Ugh.

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No commentary from me – but it was nice to see a crooked number in the linescore. ;)

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Glendon Rusch continues to pitch his way into the plans for the season. He’s done very well this spring, and yesterday’s outing was no different. He went 4 innings, giving up just a lone run on 4 hits. He only struck out one, but he walked no one. In fact, none of our pitchers walked anyone the entire day – which is a big shocker. There’s also an article about Rusch on the Rangers site here. While I’m all for a pitcher that can do well for us pitching, Rusch is a non roster invite which means he’d have to be added to the 40 man roster. That means of course dropping someone. Unless some of our “won’t play” players (like Rusty Greer) haven’t already been moved to the 60 day DL. Don’t know. I’ll ask Jamey Newberg, he might know.

Rusch gave up the only run of the day, as I said before. The other pitchers we used (Powell, Cordero, Shouse, Mahay), all gave up no runs, with no walks, and on a total of only two hits (both by Powell). Was an extremely well pitched game.

Offensively, Michael Young is the star of the game. He went 3 for 4 with 2 RBI’s, and 2 runs scored. He also stole a base, too. In fact, we had four stolen bases yesterday (Young, E Young, Soriano, and Laird (!)). That’s uncharacteristic of the Rangers. Although with most of our big boppers gone from the team now, that might be something we see more often. Speaking of Laird, he too had another great day, going 2 for 3, scoring twice. He keeps that up, and the current talk of trading Einar Diaz somewhere will probably be more than just talk.

One nice side point is that we did this all against Greg Maddux. All 6 runs came against a Hall of Fame pitcher. Gotta love that.

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This was another game where I couldn’t pay very good attention to it, as I was busy doing work while the game was on. However, looking at the scores, I didn’t really miss much. Odd, as the parts I listened to didn’t seem all that bad, really. :)

You always expect to give up a ton of runs in spring training. It’s distressing when your opening day starter does that. Rogers gave up 7 runs (6 earned) on 10 hits over 3.1 innings. Not good. John Wasdin (is he still here?) gave up three more over his one inning of work. Three other pitchers pitched (none of which I expect to stick) – Williams, Almanzar, & Mabeus giving up one run amongst all three of ’em.

Offensively, we picked up a few runs, including some more home runs (which seem to be a missing thing so far this spring). Fullmer went 3 for 4 and Blalock went 2 for 4. However, the start of the day was Rod Barajas, who I might expect to make the club as a backup with Laird going to AAA for the season (unless of course Diaz is traded). Barajas went 3 for 4 with a HR, a triple, 4 RBI’s, and 2 runs scored. Great day for him.

I think after this weekend, I’ll be ready for the real thing. My season tickets arrived Monday, and I have my games planned out. I’m going to get to the “Oh come on, let’s start it” feeling. We do however have two games on TV the final week of spring training, and 4 games on the radio next week, so things will pick up a bit.

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We were shut down, and didn’t pitch well. Not a whole lot more needs to be said here. :)

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It was an interesting game for me, as it was on the radio, which is always good, but I was also walking around the Dallas Arboretum with my wife. We were taking pictures out there with a new digital camera we got for her, and I had a portable radio with me listening to the game while we walked around. For the record, I listened with only one earbud in, so I could still hear her. :)

The kind of game you never saw much of from Texas, let alone in spring, when offense is even higher than anywhere else. A rather well pitched game on both sides. Problem was that Seattle pitched just a little bit better. Pitching totally dominated this game, and there’s not a whole lot else to add for this one. We’ve had a lot of good pitching the last few games, I hope it’s not a spring training fluke.

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Where do you start with this one? The Rangers mashed thirteen runs, got twenty hits, and gave up not a whole lot of everything. A great effort all around.

With 20 hits, there’s bound to be several folks with a few of ’em. Blalock went 4 for 4, Adrian Gonzalez went 3 for 6, Gerald Laird was 2 for 4, as was Mike Young. There’s offense all over the place in this game, which was nice to see. The only problem was that the pitchers they did it against aren’t likely to be there come April, so that tempers the output a bit.

Pitching wise, RA Dickey continues to show to me that he deserves a starting rotation spot, going 4 innings, giving up just 1 run (on a solo home run), and walking just one. Mickey Calloway pitched very well against his former club. He went 4 innings, giving up squat. No runs, no hits, and getting two K’s. Erasmo Ramirez had a not particuarly great 9th inning, but between the three pitchers, we gave up 2 runs on 7 hits over 9 innings. A good day’s work.

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