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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The ghost of Barry Zito’s $50,000 signing bonus with the Rangers continues to haunt us even in spring training. Zito shut us down. No surprise there, he always does that. But from what I heard, he sounded like he was in great regular season form. That’s mostly why we couldn’t get anything started, and pretty much set the table for the A’s pitchers that followed.

Glendon Rusch became the second Rangers pitcher to go four innings this spring, giving up just one run. Actually, our pitching was pretty good overall. The 5 guys we sent out there gave up just two runs over eight innings on 8 hits.

Soriano continued to have a great spring offensively, going 2 for 4, and driving in the only Ranger run. There were only three other hits scattered around the Ranger lineup for the rest of the game.

The Oakland pitching shut us down. I probably could have said just that, and it would have been enough. :)

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As yesterday was a busy day for me, I didn’t get to play refresh with the box score for this game.

Brian Jordan got to join the party in an A game, going 2 for 3 with an RBI. Hank Blalock was 2 for 4 with 2 RBI’s. Laynce Nix was also 2 for 4. Pitching wise, the Rangers site and the Dallas Morning News all say the Rangers were happy with Chan Ho yesterday. I don’t know if that was solely because he pitched “OK” after being hurt the day before, or if it was something I couldn’t see in a box score. Either way, Park went four innings, giving up 3 runs. Although the stories said a couple of his innings were brilliant. We’ll see.

Kenny Rogers was formally given the job of opening day pitcher in Oakland – I wonder who will pitch the home opener – might be Kenny again. Kenny went 3 innings, giving up just one run, and from what I can tell pitched pretty decently.

Brett Tomko, someone the Rangers were after, but I didn’t want, gave up 8 hits over three innings. How he escaped with just one run is a bit beyond me, but I still feel relieved he signed elsewhere.

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Another spring training game where you watch it hitting refresh on the box score page. Will have details probably in the morning.

Sorry, no time for commentary on the game – too busy on Thursday.

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I got to listen to this over the Internet today as the Mariners were broadcasting this. However, I couldn’t listen much due to work going on, and from the bits I did listen to we played a pretty sloppy game. I also never seem to get into it as much when it’s another team’s broadcasters. My mind wanders, and I have a hard time paying attention.

Walks killed us this game. We gave up 6 of them, and I believe 4 of them scored. Can’t win games giving away runs like that. Ryan Drese (who I’d prefer go away) and Brian Shouse stunk up the joint. Actually Drese wasn’t TOO bad, but he did give up a couple. Shouse gave up 3 in .2 of an inning – not good. Colby Lewis gave up no earned runs in his two innings, and none were given up by Erasmo Ramirez & T Williams either.

I’m also noticing that we haven’t had many longballs this spring. I know our offense is supposed to be different this year, but there’s been only one or two, which is kind of surprising, given that we’ve played 7 games, and at least one B game that I’m aware of. Offensively today we only had four hits, we were pretty well shut down, with no player getting more than one hit.

Looking at the box score it doesn’t too too bad, but it sounded sloppy on the webcast I listened to. Can’t wait for the real thing.

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I got to listen to this over the Internet today as the Padres were broadcasting this.
Soriano did not strike out – an accomplishment. He did go 2 for 3 along with a walk, and a couple of RBI’s – he had a great game.
Overall we had a decent pitching performance. Callaway & Dickey each went three innings. Cordero, Nelson, & Almanzar also all pitched, and we gave up a total of 6 hits and just two runs over the 9 innings of pitching – something that I hope we see a lot more of this season.

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In looking at the line score, this game didn’t seem to be too bad, as we were winning at the time we had a major meltdown in the bottom of the 8th inning. We gave up a “crooked number” in the box score (7 runs), and that pretty much doomed us. To our credit, we tried to come back, picking up 2 in the top of the ninth, but it just wasn’t enough. Most of that meltdown was by Jeff Zimmerman, who was credited with 7 earned runs with no outs recorded. Saw a quote by him that said his ERA looked like a fish. I didn’t get that at first until I realized the infinity symbol is a sideways 8, and it does look like a fish, sorta. :) Three of the other runs were given up by Glendon Rusch, someone I don’t expect to be here past Spring, so I don’t much care about that. Zim, well this was his first game in two years or so, and while a 7 spot is really ugly, I’m not to worried about that either. The rest of our pitching was pretty good (5 pitchers combined for 9 hits over 5.1 innings, and 2 runs). A few too many hits, but not a lot of runs.
Mike Young, Kevin Mench, & Gerald Laird led the way offensively. Hell, even Ramon Nivar took a walk! We got a couple of home runs today, one by Mark Teixeira, and another by Kevin Mench (off of short lived former Ranger Dave Burba).
OK, after winning the first two, we lost the next three. (unless you count an unofficial B game, in which case, we’re 2-4).
Still waiting a bit longer before I attempt to score any games – scoring spring training games this early in spring training is a nightmare. Although someone I met at the Ballpark last year gave me an idea. Score the game, but score it as if there were no substitutions in the game at all. I might just do that next weekend on paper, as my “Spring Training” for scoring. ;)

