I’m driving away from the Ballpark last night, and I’m thinking.. “You know, I didn’t mind losing this one”. You never WANT to lose, especially against the Yankees, but this one didn’t seem so bad as last night’s obscenity. Sure, we got beat, but we didn’t quit trying it seemed (we didn’t last night, either), but for some reason, this one didn’t bother me.
Not a whole lot positive on the Rangers side, as we were more or less shut down by El Duque, who pitched a complete game. Gabe Kapler looked good, going 2-4 with a home run, two RBI’s, and two runs scored. Pudge was also 2 for four, but that was it. Kapler’s monster two run shot off of Hernandez early was a big crowd pleaser, and gave us some life. However, when we put two on with no out in the bottom of the third, and didn’t do anything with it, well, that seemed to be about it for our offense. Kenny Rogers was rather inconsistent last night, he had two really great innings of 4 and 8 pitches, but then there was an obscene 34 pitch inning, and he just didn’t seem to be that sharp at all. He was really beat by the long ball, giving up a solo jack to Jeter in the first, putting us in the hole immediately, as well as a two run shot to Jorge Posada in the fourth (as part of the 34 pitch inning). We had some momentum after the second, but it was gone come the top of the fourth. Francisco Cordero & Mike Munoz in relief did look good, though. Gotta like that.
On the interesting side, my wife and I usually hate going to Yankee games at the Ballpark, as it tends to bring out the overzealous jackass Yankees fans. For a change, the Yankees fans near us were well behaved. Sure, the cheered for their people, and that’s OK (we did it in Baltimore for the Rangers), but when you’re obnoxiously in favor of our team (excessive needling, swearing, etc), it’s not necessary. Have to tip my hat to the Yankee fans near us tonight – it was most unexpected. Furthermore, every time a ball was hit foul, the fans were all screaming “Foul Ball” and whatnot – pretty funny. Also, the ump from last night behind home plate was at third base, and there was a close call there once, and he got a big rash of boos – in fact, when the umps first walked onto the field, they got booed pretty good.
As a side note unrelated to any of the game, I now have a problem whenever I hear the phrase El Duque. If anyone knows the current Budweiser “Wazzzup” commercials, there’s a bit in one of them where they go “Hey Dook?” I cannnot help but think of “Hey Dook?” whenever I hear “El Duque”.

I don’t want to even write about this game. I’m so annoyed at the ending, I can’t believe it – even after a night’s sleep. I said to my wife as we came up with bases loaded and no one out – “Watch, something will happen, and we’ll blow it”. When we get a chance to beat the Yankees, it blows up in our faces – if we can’t win it, the umpires will take it away.

An awesome game. A totally depressing game. Esteban Loaiza by all accounts pitched the best game of his major league career, allowing no runs and only 4 hits over 7+ innings. He left the game with the lead, not having given up much of anything. Jeff Zimmerman came in, and after a minor tense moment, shut down the Indians, and we handed the game over to John Wetteland in the bottom of the 9th. He got the first batter out on one pitch, but then proceeded to give up back to back solo home runs to Manny Ramirez & Jim Thome to allow the Indians to walk away with a 2-1 win.
This was a most spectacular game on both sides of the coin. I am just disgusted at the ending. I really don’t know what more to say about this one. Was an awesome game to watch, but the last 2 minutes of it I am still shaking my head over almost 24 hours later.
Hopefully Esteban can keep this up all season, it was a total masterpiece by him.

An awesome game. Pitching wise, save for one mistake to Jim Thome, we were really top notch. Mark Clark was perfect through the first 11 batters or so, and then he only had one bad inning, giving up a three run home run to Thome. He looked sharp, he looked in control, and was pulled in the 6th while he still had the chance to get the win. Our pitching the rest of the way was great, too. Francisco Cordero, Tim Crabtree, & John Wetteland all gave up no runs following Clark. John Wetteland got his first save of the year (finally). The HR by Thome was his 200th of his career, and the save for Wetteland was his 297th.
On the offensive side, we struck quickly and often in the first inning, putting up five runs. Always nice to see us strike this good so quickly. The five spot turned out to be all we needed for the day, although we added one more later. No home runs at all too which I like. It’s nice to see a five spot without the aid of a longball. Gabe Kapler had two RBI’s, Pudge had two RBI’s, and Luis Alicea had a triple and the Rangers just looked overpowering early.
Hopefully, I can bring out my sweep graphic tomorrow afternoon. :) A short review, as I’m headed out for the afternoon, and wanted to get something in before I went out. :)

First off, a complaint. Listening to the radio coverage of this game today, the Ranger announcers talked about “protesters” outside Jacobs Field who were complaining against the Indians use of the “Indian symbol” as their team logo. I mean, this team has been around for what, a zillion years – and people are just NOW complaining? Why is it all of a sudden a problem? Political correctness, that’s why. To me, anyone who complains about useless things like this deserves to be horsewhipped themselves. Stop wasting everyone’s time, and protest against REAL problems. What a waste of time. I know my mother reads these things, so I won’t truly say what I’m feeling here. Suffice it to say it’s much stronger than these words. For these people, I present this group of images.. Wish I could find out where they all live, I’d sign ’em all up for Indians mailings. :)

