Thursday afternoon’s game is the third game in a row I didn’t see or hear the majority of. I was at a movie theatre when this game was going on, actually. The boss at my office took all of us (about 25-30 guys) out to see the new Indiana Jones movie – on the company’s dime. So yeah, that took precedence. BTW, the new Indy flick was pretty decent. It wasn’t totally spectacular.
As the game was a day game, I couldn’t come back and watch on TiVo. I got back from the movie in the bottom of the ninth, when it was already tied 7-7. Since I was at work, I was in and out of my office like I usually was, and one time when I was walking out of my office, I heard Victor Rojas get all excited, so I peeked my head back in, and heard the home run call on Hamilton in the 10th to win the game. That was cool to hear, and was the only actual “moment” of this game I got to hear for myself.
Vicente Padilla was less like the lights out guy he’s been recently, but wasn’t all that bad, really. Five innings, three runs, seven hits. The pen was shaky this game, which is why Minnesota got back into the thing.
David Murphy got his 18th double of the season, Hamilton’s home run was his 12th. Josh had two RBI’s this game, giving him 53 for the season. Josh has six more RBI’s in 2008 than he had all of 2007. That’s 101 less at bats and 21 less hits, too. Some serious numbers for the first two months so far!
Go see the new Indy movie. The fact that Harrison Ford was like 64 when he filmed it didn’t really detract for me. I enjoyed it.

This is another game I didn’t see the majority of, but I was busy doing some family stuff this evening. I stupidly managed to see the score in the 8th inning, so I just popped into the game at that point. Made me wish I had been watching the whole thing.
Sidney Ponson was pitching like the version we got his first few outings this season. Not the one we’ve had the last few. One has to imagine he was pumped up for this game, going back to the club that cut him in 2007. His line was awesome – Nine innings complete game, six hits, one walk, one earned run. This is what we need from more than just one guy if we’re going to stick with this the rest of the season, and not just have a short middle season “nice run”. As much as I like these efforts by Ponson, one has to think given his overall stats the last two years or so that it can’t last long term. Be nice if it could, but unless he did this like two years in a row with no major foulups, one had to think you’d always wonder if the Ponson we “expect” will show up.

Offensively, we had our own seven spot to match the one the Twins had last night. Funny thing is that up until that point (the sixth), there was no scoring. It was 0-0 going into the sixth. Then the Rangers just up and exploded. The inning was started (home run) and ended (strikeout) by Michael Young. In between, a lot of stuff happened. :)

Single (Hamilton)
Reach on Error (Byrd)
Fielder’s Choice Out (Murphy)
Single (Laird)
Fielder’s Choice Out (Boggs)
Single (Shelton)
Single (Vazquez)
Home Run (Kinsler)

It seemed far more impressive watching it, than just reading this list of events. I didn’t see it live, but good ol’ pal TiVo helped me out here. Kinsler’s home run was a serious no doubter. You know that uppercut home run swing he has? This was seriously on display here.

Josh Hamilton went 3-5 for this game, scoring twice, but with no RBI’s (shock!). I saw a stat on screen that Hamilton was either in the lead or tied for first in all the triple crown categories. I knew he’s been doing well, but I didn’t realize it was quite THAT well. One hopes he can stay healthy and stay on the field. That would be a most impressive feat. But that’s pie in the sky now as we head towards the end of May. :)

Overall, the team did well offensively, piling on 17 hits. The only person who took an ofer was Milton Bradley, who was ejected in the second, so he only had one at bat. David Murphy had two more doubles – he leads the AL in that stat. If he keeps this up, he could be in line for rookie of the year. Thank you Boston!

The thing I enjoyed most about this game was Ron Washington getting ejected. I don’t know why, but the fact that he had not been ejected as Rangers manager before this point was an interesting point to me. A few weeks ago when a lot of the local media (and some blogging brethren) were calling for Ron’s head, I sent in a question to Evan Grant (which he didn’t use), asking if Ron was the first Rangers manager (other than like Eddie Stanky, and interim guys) who never got ejected during their tenure. But he’s finally been ejected. I was quite happy about that – I don’t know why. :)