“Rangers Baseball is not on the air!” I hate spring training games that aren’t on the radio. It sucks.
This game was pretty much David Dellucci. He went 3 for 4, driving in all three Ranger runs of the game. We had only two other hits at all in the game (Diaz, Patrick Boyd). We were mostly shut down by Milwaukee’s pitching. Ours wasn’t too bad, despite the score. Specifcally, I’m talking about Ricardo Rodriguez, who went three innings, giving up no runs and just one hit. In fact, all but one of the runs were given up by pitchers who won’t be on the opening day roster anyway. John Wasdin gave up two, Frankie Francisco gave up two in 2/3 of an inning, and Nick Regilio got torched, giving up 3 runs and getting no outs. But R Rodriguez looked good, Juan Dominguez had a good line, and Brian Shouse gave up one run in one inning. Overall, by the pitchers that I expect to see in April, we didn’t do too bad at all.
Not much else to add to this one, I think that paragraph covered it.

“Rangers Baseball is on the air!”
Those are the words I wait to hear from the moment the last game is over during the season till now. The year 2004 has finally gotten started with baseball coming out of the speaker in my radio. Today was a great day outside. Nice weather, was doing some yardwork, and was washing my truck while the Rangers game was on. It was glorious! Eric & Vince er, Victor Rojas were on my radio, and that alone would have made the day great, even if the weather was terrible, which it wasn’t.
Anyway, a quick word about Victor. The fact that he’s visited my site has no bearing on my statement. He seemed OK to me. Certainly competent, but it’s damn near impossible to get a handle on the new guy after a single game. I will say this though – there was more than once where it sounded like Vince. I didn’t think from listening to the first game that his voice was a 180 degree turn from what we had before. Also, I kept listening for Mike Cramer’s “passion for the game”. That’s got absolutely zero to do with Victor, but that’s all I could think of when I listened to the first game.. “Cramer said the new guy has to have a passion for the game”.
About the game. Well, Chan Ho Park came out and pitched like Texas Chan Ho in the first inning, throwing a lot of pitches, giving up a run, and being somewhat ineffective. Then in innings two and three, he pitched lie L.A. Chan Ho. That was rather encouraging to see. Mike Bascik and Eric Sabel both got bombed, but Ryan Snare & Carlos Almanzar sounded good. Ron Mahay also pitched, and gave up a run.
“Leadfoot” Soriano gave up another error this game, his second in as many days. Is it too late to call the Mets back? :) However, the offensive start was Ramon Nivar, who went 3 for 4, scoring twice, and driving in one. He had the best numbers day offensively. Jason Tyner also went 2-3. We’re getting a bunch of offense so far, what with 26 runs in the first three games (as many as Oakland had in ONE game today). I know it’s spring, and I know things are in flux, and don’t count, bla, bla, bla. Was nice to see us score some runs. Was not nice to see us give up more runs.
There goes the perfect record in the spring. ;)
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Two in a row! Here we come playoffs! ;)
Will have more to say once I see a box score. Tony Pena can’t be happy about four errors by the Royals. I wonder if any of them were Garth Brooks. ;)
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Several months after Juan Gonzalez didn’t help the Rangers by going to Kansas City, he finally does help the Rangers. Not quite as much, and it was only to the tune of three runs on a dropped ball error in the first inning, but hey – thanks Juan!
The box score showed something I didn’t like – two innings no runs by Ryan Drese. I’d really rather he go. Powell stunk up the joint (what a shock), as did Doug Brocail, which is odd, as Brocail got the win in the game. The Eraser had a good frame, as did Edwin Moreno (who I don’t know anything about). The box score looks like one of those that you look at it and go “Blech”, but when you actually look at the numbers, it’s not too bad.
Hank Blalock, Chad Allen, & Manny Alexander seemed to have the best offensive days, although with 10 hits and 10 runs, there’s some more to be spread around. One home run, by Alexander, who is likely not to be with the club come April.
One stolen base, by Jason Tyner. Actually when Tyner was with Tampa, I rather liked him. He’s not going to be the biggest of big name players, but there was just “something” I liked about him. Can’t put it into words, really one of those gut things. If things develop where he’s on the major league roster, I can’t say I’ll be disappointed. He’s not a #1, but a pretty worthy backup. Probably better than Doug Glanville was for us last year, I’d wager.
Still, nice to see a win. Those are always good, no matter when during the season they come.
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