This game from last Wednesday can be summed up in one word. Sloppy. The two teams combined for four errors and twenty seven hits for a total of eighteen runs. Not good. Fitting this mess happened on a day that my wife and I formally lost our second baby.
Ramon Vazquez had a good day for the Rangers, going 3-3 and scoring a run. Jason Ellison also went 2-2 and scored both times. Travis Metcalf had a solo home run, and Nate Gold drove in two runs. This was a day for singles, because of the fourteen Ranger hits only one was not a single (Metcalf’s HR). Overall, the hits were pretty spread out, there were a total of eleven different Rangers who had one.
Pitching wise, Matt Harrison had six hits and a walk in his 2.1 innings of work. Gave up five runs, but only three earned. Jonnny Poveda followed that with a stink job that was way up there on the Stink-O’-Meter. Only had one third of an inning pitched, and gave up three hits, three walks, and FOUR earned runs. Bleargh. Even Mark Clark wasn’t that bad. Speaking of sloppy, later on Jason Davis gave up three runs, but only one was earned. Of course we had five other pitchers who threw for Texas who didn’t give up any, but these numbers above are fairly sloppy.
A couple of former Rangers had decent days, too. Gabe Kapler went 1-2 with an RBI sac fly, as well as scoring a run, and another RBI as well. Laynce Nix, went 2-2 with a run scored and an RBI. Both of these guys are in camp with the Brewers on NRI’s – my guess is that neither breaks camp. Kapler was in attempting a comeback after having been out of ball for a short time – I wonder if he’ll play the minor league bounce around game, or go back to being a manager in the minors for the Red Sox.

Losses are never really that great. I know in my decade or so of doing this site I’ve said many a time “This wasn’t a bad loss”, but the bottom line is “you lost”. Still, having said that, only the first two pitchers were bad. The others weren’t.
Kason Gabbard stunk. Two innings, five hits, one walk, one home run. Four earned runs.
Kameron Loe stunk. 1.2 innings, four hits, one walk, two home runs. Four earned runs (five total).
The big shot for Arizona was the grand slam by Connor Jackson in the fourth inning, obviously.
That wasn’t good. The other pitchers we threw out there (Garr, Eric Hurley, Franklyn German, & Elizardo Ramirez) were good. Combined they went 5.1 innings, had just three hits (2 German, 1 Hurley), and only one walk (Ramirez). Eric Hurley was the best there, going three innings.
On the Diamondbacks side, we squared up against their Ace, Brandon Webb. Webb was hittable, but it is March, with a single digit number on the calendar, so there’s probably not a lot to make of that. He went three innings, gave up two runs on four hits.
Offensively, we were led by Michael Young’s first home run of the spring. That’s something that has disappered from Young’s game the last few years – the power numbers have fallen through the floor. Not that he’s ever really been a candidate for 35 home runs, but the 22 & 24 he had in 04 and 05 were what I think most people were expecting. Not the 14 and 9 he had in 06 and 07. Hopefully he can raise that up a bit, say get back to 20. I’d be happy with that.
Young was the only Ranger with multiple hits, the other 7 that were not off #10’s bat were all singles, except for a triple by Jason Botts.
I didn’t get to hear any of this game, as my wife and I have had a personal crisis in our life right now, and I’m only writing this on Wed morning during nervous time as we get ready to head to the hospital. I’ll have more on that later, but baseball isn’t the biggest thought in my mind right now. Far from it.

This was another one that I didn’t get to hear. It was being “webcast” on mlb.com, but didn’t use either SF or TEX broadcasters. That’s not normally a problem, but my wife and I were dealing with a family emergency most of today, and sitting in front of my computer to listen to a baseball game was not an option.

So I was enjoying it when I peeked in at the line score, and saw we were up 4-2 early. That’s always a nice thing to see. So imagine my surprise when I look further over and see that the Rangers have NO hits, and one Giants error. Oh boy, this ought to be interesting.

So I look down and see Noah Lowry pitching for the Giants. OK, not a world beater here, but definitely someone who has had some success at the major leagues. Holy CRAP! What is that line?

IP   H   R  ER  BB  SO  HR
SAN FRANCISCO
N Lowry                           1   0   4   4   9   0   0

What the heck? Nine walks in one inning pitched? NINE? Well, it turns out seven of them were in the first inning, and the other two were from when he went back out for the second (WTF!), and walked the first two guys. According to the box score, Lowry faced just 12 batters. Walked 9 of them. That’s gotta be some sort of record – that’s quite amazing. Now I didn’t see it, but one envisions Rick Ankiel’s pitching meltdown, only worse. This must have been a meltdown of epic proportions.
Anyway, SF’s pitching gave up a total of 15 walks in this game. That’s just NUTS. That’s more walks than actual hits the Rangers got (8). The Rangers actual bats were pretty scattered. Of the 8 hits, only Travis Metcalf had more than one (2); the other 6 were by 6 other Rangers.

The game score was a bit of a seesaw. We were gifted four runs in the top of the first, then gave up two in the bottom of the frame. SF put up two more in the fifth, tying it. Stayed that way until the top of the 8th, when we put up two more. However, SF scored twice in the bottom of the ninth, taking into extra innings. The Rangers then proceeded to score twice more in the 10th inning, winning it.

