As I put this page together on Monday morning, I’ve had only 5 hours sleep in the last two days – my recall of the game is next to nothing. We’ll have to rely on Jim’s commentary today. :)
I can say this. The Rangers pitching (in particular Danny Patterson) let the Twins get much closer than they should have been in the 9th inning. This was a very well pitched game until the 9th.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
The Rangers coasted Sunday and swept the Minnesota Twins 9-5, behind the pitching of Rick Helling and from solid support from the bottom of the batting order.
Helling, who gave up just 2 earned runs in 7 innings, was very sharp again and looks to be back to form, after his terrible start of the season.
Helling found all the help he needed from the six, seven and eight batters in the lineup. Todd Zeile, Lee Stevens and Gregg Zahn – who was filling in so that Ivan Rodriguez could get a needed two-day rest, combined to go 6-14, with a double, 3 homers and 7 runs batted in. Zeile had a homer in the second to give Helling a lead he would never relinquish, while Stevens added 2 solo shots, the first being a tremendous blow.
The Rangers have now finished their longest road trip in team history in terms of mileage and I’m sure they’ll be smiling on their way back to the Metroplex. The team sandwiched two lousy series with two series sweeps; sweeping the Mariners at the Kingdome and now the Twinkies at the Baggiedome.

As I put this page together on Monday morning, I’ve had only 5 hours sleep in the last two days – my recall of the game is next to nothing. We’ll have to rely on Jim’s commentary today. :)
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Is it possible the Rangers’ pitching staff has turned it around?
Since last Sunday (April 18th), the Rangers ERA sits at a very lovely 3.00. The addition of Mike Venafro and the subtraction of John Burkett to the staff should only make things better.
In his last outing, Joe coined Mike Morgan, “the steal of the off-season”. I don’t think it could be put any more eloquently. Morgan pitched 7 innings on Saturday and held the Twins to 2 earned runs. Venafro and – here’s that name again – Jeff Zimmerman – each pitched a scoreless inning and the Rangers won 7-2.
Morgan, along with Aaron Sele and Zimmerman, have been the saviors of the Rangers. If not for them, this team likely would be in the cellar, Remember how poorly Rick Helling, Mark Clark and John Burkett pitched their first 2 outings and 3 outings, respectively? As ineffective as they were, Morgan has been supreme.
Saturday, Morgan got help from Juan Gonzalez, who collected 3 more RBI’s and 3 hits. The Rangers scored 7 runs on 10 hits, making the most of each hit. Raffy Palmeiro belted a homer (his 4th) and drove in 2.
It is interesting to note that for the second time in a span of 4 days, Tom Goodwin stole a run in the first inning. Against Roger Clemens on Wednesday, he walked, stole two bases and came home on a catcher’s error and Saturday the exact same thing happened. If Goodwin could only get on base more, he would be such an intimidating factor…
Even though the Rangers lost both games in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday, they finished the week at 4 wins and 2 losses. This long road trip began April 13th and the Rangers are 7-4 so far on the road, which is nothing short of outstanding.

Great pitched game from every Ranger involved, especially starter Mark Clark.. John Wetteland got his MLB leading 6th save.. Juan Gonzalez finally got his first home run – a three run blast, and Pudge didn’t seem to be bothered by the collision last night, also popping a home run. Also, if you were watching the Rangers on TV, the home run by Juan was one of those ones that you knew was a monster blast the second it hit the bat – it was really awesome!
A great game for the Rangers! Surprisingly the Twins are playing really good baseball these last two games. I expected to come in here and crush them, and they’re sticking up for themselves, which is nice to see.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
The Rangers road Mark Clark’s first good outing and a Juan Gonzalez 3-run homer Friday to beat Minnesota 4-2.
Clark, who has horribly in every start prior to Fridays’, pitched pretty well Friday. Despite giving up 3 doubles the first 5 innings, he held the Twins scoreless. This was by far his best outing and it’s at least a sign of hope.
Call me a dreamer but I say Clark winds up with at least 15 victories this year.
It was nice to see Gonzalez homer for the first time this year. His home runs come in bunches usually, so the rest of this weekend might be fun. Ivan Rodriguez, who was at first diagnosed with a concussion on Thursday after a collision at the plate – then upgraded to a bone bruise to his cheek, was back in the lineup on Friday and drove himself in with an insurance run as he homered in the 9th inning.
Flawless John Wetteland, who was somewhat of a question mark coming into the season because of his ankle, picked up his 6th save already and is on a record pace for saves.