I didn’t actually see this game, and as I sit down to write about it three days later, you know it’s going to be a box score only write up. Which usually means short. But since I skipped the last few games before this one, I wanted to say something, at least.
Doug Mathis was making his major league debut as a starter for the Texas Rangers this game. Normally when a pitcher has this kind of line, I’ll say something like he stunk up the joint, or left a steaming pile of stink on the pitcher’s mound. Can’t do that to a rook like that on his first start, so I’ll just say he was knocked around. Mathis went 2.1 innings, giving up eight hits and four walks. That resulted in nine runs (three were unearned). Even if you took away the unearned runs, it was a rather inglorious start to one’s major league starting pitching career. Well, OK, maybe not really inglorious (that could be harsh), but it was’t good, no matter how one might try and spin it.
Esteban German followed, and was pretty decent, going 3.2 innings, and allowing just two hits – no runs. Can’t argue with that.
Josh Rupe finished the game from here, allowing three hits and the final two runs. Not having seen or heard the game, it’s hard to judge whether this was just bad pitching, or bad luck.
Offensively, the Rangers had eleven hits. All singles. Kinsler, Hamilton, & German Duran had two each. Everyone else had one, except Chris Shelton, who was the only ofer for the night.
But the big bomb was the third inning, when we gave up a seven spot. I’ll just paste the game log for that half inning. It was fairly ugly.

Twins 3rd (Twins 9, Rangers 0) — A. Casilla singles to center field. J. Mauer singles through the hole at shortstop, A. Casilla to 3rd. J. Morneau singles to right-center field, A. Casilla scores; J. Mauer to 2nd. M. Cuddyer doubles to right field, J. Mauer scores; J. Morneau to 3rd. J. Kubel walks. D. Young reaches on force attempt, fielding error by I. Kinsler, J. Morneau scores; M. Cuddyer to 3rd; J. Kubel to 2nd. M. Lamb singles through the hole at shortstop, M. Cuddyer scores; J. Kubel to 3rd; D. Young to 2nd. A. Everett grounds into a force out, M. Young to I. Kinsler, J. Kubel scores; D. Young to 3rd; M. Lamb out at 2nd. C. Gomez walks, A. Everett to 2nd. Pitcher Change: F. German replaces D. Mathis. A. Casilla walks, D. Young scores; A. Everett to 3rd; C. Gomez to 2nd. J. Mauer out on a sacrifice fly to M. Byrd, A. Everett scores. J. Morneau flies out to M. Byrd. (7 Runs, 5 Hits, 1 Errors, 2 LOB)

It’s Tuesday morning, and I don’t have time to write about this. Been backlogged for awhile, and had some big visiting dignitaries show up today; I will not have time to write about it – work and all that.

It’s Tuesday morning, and I don’t have time to write about this. Been backlogged for awhile, and had some big visiting dignitaries show up today; I will not have time to write about it – work and all that.
We do seem to have an issue sweeping series, though. Strange.

I was at this game, and was really looking forward to it. Roy Oswalt vs Vicente Padilla. The 2008 version of Padilla, mind you. :) But before I get to any of that, I have to talk about the opening ceremonies. I had heard back on Wednesday what was planned, and I thought it was going to be really cool. But it didn’t quite prepare you for actually witnessing it.

To start off, they had a live feed from Baghdad, Iraq. That was pretty cool. After thinking about it, it was 3AM in Baghdad when the Rangers game was starting. Something I bet most people didn’t take into consideration. Chuck Morgan said the Rangers/Astros game was being broadcast on the Armed Forces Network. I’m sure the soldiers probably didn’t mind being up at 3AM for that, but 3AM is still 3AM – that’s early, eh? Anyway, as they normally do during home openers and on July 4th, they had the four sets of military all present the colors. You know, these guys..

Some soldiers from Ft Hood rolled out a flag on Greene’s Hill, so it was nice to have the local military presence, on top of what was being shown from Iraq. While the local presence was unfolding, they were playing the good old tear jerker of a song, Lee Greenwood’s “I’m Proud to be an American”. That song gets me every time, especially with all the visual cues around regarding the military.

After all the flags were presented, then they had Major General Hammond of the 4th Infantry Division based at Ft. Hood, TX give a two or three minute speech. While I won’t break it completely down, he mentioned folks supporting the troops, gave a quick update on what was going on in Iraq, but made a bigger point about supporting the families of the troops, as they’re wider hit than the troops themselves, if you think about it. After General Hammond had his speech, they brought on a band from Iraq to play the National Anthem. That was pretty cool, too.

But all that stuff was known ahead of time. What wasn’t announced is that they brought on a soldier from Iraq, whose kids were here in the park. They said it was their birthdays (whether they were twins, or just born on similar dates was not disclosed). Anyway, with the game being broadcast in Iraq, I’m sure said solder could SEE what was going on, and they had him on the Jumbotron saying happy birthday to his kids. What I thought was a nice touch was the soldier was positioned in front of the camera to make it look like he was looking out from the Jumbotron directly down at the area in front of the Rangers dugout where his kids were. Said kids then were escorted to the mound (by Tom Hicks & Nolan Ryan) where they both threw out first pitches. The recipients of the pitches were Josh Hamilton & Michael Young.

