I remember when we played the Giants in the series a couple of years ago thinking that Madison Bumgarner was going to be the soft touch after the first few guys.  I was wrong then.  He also did it do us again this game.  Granted, it’s spring training, so he’s not going eight innings, but…  In the four that he did pitch, giving up just one hit and a walk.  Struck out four.   Threw 63 pitches.  Overall, that set the tone. [Read more…]

The Rangers survived this game, really.  Four of the five Rangers pitchers gave up runs, but our offense stepped in and saved the day.   Jeff Baker, who is tearing it up this spring doubled.  Craig Gentry homered (his second), and is showing some surprising pop this spring.  If he can sustain that, it will help an awful lot going forward.

Not a ton to write about this one, the pitching was “meh” from what I can see.  :)

…and this was the second of the two split squad games Saturday.  This is the road game, managed by Ron Washington with a starting lineup that featured only Craig Gentry & Geovany Soto (maybe Mike Olt) from the expected opening day roster.   This was borne out in the pitching staff too, as the Rangers used nine different pitchers, each throwing one inning.   All but one of them threw a scoreless inning.   The only one who didn’t was Tateyama, who gave up the two Padres runs.  It was a two run home run, as well.   Tateyama actually only faced five batters!

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This was the first of two games today as the Rangers did the split squad thing, also playing against the Padres in another game.   But before we get to that..

Where was this game in the final series of last season?  Gah!   Could have saved ourselves from that mess that was the Orioles game in the playoffs!   Barf.   Anyway…

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Friday’s game against the Brewers was rained out, but as is the custom in the spring, it wasn’t rescheduled, it was just lost.

They actually played – four innings, but nothing counted, as the game was called off.   Given it was cancelled, I can’t find a log of what happened, as the gameday for this game is gone from mlb.com.  Oh well.

Well, a second tie in the first baker’s dozen of games wipes out the odd “-1” from the end of the spring training record.  Now we had two of them.  Not a really uncommon occurrence during the spring, but it’s a tad eyebrow raising to have two of them in the first dozen or so games.  :)

Josh Lindblom, the big “name” we got in return for the Michael Young trade was the last pitcher on the mound for the Rangers, and he served it up.  Gave up a three run home run to cap a Dodgers rally, that made the score 11-11.  Was hoping this guy would be more dominant, but from what I’ve heard from my friends back home, this is about par for the course. [Read more…]

Texas got down early, when they gave up a run to the Cubs in the first, but turned it around quickly with a two spot of their own in the second.  They added a run in the third, to go up 3-1, but that was the end of the scoring for the Rangers.  They hung on for the win despite the Cubs getting another run in the top of the sixth to make it 3-2.  But that was the final score for this one.  Close game against the Northsiders. [Read more…]

Yu Darvish started this game, and pitched like he’s supposed to.  Three scoreless innings were his tally.   He did walk two, but that was it.  Also threw just 39 pitches, so under average, and no runs.  I’ll take that from any of our pitchers any day.  Great way to get rolling during early March play.

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Another spring first.  Joe Nathan makes his spring debut.   But before they got to him, Justin Grimm continues to show that his debut last year was his best game, as he got knocked around a lot in this one.  Which seems to be the story every time I write about him anymore.   Let’s put it this way.  This early in the spring, pitchers don’t get taken out mid inning.  Grimm did.  2.1 IP, 6H, 2BB, 6ER, 4K, 2HR.  Not good.  His ERA is 18.69. [Read more…]

The Rangers are now 1-1 in March, which seems much better than their overall crappy record so far this spring. :)

Matt Harrison took the hill, which was no surprise. Lance Berkman led off for the Rangers, which WAS a surprise. I know, it’s early in spring, and people do different things. It’s early for Lance, and he needs to test his battle worn body to see if ti will hold up. It’s not like a rehab game where he gets to lead off every inning, but putting him at the #1 spot will get him some more action than his likely normal spot. [Read more…]