Let’s see. The pitching. Well, I thought Aaron Sele was pitching great. Only gave up a couple of hits through the first few, one run. Seemed to be crusing along, and then Johnny Oates took him out. I didn’t catch the pitch count, but I’m hoping that’s the reason, as he didn’t seem to be in really huge trouble when he came out. Still, he got the win, which was nice. Would have been nice to see him get into the 7th, though. Zimmerman, while not as sharp as he usually was came in and got the job done.
The game was actually a tight game up until the top of the 8th – some good baseball, as the Rangers were up only 2-1, on two solo Home runs by Lee Stevens & Todd Zeile, who both seem to be having nice Aprils. We busted it open to 6-1 on a bloop double to right field by Roberto Kelly scoring two, and then another double by Rusty Greer scoring two more. Given the way we were pitching, I thought it was an easy cruise, especially going into the bottom of the 9th still up 6-1. We then had appearances by Munoz (who was OK and appeared in the 8th), and Crabtree (who wasn’t). Both Munoz & Crabtree pitched only 2/3 of an inning, giving up runs (1 for Munoz, 2 for Crabby). Crabtree was rather ineffective, allowing the Twins to get back in the game at 6-4. Wetteland, who wasn’t expected to show because of the score came in and got a save. I liked that we won, but I didn’t like the fall-apart in the bottom of the ninth.
However, the biggest story was Pudge getting wailed upon in the first inning. At the end of the inning, Mark McLemore threw home as Matt Lawton was attempting to score. As Matt hit the plate, he elbowed Pudge in the head trying to score. Pudge managed to hold on to the ball, and the inning was over, but after getting hit by Lawton, he also crashed into the home plate umpire, and then was laying flat on his back on the ground for a good couple of minutes. He eventually got up, and sat in the dugout for a minute or two before heading to the trainer’s room. He looked really dazed there. Later on we found out that he was hit in the same cheekbone that was fractured in 1993 – although Xrays didn’t show anything broken. Pudge reported feeling dizzy, and he’s listed as day to day. That’s good.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Aaron Sele bounced back from a poor start last time out and the Rangers held off a 9th inning comeback bid by the Twins and beat them 6-4 Thursday.
Sele pitched almost 6 innings and gave up just 1 run in his stint. Historically, April is his favorite month to pitch and it’s showed this April as well.
The Rangers got homers from Rafael Palmeiro (his third) and Lee Stevens (his fifth). The Rangers however, managed only 6 hits and can now be officially labeled “in a hitting slump as a team”. The Yankees shut down Texas earlier this week.
This is going to sound like a broken record, but rookie Jeff Zimmerman continues to impress. Really good relief pitchers are extremely hard to find. His value to this team is phenomenal and should not be misused nor under appreciated.
It should also be noted that Rusty Greer and Roberto Kelly (who continues to play *well*) each drove in a couple of runs for the Red Shoe.
The Angels lost and Seattle was postponed on Thursday. The Angels, while playing just about each loss close the past week, are struggling offensively, even though Mo Vaughn is playing again. The Rangers remain in first place.

I thought we made out better than the game looked. I also thought Helling was pulled too quickly.
I’m really tired today – I don’t feel up to writing commentary.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
It’s the same song, the second verse. The Rangers just cannot beat the New York Yankees. They lost 4-2.
Wednesday, the Rangers and Rick Helling squared off against baseball’s premier pitcher, Roger Clemens.
Clemens was wild in the first inning. He uncharacteristically walked three hitters. Goodwin, who led off the game with a walk, stole second and third and came home on an error by catcher Joe Girardi. No hits, one run after one-half inning. The Rangers, however, couldn’t muster anything after this, except for a 4th inning solo homer by Todd Zeile (his 4th).
The Yankees really didn’t do much either, but they did hit 2 homers off of Helling. Helling has now given up a homer in each start this year – and two in each start but one.
Clemens settled down and wound up giving the Rangers just one earned run in 7+ innings.
One lone bright spot remains the pitching of Jeff Zimmerman, who threw zeroes for 2 innings. He’s been nothing short of remarkable.
The Rangers have lost 4 of their last 5 ball games, yet remain the leader in the A.L. West because the other teams are playing poorly also.