On the Baseball front – oh man.. Rick Helling! And in April! :) 8 innings pitched (132 pitches), 4 hits, two earned runs. What a performance! The only mistake was a long ball to Omar Visquel in the first inning – Rick’s first allowed HR in 2000. At this point in 1999 he had given up, what about 100 of them? Actually, Rick never allowed an Indian runner to second base after that. He had 9 strikeouts in 8 innings as well as two walks. Overall, a totally dominating performance by Rick. This is the kind of game he used to pitch all last year, and never got any run support for. Hopefully he’ll get some better stuff this year – would be nice to be more like the 20 game winner from two years ago.
On the other side, for a change, we started out the game with the lead – which hasn’t happened much so far this season. David Segui had a home run in the first for two of the three runs in that frame. We had a couple more runs in the third with small ball, which was nice to see. Our remaining two runs came off of solo home runs by Raffy & Pudge.
Was nice to see former Ranger Bobby Witt on the mound, and pitching fairly well, going three innings, allowing two hits and no runs with a strikeout. Fortunately, that wasn’t damaging to us.
One final remark – where was all of this when we were in New York? Sigh.

No time to write commentary for this game, didn’t even get to do this until 5PM Friday, after the first game against the Indians has already been over for about two hours. :)
Besides, it’s the Yankees, what more do I need to say?

It’s the Yankees again – what can I say? We always seem to find a way to lose to them. The Yankees themselves don’t bother me – it’s the fact that we can’t beat them that bothers me.
Actually, I liked the game – went back and forth, and never really totally got out of hand – although it was a sloppy game. Perrenial Ranger killer Bernie Williams killed us again with another home run. I didn’t like that we lost, but I did like that the game was close the whole way along – one of those see-saw games.
Couldn’t watch on TV – listened on the radio, and it appeared that Mr. Whiny (O’Neill) was being his usual self at the plate. Always love when he flares up like that, and even David Cone was getting into the act.
I also liked reading in the DMN this morning about Kenny Rogers getting booed during player introductions, and then tipping his hat to the fans. Wish I could have seen that. :) We seem to be stuck in a Win lose win lose pattern right now. Still early, our division is all right next to each other, probably won’t start to break apart until the end of April, I would think.

Rainout – and it was called the day before – almost 24 full hours before the game. This game will be made up in August – exact date is as of yet undetermined. Tomorrow’s game time will be changed from 7PM to 1PM (NY Time).

A very nice day at the Ballpark for a game. Sunny, cool, a perfect Sunday afternoon. Of course, I left with sunburn on the right side of my face because I never remember to use sunblock. :)
Anyway, Rick Helling came out and threw a LOT of pitches. I was scoring the game, and for some reason, the number of pitches really seemed to concern me – he was at 75 through the first three innings. Rick gave up runs in the top of the first, a disturbing trend in just about every game the Rangers have had so far this season. However, that was about it for him. He did give up another run later in the game, but he seemed like he was never totally in control. He had 7 strikeouts in 6 innings, but really seemed to have to work for everything he got. What I didn’t realize is that I looked at the line score right before he came out, and realized that he had only given up four hits over 6 innings – and one of the runs was unearned (via one of three Alicea errors on the day). It didn’t really seem like he was overpowering at all at the game, but the line score shows it – only 2 earned runs over 6 innings, and 4 hits. A “Quality Start” by the technical defintion of the word. :)
On the other side of the coin, we got a long ball from Raffy, but the rest of the game was hits here and there that happened to be bunched together at the right time. We had three doubles and a triple in the game – coupled with some walks, we got more than enough runs across the plate. I liked the offense today – we scored runs, but it wasn’t all on the longball (in fact, Raffy’s solo HR was the only run from a long ball).
Relief pitching was great, too. Venafro only pitched to one batter, but Francsico Cordero looked great, and Jeff Zimmerman looked the most dominating I’ve seen him all year so far (including spring training). John Wetteland should have had an easy inning, but the third Alicea error of the game allowed two unearned runs to score, making the game a bit closer in the score than it should have been.
Overall a great game on a Sunday afternoon. I love my new season ticket seats – they have such a great vantage point – there’s nothing you can’t see from where I sit. On to the Bronx on Tuesday. Ugh.

What can you say about this one? Kenny Rogers pitched well, but made one or two minor mistakes, and paid for them. David Wells made none. Not a whole lot more can be said about this one – David Wells shut us down, and he also stopped Kenny Rogers’ home winning streak of 19 games, which dated back to mid 1997 when he was with the Yankees.