Despite all the walks by SF, they had a couple of guys who did pretty good. Valdez & Corria combined to relieve Lowry, going 5 innings combined, allowing no runs and just one hit apiece. Vinnie Chulk also threw a scoreless frame, but Steve Kline & Randy Messenger did NOT.

On the flip side, this was a mix of pitchers we know, pitchers that are just there, and guys I’ve never heard of before. Of the pitchers that have a realistic shot to be with us in April… AJ Murray was not great in his start. Gave up two hits and two walks in one inning. Just two runs as well. Jamey Wright looked good, putting in two innings of one hit, shutout ball. Robinon Tejeda stunk up the joint again, giving up 3 hits and a walk to combine for two earned runs. Most of the guys put up zeroes, except for minor league callover Tommy Hunter, who gave up 4 hits and 2 runs in his inning.

As I mentioned before, we weren’t that great offensively. Of the 8 hits we got, two were doubles (Murphy & Metcalf); the rest were all singles. We were gifted four runs via all walks in the first. Our RBI’s were fairly efficient too. Pedro Borbon had 2 & Travis Metcalf had 2. The other four RBI’s were scattered (and two of THEM were just sac flies).

Overall, you can’t argue with essentially a gift win, but it’s nice to see us in in the 10th, as opposed to the loss we usually get when the game goes just ten innings. :)

In a game that could be considered somewhat sloppy and not terribly well pitched (4 errors, and 24 hits), the Rangers came from behind in the bottom of the ninth to win on Sunday, 8-7. Now before I get started talking about the game, I have to say that I did listen to the entire game. I was by myself listening to it. Unfortunately, I listened to most of it unconscious. I fell asleep somewhere around the bottom of the third, and woke up as the Rangers were coming to bat in the bottom of the ninth. It was the usual Sunday afternoon siesta. Both my wife and kid were also asleep in their respective bedrooms. I was in the living room blowing Z’s on the sofa. But my little girl woke me up, and announced “I like it when Daddy has baseball on the radio!”. For some reason she thinks it sounds like “music”. I don’t get it, but I’ll take the fact that my kid wants me to have baseball on the radio. :)
Late winter acquisition Jason Jennings started this game for the Rangers. His first batter was walked. After that, not much else. In fact, there was nothing else, as he had no hits, and just the one walk in two innings. Obviously, we don’t want to proclaim him awesome just on THAT, but it’s nice to see that line instead of say the line that the next Rangers pitcher threw. That was Luis Mendoza, who went 1.1 IP giving up three hits, two walks, and four earned runs. Not good (although two of those runs were when Rowe was on the mound). Of the four other Ranger relivers, Eddie Guadardo escaped unscathed, with no hits and no runs. Fukumori wasn’t bad either – two hits over two innings with one unearned run. Josh Rupe & Rowe each gave up an earned run in their mound time.
On the flip side, only KC pitcher Luke Hochevar didn’t give up any runs.
Offensively, we were led by Josh Hamilton, who went 3-3 with an RBI. Ian Kinsler had two hits, and all the other remaining nine hits were scattered amongst nine other Ranger batters. Most were singles, but we had four doubles (Hamilton, Kinsler, Boggs, & Duran) and a home run (Ryan Roberts). Roberts’ home run was well timed, coming in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game at 7 at that point. Was nice to hear, even in my mostly woozy state having just woken up about a minute or two before that.
On the positive side, we turned three double plays in this game, and did win in a rather exciting fashion, which is what it’s all about, I suppose.

It’s almost midnight, I had a great family day today with my daughter (while my wife worked), and then my wife and I spent the evening talking. Quite frankly, I enjoyed that a lot more than writing about this Rangers game.
Was nice to see a big blowout, with primarily second stringers.
One thing though. When I put the game on, my two year old said “Daddy, what is that?” I responded with “It’s the baseball game on the radio – it’s the Texas Rangers”. Her response was “I like that! I like listening with you – it’s kinda like music!”
Made me chuckle.

This was another spring training game I only superficially got to listen to. This was due to work concerns. Right now I’m in a rather large project that is getting close to winding down, so spending three hours listening to a baseball game only during work is not an option now.
I will say this. It was very nice to hear Victor Rojas & Eric Nadel back. One of the things I’ve always loved about Eric that you don’t hear with the overwhelming majority of announcers is how Eric describes things. The Rangers are wearing their blue warmups, with no names on the back, just numbers. The uniform has red striping down the sides, and… That kind of thing. He does that for the parks, too. On an audio only medium, it’s a very nice touch to have.
The Rangers again sent eight pitchers to the hill. Our starter (Matt Harrison) threw two innings. Nobody else had more than one. CJ Wilson’s inning was quite good. No hits, no runs, and two strikeouts.
Both teams did their scoring in bunches. Between both teams, there were 14 pitchers. Runs scored on just two of them. One on each side. For the Angels, their guy was “R Rodriguez”, who gave up three hits and two walks in his 1.1 innings of work; and of course the 2 runs the Rangers got. Which both came off the bat of Gerald Laird, who had a two run home run in the 5th). On the other side, our guy was Warner Madrigal, who gave up 3 hits and 1 walk in his lone inning of work. Unfortunately he also gave up the three earned runs the Angels got. Which included a home run, too.
Ian Kinsler continues to be hot in the early going, now batting .571 for the spring.
Next up is Vicente Pidente.