Once again, David Cone killed the Rangers. In the last two outings against the Rangers (the other being Game 3 of the playoffs last year), we were shut the hell down by him – totally. I have to say that when I saw Cone’s name as the pitcher here, I groaned, because he’s still a very underrated pitcher – I wouldn’t mind having him our our staff, that’s for sure.
Quite the opposite was John Burkett. I knew we were in trouble when the first pitch of the game hit Chuck Knoblauch. Was a definite eye-roller. And then Paul O’Neill gave the Yankees all they needed with the first of two home runs for him in the first inning. Burkett has had a major slide in quality this season. He hasn’t been a dominating pitcher since he was with the Giants severeal years ago, but at worst, he was just “OK”. This year, IMHO, he’s gone backwards into bad. That’s a shame, because I really like the guy. Today’s DMN is reporting that there might be a problem with Burkett physically, and he could have to go on the DL because of it. If that’s true, it might explain his problems – but if he does go on the DL, we don’t have a whole lot of options. I thought last night that Simms coming back might bump Burkett from the roster, as Loaiza is pitching decent, but if Burkett goes on the DL, I think that Loaiza would go back to the rotation. However, I agree with what Jim says below about Loaiza and the pen – I’d really hate to see Burkett go on the DL, but he’s not doing us all that good where he is. The bizarre thing is that I look at the scores here, and 4-0 isn’t all that bad, really. It’s just that Burkett got helped out by a double play in the first, and some good fielding. He seemed to struggle from the getgo. One bright spot was Esteban Loaiza. He seemed to pitch really good today, and I hope to god he can hold that up, as I want him to succeed, because if he doesn’t, it means we gave up Warren Morris for nothing. :)
We had a couple of threats going late, but they didn’t amount to anything. Our offense was non existant (only 4 hits total). Not much else to say about this game, other than we got shut down big time by David Cone.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
As Yankee great Yogi Berra once said, “It’s deja vu all over again”.
Tuesday’s game brought back painful memories of the 1998 American League Playoffs to Rangers’ fans as the Yankees, behind a masterful David Cone, defeated the Rangers 4 to 0.
The Rangers managed just 4 hits the entire ball game – all singles. Cone came at the Rangers from every angle known to man and had them off balance the entire night.
Paul O’Neill did most of the damage for the Yanks, as he drove 2 John Burkett pitches out of the ballpark in less than 3 innings. Burkett actually did well to only give up 3 runs in his 2.0 innings as he was in trouble his entire short stay.
Esteban Loaiza may have found his niche for the Rangers. He pitched middle relief again and gave up just one earned run in 3.2 innings pitched. As much as we all seem to dislike Loaiza, he has saved the bullpen from a tough road of misery, eating up innings since Opening Day.
The Rangers try to rebound Wednesday behind Rick Helling, who pitched very well his last time out.

A much better game than the first two in the series – this looked like the Seattle series. There wasn’t a whole lot wrong with this game that I could tell other than Eric Gunderson, who looks like he probably pitched himself down to AAA when Mike Simms is ready to come back.
Mike Morgan is looking again like he’s going to be the steal of the offseason. Through 5 innings, Mike had pitched only 65 pitches with two hits (although one of them was a solo HR), and 85 pitches through 6 innings. There were a couple of 1-2-3 innings, and he looked pretty dominating. The seventh seems to be his limit so far this season – a double and then Ben Grieve singled in a run, so he got taken out before a whole lot of damage could be done. Was a great outing still, only giving up two runs on 4 hits. Jeff Zimmerman came in and pitched and retired just about everyone he faced, giving up only one hit over two innings, and 2 strikeouts. Once the hitters figure him out, he won’t be as dominating, but it’s still nice to have an arm like this. I’d be shocked if he was sent back down when Simms comes up.
The Rangers bats were a bit more awake than in the first two games of this series. Point in case.. The Rangers had nine hits through the first out in the fourth inning, which was more than they had in the first two games against the A’s combined! The fourth was a power inning for us. Todd Zeile had a big solo home run to left (there was a funny visual on TV of the ball bouncing down a flight of stairs), and then two pitches later, Lee Stevens hit what Bill Jones called a “titanic blast” to right field – the first back to back home runs by the Rangers for the year. Raffy also had a spectacular day; he was 4 for 4 with two RBI’s and a run scored – looked good. Probably would have had a double if he could run as fast as he normally does. Todd Zeile also had a great day on the field, making a couple of really great plays – lookd like the veteran third baseman we dealt for last year. :)
Silly play in the third – Goodwin was going to steal second, and the A’s shortstop (I think it was the shortstop) stood on the base waiting for the ball to come in, and the base itself came out of the ground and up in the air. Goodwin was called out (see photos below), but I have to wonder if the play would have gone the Rangers way if the base had stayed in the ground. Speaking of stolen bases, Lee Stevens had one, and it was his 5th in his career, and his first since 1997.
There was one really funny thing they did on the TV – they put Tom Grieve up on screen, and had a graphic that said “.000 batting average this season”. Thought that was rather funny. :) A great game – but our weak ass pitching is headed to Yankee Stadium next – I don’t feel very confident there at all. Can we have Sele & Morgan pitch there? :)
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
The Rangers’ salvaged what was almost a Lost Weekend by defeating the Oakland Athletics Sunday.
Paced by a great (for Texas pitching) outing by Mike Morgan, terrific defense from Todd Zeile and shutout relief from Jeff Zimmerman and John Wetteland, the Rangers held the A’s to 7 hits.
The Rangers’ banged out 15 hits, including 4 for Rafael Palmeiro, who finally saw his batting average eclipse .300 (he’s now hitting .333). Palmeiro also added a couple of RBI’s.
Texas hit back-to-back homers in the 4th when Zeile and Lee Stevens connected. That’s the first time this year they’ve done that.
With the pitching the Rangers got Sunday from Morgan, they could have beaten anyone. Here’s hoping it continues, as the Rangers travel to Yankee Stadium Tuesday to play the hated Yankees.

