I didn’t get to hear all of this game, I was out doing some furniture shopping today. I got to hear the first three innings. When I left the house, we were winning 4-1, but we should have been leading by more – we left the bases loaded at least once that I can remember. We scored 10 runs, all by different players. We had 14 hits, by 11 players – pretty balanced attack. In the second inning, Galarraga hit a home run that sounded great on the radio (almost hit the ospry nest), and looked pretty impressive on the Fox 4 TV replay I saw later in the evening. Arod came into this game batting .571, and Frank Catalanotto also has a batting average above .600 I believe. Both did nothing to sour that today – Arod going 1 for 2, and Catalanotto going 2 for 3. Speaking of hitting, in the 5 run 6th, we had consecutive hits by 6 or 7 (I don’t remember, I was driving at the time) straight batters!
Darren Oliver already has more wins this spring training than he had all of last season, which is pretty sad. Still, I’m hoping he can pull it together this year – he looks good so far, but then again Eric Nadel pointed out today that he had a good spring last year, too. We also had some good defense saving Oliver, as the Orioles had singles in the first 4 out of 7 batters (3 were bloops). We did have double plays in both the first and second. This kind of saving didn’t happen a lot last year. Hope it’s a good sign for this year.
In other notes, Ricky Ledee sounded like he pulled his hamstring – he’s getting an MRI on Sunday, and a prognosis will be made then as to what might be wrong with him. Also, several kids fell 3 feet when a railing in the stands collapsed before the game started – no one was seriously hurt, though. And, we moved 6 players off the spring training roster, all pitchers not expected to make the club anyway.
Where was all this offense yesterday? :)

Don’t have time to write about this – I’m extremely busy at work today. However, there isn’t much to say. First bad game of the Spring. Only thing worth writing about is ARod, who was 2 for 3 with a solo home run.
Kenny Rogers went three innings, and gave up 3 runs, but NONE of them were earned. That’s not promising. Chris Haney didn’t give up anything, and Mike Munoz pitched another scoreless frame.
However, that’s about the gist of it. :)

When I saw the line score start up for this game, I had forgotten we were hitting against Esteban Loaiza. He didn’t do all that bad, giving up just two hits and one run in two innings. For some reason, I just felt that we’d tee off against him, I guess not. Then I saw the game going back and forth on the scoreboard, and figured we’d end up losing. Had to go back to work and couldn’t watch that, so I was surprised when I saw the final score in our favor. Don’t know why, but it always seems when we play against a former Ranger, we never do good.
Pudge looked good, he had two RBI’s (one off Loaiza, one off Pedro Borbon). Pudge was the standout offensive player of the day. No other Ranger had two hits, and no one had two RBI’s. The rest of the hits and RBI’s were scattered all over the box score.
Doug Davis pitched three innings, allowing one run on four hits. Unfortunately, we gave up three home runs – one each off of Doug Davis, Pat Mahomes, & Mike Venafro (who got a save). Fortunately, they were all solo home runs. Pat Mahomes didn’t fare too well today, giving up 3 hits & 3 runs in his three innings of work. Petkovsek was perfect in his two innings.
Overall, not a bad game, but not a great one. Nice to see a comeback win, though.

A great pitcher’s duel, but we ended up on the wrong side of the stick.
I listened over the Internet with the MLB Radio coverage – and I have to say. I miss Eric Nadel. Listening to someone else call a Rangers game is just wrong. These guys obviously don’t have a lot of experience (the MLB guys) calling a game, and it showed. While they were enthusiastic, and fairly knowledgeable (I thought) – something wasn’t right. There’s only one other game with these guys for the Rangers this spring training, but I have to say, I want Nadel.
Anyway, not much happened during the game, it was a good pitcher’s duel. At the time I’m writing this, the box score isn’t available, so I can’t give a lot of detail (as I was working while listening, and couldn’t take notes). However, Rick Helling only allowed one hit over his three innings of work, and as I recall, the one run we gave up in the fifth was due to a fielding issue.
We had a great comeback in the ninth with an RBI single by Bo Porter, after we were down to our last out. A passed ball helped, and Porter’s single tied it in the ninth. Not much else until the bottom of the 11th when Spike Lundberg gave up the winning hit to the Rays.
Nice to hear the game, not great to lose, but sounded like some great pitching again on both sides!

Our hope of an undefeated Spring Training comes to an end today with an 8-5 loss to the Twins. :)
Once again, we got pretty good pitching, with one exception. Brian Sikorski had a major meltdown, giving up 6 earned runs on seven hits in two innings. Other than Sikorski, our pitching was great, giving up 6 hits over 8 innings, and 2 earned runs. The two earned runs were by Glynn & Benoit. Jeff Zimmerman struck out the side the one inning he pitched, and Mike Munoz had two strikeouts the one inning he pitched. Again, some great pitching to start the spring.
On the other side of the coin, we had two guys go 2 for 2 (Dransfeldt, Sheldon, with Sheldon getting a dinger). Sheldon also had a couple of RBI’s, and probably does himself good this spring. The remaining hits were scattered through the lineup with everyone else getting just one. Seemed like a pretty balanced offensive attack.
Losses are never nice, but hey, overall we got some mostly decent pitching here.

Arrrgh! What a game to have seen on TV. However, all we got was an Internet box score. Was kind of fun “watching” the game with a few people over at the Newberg Site forums. :)
Anyway, a lot of power early in this one, accounting for a lot of the runs. Three run hoe runs each by Galarraga, Caminiti, & ARod in the first four innings gave us more than we needed to win this one, having only given up two runs of our own. Kapler, Velarde & Ruben Mateo also got in on the RBI train today. Interesting in that the three home runs were all by players who weren’t on the team last year. It will certainly be a different look when we all head out to the Temple in April, won’t it?
Darren Oliver’s ERA so far is 4.5, I believe – and is 1-0! :) He gave up only one hit, and it was the solo home run – from reading about the game, he didn’t seem to pitch so bad. I really want Oliver to do good – I was a fan of his coming back here, and 2000 was a mess. I’m hoping he can turn it around, but I’ll be first on the bandwagon if he shows signs of being like last year’s pitcher again. Crabtree was perfect in the ninth, which is a good sign. Our pitching was one again really good, giving up only 2 runs over 9 innings – I can live with that, even if we didn’t have the offense that we have this season. The other run we gave up was given up by Kevin Foster, a pitcher not really expected to make the club.
The thing that’s sad about this is that the reported attendance at the stadium was only 2,051. Damn. A doubleheader and only 2,000 people show up? Oh well, guess that’s why we’re moving to Arizona.

This is the part of Spring Training I don’t like. Games are being played, yet we don’t get to see or hear them. What we usually get during these non broadcast games are at most about 10 seconds of clips on the local news (which of course would rather talk about Troy Aikman’s choice of playing next year as opposed to something GOOD like the Rangers in spring training), and a box score online. Sigh.
Speaking of the box score, Kelly Dransfeldt was the star of this game, going 2 for 3 with 2 RBI’s. The remaining 6 hits we had were spread out over the other players. Pat Mahomes was perfect, not giving up anything for his two innings (nice to see), and Mark Petkovsek gave up the only Pittsburgh run. Overall, 6 hits for 7 innings and one run. Not too shabby.
This was a short 7 inning early morning game to make up for rainouts in both the Pirates’ and Rangers’ schedules yesterday. When I got up this morning, four innings had already been played! :)