Only our second extra inning game so far this season started and ended very wildly. :)
At the start, we found out we had some injury problems. Rusty Greer apparently hurt his shoulder in the slide into second last night, and was out for today (not expected to be serious). Projected starter Mike Morgan had to go to the hospital with swelling in his right shin – so John Burkett made an emergency start. Finally, Royce Clayton was out due to the stumble he took over first base in the fifth – he’s expected to be out for several days.
So, a very different lineup took the field for the Rangers, and had a very interesting game. John Burkett pitched four decent innings, but fell apart in the fifth. He was relived by Mike Venafro who pitched three scoreless innings, followed by Mike Munoz, Tim Crabtree, & John Wetteland, who all pitched scoreless relief. Was another really great night for the bullpen. John Wetteland was brought in to pitch the 10th, and got the win, as he was the pitcher of record when the Rangers won the game in the bottom of the 10th.
Pudge has an 18 game hitting streak going now – he’ll probably get a day off tomorrow, as it’s a day game after an extra inning night game. This wasn’t a very big offensive game, and it’s nice to see us win games without having to clobber people to death. Todd Zeile did have a home run in the second with no one on, but that was the only longball of the night.
The game ended in the bottom of the tenth when Pudge doubled to start the inning. After that Mike Trombley threw a wild pitch, and Pudge went to third. At this point I figured that was more than enough, as all we needed was a fly ball. I was not expecting the next pitch, which was another wild pitch allowing Pudge to score. Was quite a bizarre win – but a win is a win – I’ll take it!
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Not available. I haven’t heard from Jim in a few days. Jim, if you see this, drop me a line – you OK?

After never having accomplished the feat in the first 26 years of the team’s existance, the Rangers pulled it off for the third time in less than a year, having done the back-to-back-to-back home run thing. :) This time it was Juan, Raffy, & Pudge. Only earlier in the week, it was three other guys, one of which being Pudge, and last year when it was done for the first time, Pudge was also involved (with Juan & Will Clark).

We started this game with a 5 run first inning (similar to the game against the Yankees with Roger Clemens). It was enough to hold on for the win – we didn’t need any more, but we did get one more later on in the game in the 7th inning.

Aaron Sele pitched well, but spectacurly. He lasted into the 7th inning, giving up four runs. Was OK, but he is improving – it seems that our entire staff is coming around. Which is nice. With the kids coming up doing a great job, it’s nice to see our established pitching getting it together. I’d love to put some distance between us and the rest of the division as we approach the 50th game of the season.

Kinda tired – not going to write much about this one. :)

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After never having accomplished the feat in the first 26 years of the team’s existance, the Rangers pulled it off for the third time in less than a year, having done the back-to-back-to-back home run thing. :) This time it was Juan, Raffy, & Pudge. Only earlier in the week, it was three other guys, one of which being Pudge, and last year when it was done for the first time, Pudge was also involved (with Juan & Will Clark).
We started this game with a 5 run first inning (similar to the game against the Yankees with Roger Clemens). It was enough to hold on for the win – we didn’t need any more, but we did get one more later on in the game in the 7th inning.
Aaron Sele pitched well, but spectacurly. He lasted into the 7th inning, giving up four runs. Was OK, but he is improving – it seems that our entire staff is coming around. Which is nice. With the kids coming up doing a great job, it’s nice to see our established pitching getting it together. I’d love to put some distance between us and the rest of the division as we approach the 50th game of the season.
Kinda tired – not going to write much about this one. :)
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Not available. I haven’t heard from Jim in a few days. Jim, if you see this, drop me a line – you OK?

We got a sweep of the Devil Rays last night with an 8-6 win. Helling was pitching pretty decent until he gave up a 2 run home run late, and then was pulled. He still got the win, but didn’t seem totally dominating. Still, a win’s a win.
I’m not going to write about last night’s game, as I’m pretty brain dead from only getting a few hours sleep last night. I will say that it’s not good to see a pitcher go down like Tony Saunders did last night. That was just horrible. I was listening on the radio when it happened, but I got to see it on Sportscenter later on ESPN. Man, that looks like about the worst thing that can happen to a pitcher. His arm just snaps while pitching. I can’t imagine anything hurting more on the field – even getting hit on the head with a batted ball.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Not available. I haven’t heard from Jim in a few days. Jim, if you see this, drop me a line – you OK?