I was out during most of this game – didn’t see enough to make any commentary on it. Except this – man, Jason Giambi is killing us!
Commentary by Jim Weeks:
Jim was sick this weekend, and didn’t write any commentary for this game.

I was kinda tired when this game was on, and wasn’t really paying attention – I think I fell asleep twice watching it. Not to mention the fact it was a crap game – I don’t really feel like writing commentary about this game 3 days later. Now if we had WON by the score of 8-2, I might have felt like writing about it. :)
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
I can’t write a whole lot today. Then again, there’s not a lot to say about this game.
Aaron Sele, the most reliable Rangers’ starter so far this year, was rocked by the A’s Friday to pick up his first loss of the year.
The Rangers’ offense was missing as well – and final score: A’s 8, Rangers 2, was really more lopsided that it looks.
The Rangers managed only 3 hits (including a solo homer by Lee Stevens) while the A’s banged out 17, a season high for them.
Eric Gunderson would be in danger of losing his job if the Rangers had a reliable left-hander at AAA to replace him. Gunderson saw his ERA climb to over 11.00. The only alternatives are Mike Venafro, Rich Robertson and Matt Perisho; Perisho being the best of the lot. Still, a call-up seems unlikely.

A short commentary today, as I’m kinda busy today at work again. I will say this. Wow – where was this pitching hiding? After the score got tied 3-3, the Rangers retired everyone – 20 in a row! Crabtree looked awesome, as did the other guys, but Crabby got Jay Buhner to strike out swinging on all three pitches, and Wetteland was awesome too! Now, if Helling can keep this up, his ERA might come down out of the stratosphere some more. It was a real shame he didn’t get the win – he really deserved it!
Also, Alicea & Kelly looked awesome again. These guys both signed two year contracts before the 98 season – both of their contracts are up after this season. I really hope we can sign both of them again – I like both these guys!
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Put away the hound dogs, cancel the call to the FBI and dim the scanning search lights; Rick Helling has been found and he’s alive and well in Seattle, Washington.
Rick Helling went 8 very strong innings Thursday, in what was by far his best outing of the year. He gave up just 3 runs on 5 hits and no walks, although one of the hits was a home run.
Exactly how good was Rick Helling? Well, for starters, his ERA dropped almost 5 full runs. His curveball, which has seemed to be missing longer than Jimmy Hoffa, was very visable Thursday afternoon in Seattle. He threw nine groundballs and had 4 strikeouts and you can’t even compare those numbers to his first 2 starts, when everything he threw seemed to be belted deep in the air by the opposition.
The Rangers’ bullpen combo of Tim Crabtree and John Wetteland – both throwing in the mid 90’s, simply came in and shut the door on the beleaguered Mariners in the 9th and 10th innings. Seattle has no bullpen at all and I’m beginning to wonder if Lou Piniella will last another 25 games as manager there.
The Rangers won the game in in the 10th inning, 4-3. The star offensively was their diminuative 2nd baseman Luis Alicea, subbing for the weak-knees of Mark McLemore. Alicea went 3 for 5 with 2 ribbies, including the go-ahead RBI in the 10th.
I really like seeing both Alicea and Roberto Kelly in the lineup together. Kelly has hit so well this year that he saw his batting average drop almost .100 points even though he went 2 for 5.
Juan Gonzalez continues to leave runners in scoring position with less than 2 outs. As Joe pointed out yesterday, he just isn’t doing the job offensively at the moment.
The Rangers got some very good news out of Florida, as Mike Simms began his Minor League rehab, going 2-2 with 2 walks for Charlotte of the Florida State League. The Rangers expect Simms back with the ballclub as early as the next homestand.
The best news of the evening though came from that old, familiar face, “Bulldog” Helling…who’s certain demise has been greatly exaggerated.