hits were pretty scattered other than the leadoff slot. In all, Rangers pitching threw nine innings, allowed six hits and two runs. A good day.
Offensively, we were led by Justin Smoak, although his name didn’t really come into play until later. Early on the Rangers plated a single run in the first and second innings. The funny thing here is that the Rangers also had just six hits this game. No Ranger had more than one of them. Michael Young & Jarrod Saltamacchia each had an RBI hit, but the big one was Justin Smoak in the bottom of the seventh. He jacked a three run home run off of KC reliever Dan Cortes. That was the big moment, because at that time, the game was tied 2-2.
Yay! Two game winning streak! ;)

I’m going to have to take my first mulligan of the season, and bow out of real commentary for this game. Project came up at work today, which was when I planned on writing about this one. Just putting this here for a placeholder for the game.

I got to listen to about half of this game. I started listening in the top of the second, and we were already down 4-1. Any baseball fan will tell you that’s never an encouraging thing to start off with. I was actually playing a videogame again for the second day in a row in the afternoon. Only this one I was playing for myself. It was a version of Monopoly for my Xbox 360. :)
As if starting down 4-1 wasn’t bad enough, the first thing I heard was “…and we’ll get back to you if we get a report on Josh”. Oh great, he’s come out with an injury. They’re saying he’s strained his left Achillies tendon, and are making a big deal about it not being a big deal. I hope this doesn’t amount to anything serious. Turns out I missed a possible inside the park home run. There was a quote by Josh after the game that he was mad he didn’t have an inside the parker, because he didn’t hustle out of the box. Inside the parkers are always nice to get.
Anyway, from the point I started listening (which was past Padilla walking in a run), it didn’t seem so bad, we were chipping away, and got back to 4-3, and then 5-3, but in the fifth, the floodgates opened again, and we gave up five runs there. I stopped listening shortly after that, because the pull of playing with my daughter was put on me again. :)
I’m not going to write a ton, as it’s late, and I want to get off the computer for the evening, but there were a ton of pitchers in this game. Seven for Texas, eight for Seattle. Hit up the MLB.com recap link for a proper story and a box score.