We got a very good pitching outing from three rookies – Glynn (starter), Venafro, & Zimmerman. Today’s DMN said that the game was the first that Johnny Oates had managed that had three rookie pitchers in it. Not sure about the history of the club, but it was impressive to see. Was much better than last year’s rookie pitching experiments of Todd Van Poppel & Matt Perisho. Speaking of pitchers, the cameramen and Bill Jones pointed out that Roger Pavlik was in the stands – he was sitting in the first row behind the bullpen chatting with the Ranger pitchers. I wonder if he’s going to attempt a comeback next spring training?
Still, I thought Ryan Glynn pitched well, but probably started to show nerves towards the end of his outing. He went 4.1 innings, not enough for the win, but certainly good enough to keep his slot in the rotation. Mike Venafro came in and pitched really well for his first major league win (3.2 innings), and then Jeff Zimmerman came in for the ninth. Zim initially looked shaky, but ended up getting a shutout inning (that will help my fantasy team ).
Royce Clayton probably had his best offensive night of the season, getting three hits in 3 AB, scoring a run, and getting an RBI. Nice night for him – this is why we signed him for four years. :) On the flip side, Raffy went 0 for 3, lowering his average to .385 (from .392). Mark McLemore was back after coming out last night. That’s good to see. I’m really pulling for Mac to have a stellar year – I’d like him to stay around (provided he can play).
No home runs though, which is the first game in like 10 or 12 games or something like that where we didn’t have any home runs at all. I was kind of hoping we’d get 10 runs, as that would have been three games in a row where we were involved in a 10+ run game.
Was a really nice night for the rookies – I hope these guys are not flashes, and they stick. We need the help;.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Not available. I haven’t heard from Jim in a few days. Jim, if you see this, drop me a line – you OK?

In starting to write the commentary for this game, it occured to me just how many games we’ve had this season that have had at least ten runs by one side or the other. Looking back at 1999 so far, we’ve had 14 games that have had ten runs by one side or the other, and this is only game 44. That’s 32% of the games played. That’s a lot of runs. A breakdown:
April: We won two, and lost four
May: We won four and lost four
That makes us 6-8 in runs where one side scores 10 or more runs. That’s not all that good. With the Rangers offense, we should be expected to do that, but this stat can be translated down to one thing. Our pitching stinks (overall).
However, last night, that wasn’t true. We got the first really good outing from Mark Clark all season. He went 6.1 innings, throwing 125 pitches (I think that’s what the TV guys said), giving up 8 hits, and 3 earned runs. Not the most dominating performance, but for Clark, and for our staff, it was a great outing. Mike Munoz & Tim Crabtree, who have both been pitching extremely well of late finished up the game, giving up just one hit for no runs between the two of them. Our bullpen is doing great (hell, even Burkett pitched well (for him) out of the pen the other night).
Our hitting was in a groove, too. Juan Gonzalez had a great game, hitting two home runs, for a total of 5 RBI’s for the night (2 run HR & 3 run HR). Pudge also had a home run in the ninth inning, which extended his hitting streak to 14 games. Mark McLemore continues his hot hitting streak of 99, going 3 for 4. I don’t know where he’s been hiding all of this, but I like it! All the Ranger starters had at least one hit, except Clayton.
There were also some injuries last night. I didn’t see the first one, because I was watching the series finale of “Mad About You” with my wife, but apparently Mark McLemore left the game in the sixth with a tight left hamstring. I hope that’s not a real problem, as this is the second time in a week he left the game early with a hamstring tightness problem. Also, on Juan Gonzalez’s second home run, Quinton McCracken got really hurt. He went to jump to try and catch the ball, but his jump was mistimed. He hit the wall hard on the way up, not at the peak of the jump like it’s normally done. He hit his shoulder hard, and came straight down crumpled, and his knee appeared to hit very hard on the warning track. He didn’t get up at all, and after awhile he was stetchered off the field.
No matter what the player, no matter how much I dislike them professionally, I hate to see this happen to anyone. Don’t get me wrong – I like McCracken, but I just hate to see anyone injured like this at all. Looks like he’s going on the DL because of this. I know you’ll never see this, but Quinten – this Rangers fan hopes you get well soon!
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Not available.