Since I have a three year old of my own now, these kinds of things hit me way more emotionally than they ever did. I really enjoyed seeing the ceremonies with the kids and their dad from Iraq.

Oh yeah, the game. Padilla was good, even if he ran up his pitch count early. We got to Oswalt for a couple of home runs, then he had to come out of the game. Home runs for Marlon Byrd, Milton Bradley, and Lance Berkman (who has about 500 already this season). Rangers won. We got back to .500, and that was good.

However, the pregame things took up a lot of my thoughts that night, and quite frankly, a lot of professionals who get paid for this kind of thing will write about the baseball events of this night. You can read them. I’m taking a pass on this one, as to be honest, I’m getting a bit emotional just recalling the pregame stuff again.

I really liked it – one of my all time favorite pregame ceremonies ever. I spent the entire time during all the pregame ceremonies with my cap over my heart – never took it off. Sang the national anthem out loud, which is something I usually don’t do in stadium. Also teared up several times.

As I told Chuck Morgan in an email this morning, “Good stuff, my friend”. I really enjoyed that.

UPDATE: I spoke with Chuck this morning about the ceremonies last night, and first off, he said the credit for the idea wasn’t his, it was Nolan Ryan’s. Apparently Nolan came to Chuck and said that this Iraq video feed thing was something they did in Round Rock, and that he thought it would go over well here, too. So thanks to Nolan for that.

Chuck also told me that some people were complaining on online message boards about the game being delayed due to the ceremony. That just made me mad. First off, they couldn’t delay the game, it was advertised as starting at 6:17 or so due to the pregame stuff. If they delayed the game for that, the umpires, starting pitchers, and managers would throw a fit. Chuck also told me some people were complaining about the Lee Greenwood song. Come on guys – have you no heart? Besides, I was told the Army requested that song be played. It all worked, and if all you have to do is sit around and complain on message boards about a very nice military pre-game ceremony, then perhaps should consider giving up your baseball fan title. I cannot believe people ACTUALLY COMPLAINED about the ceremonies. I told Chuck I’ve been doing this online forum and email communication thing now for 22 years, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that folks who mouth off online about things like that can be ignored, that their opinions don’t really matter, because they just want to complain.

I’m actually embarrassed that Ranger fans had the audacity to complain about this stuff. Thanks guys. Thanks a lot. :(

This game definitely belonged to Josh Hamilton. After almost making a spectacular play in center field (lost the ball to a snow cone hitting the ground), Josh proceeded to go 5-5 with a walk, scoring four times, and had five RBI’s. His hits included two home runs and a triple. Quite the performance. He has the major league lead in RBI’s. At the current rate he’s going, he’s looking at something like 35 home runs and about 140, 150, 160 RBI’s. It’s a seriously impressive set of numbers. We haven’t seen anything like that since the glory days of Juan Gonzalez in the late 90’s. I hope he can stay on the field.

Lost in the hoopla of all the home runs and Josh Hamilton was another pedestrian outing by Sidney Ponson, now making his second in a row. Granted, Ponson was hurt by some poor fielding, but still did not dominate. His line was five innings, 80 pitches (not that bad at all, actually), nine hits, and seven runs, although only three were earned. I’ve seen a lot worse lines than that, but watching the game he was just “eh”.
But there’s no doubt the big deal in this game was the home runs. While the box score says we had six, it honestly felt like more than that. The home runs came from Josh Hamilton (two), Jarrod Saltamacchia, David Murphy, Chris Shelton, & Michael Young.
The Rangers had seventeen hits in all. The only Ranger without a hit was Frank Catalanotto. Everyone else had at least one. Hamilton had five, David Murphy had three, Milton Bradley & Michael Young had two each, and the rest were all single hit performances. Still, it was enough to club the Astros into submission.
It always seems that some game against the Astros each year we score some really huge pile of runs. Normally it comes later in the six games we play. Hopefully, this wasn’t the last one.
More importantly, we can get back to .500 with a win on Saturday evening. It should be a great pitching matchup, Vicente Padilla goes against Roy Oswalt. I’ll be there.
Make sure and check out the MLB Recap link at the top of this entry. There’s video highlights of a lot of this. These new recaps they have in 2008 are worth checking out, now that they’re all into recaps and video clips.