This is the last of the Sunday night ESPN games this season for the Rangers. Our last Sunday appearance was our worst. However, I won’t have to listen to the uneducated oafes in the ESPN booth misprounounce the Ranger players’ names anymore. My god – can they get ANYTHING right? Cripes. The one thing I like about ESPN’s coverage is that they always show some really nice shots of the surrounding city the game is being played in – at least before the sun goes down anyway.
On to the game.. Oh man, I was lucky I had something else to do – I was sorting through some baseball cards, and was only peripherally paying attention to the game. The way the score was after the first, you would have thought John Burkett was starting. In fact, Burkett came in after .2 of the first inning, and pitched for six innings, not giving up a whole hell of a lot (by his own standards), and actually pitched the best game of the season for him.
One silly thing – before Morgan left the game, he did manage to get himself in the record books as the first pitcher to hit the same guy twice in one inning. We now have the highest starting rotation ERA thanks to last night – it’s over seven!! We did have a few late inning solo home runs (Mac, Juan, Raffy), but that was really it for us.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Not available.

I was out and about doing some shopping and visiting baseball card shops (I just started collecting cards again this year for the first time in about 20 years). I didn’t hear very much of the game at all, but I did manage to hear the top of the ninth while sitting in the parking lot in front of the Barnes & Noble in Dallas at the Northpark mall.
Was very cool to hear the call on the home run by Gonzalez. Was nice to see them pull out a late inning win – they hardly ever do that. Zimmerman didn’t pitch will, but shit.. It was his first bad outing. Perhaps the Ranger starting pitching disease is spreading. Hope not.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
I only got to hear the 8th and 9th innings of today’s game (on RealAudio) as I had just gotten off work at that time.
What I heard was the Rangers pulling out a victory when trailing after 8 innings for only the 2nd time in 20 tries.
Juan Gonzalez belted a 3-run shot in the 9th inning to put the Rangers up for good.
Jeff Zimmerman had a rare, poor outing.

A pitchers duel! This game rocked! I loved it, even though we lost. Helling made only one bad pitch all night, and it burned him. A 3 run home run to CJ in the late innings. However, Helling was masterful otherwise. Our normally huge offense didn’t cover the mistake, but we were up against another pitcher (Sidney Ponson) that really shut us down too, we were lucky to get the two we got.
Helling pitched the first complete game by a Ranger all season – unfortunately it was a complete game loss. :( There really isn’t a whole lot to say about this game other than Raffy remained red hot. Pitching was the story here, and there was little offense to speak of.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Great pitching will win most ballgames. Saturday, there was an exception to the rule.
Rick Helling pitched a complete game, seven-hitter. 99 times out of 100, Helling is going to win those type games. Friday is was one-uppped by O’s pitcher Sidney Ponson, who threw a complete game, six-hitter.
It was hard for either team to generate any offense. Raffy Palmeiro, perhaps the hottest hitter in baseball right now, homered against his former mates and for a while, the Rangers led 1-0.
Then Charles Johnson, who is red-hot himself as of late, blasted a 3-run homer off of Helling in the 7th inning. That was the ballgame.
This was the first game in the Major Leagues this year, where both pitchers pitched a complete game.

I had forgotten this game was on at work, and I turned it on right before the back-to-back-to-back home runs. Unfortunately, that’s about all I got to hear, as I was fairly busy with work. But I did get to hear that! :)
Our first day game win of the year.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
In what was most assuredly the most exciting Rangers’ game of the year to date, the Rangers took turns bombing ex-mate Bobby Witt and beat the Rays 7-6.
The Rangers belted 4 homers off Witt, including 3 in a row in the 5th inning, by Pudge, Palmeiro and Zeile. This ties a record the club set last year against the White Sox. It also tied a team record for most HR in an inning.
So while the offense clicked, Mark Clark again was – by normal standards – ineffective – but to Rangers’ standards, effective enough.
The key to the game however goes to the superb pitching of one Jeff Zimmerman, easily the Most Valuable Player so far this year for the Rangers – and perhaps the MVP so far in the league. He’s done nothing but record outs – important outs. Wednesday, his 2.1 innings began when Venafro allowed the tying run (6-6 at that point in the 6th) to score on an infield single/bad throw. Zimmerman came in, struck out Canseco and then proceeded to attack the Rays like an overgrown field in July – he simply mowed them down.
The Rangers hang on ever so tightly to first place as Oakland remains a heartbeat away.