I had a really nice writeup in my mind. Bauer was far FAR better than I was expecting him to be. We got some power from Hank Blalock, who had two home runs. We had double digit hits, we had some timely stuff. We had some really great defense – that DP by Brown in right was spectacular.
I did like the move Showalter made by taking Wilkerson out of the #1 slot. I liked moving Kinsler up to 6th (Wilkerson 7th).
But we had ass for pitching in the bottom of the ninth, and we blew it completely both from the pitching side, and the defense dropped the ball allowing the winning run to score. Given the way momentum was going, it probably would have scored anyway. But the way we lost was highly annoying. Just irritated me. 2-7. I’m not giving up by far – it has to be a couple of months for me to do that, but wow is this disappointing.

Ugh. This wasn’t pretty at all. Only five hits. Two errors. More strikeouts, now 2-6. Only high point was when we were up 2-0 on Phil Nevin’s home run in the first inning. After that, ugh…
Hank Blalock did have a double in the 9th, but it didn’t matter for anything. Kinsler batted .500 for the night and walked, so his on base percentage went up further. :) Loe wasn’t sharp at all, tossing 26 pitches in the first inning, and then giving up all 5 Angel runs over 5 innings. Feldman & Shouse pitched 3 scoreless innings in relief, but it didn’t matter, since we couldn’t do anything against Lackey, Shields, & Rodriguez.
I’m never one to push the panic button too early, but it doesn’t feel good at all. There’s plenty of time, PLENTY of time, but ugh. Can we bat Ian Kinsler nine times in a row, and pitch only Vicente Padilla?

I’ve been going to baseball games for a long time. As far back as I can remember, which would be somewhere in the early 1970’s. Back when Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium was a shiny new place, not the butt of everyone’s jokes. Anyway, also for a long time I’ve had a tradition I’ve done every year. It’s the “Birthday Game”. This is something where I always go to a home game on my birthday. Back when I didn’t go to 20-30 games a year, this was much more siginficant, it felt like a treat. I still have gone to the game every year since then. Now if the team (the Phillies for a long time, now the Rangers) are not home on my actual birthday, I take the next closest calendar game. That’s what I was doing today. I was starting the next generation of this tradition. You see, it was given to me by my mother, and now that I have a daughter I’m doing it with her. My kid’s first birthday is next Sunday, so we chose today as her first “birthday game”. It was pretty cool, we bought her a present in the gift shop. I enjoyed that. Hopefully when she’s old enough to comprehend the depth of the tradition she’ll still be into baseball and want to go. :)
When the game started it felt quickly like it was going to be like the others that have come before it because both the first and second innings weren’t smooth. The Tigers had plenty of action in the first two, and I felt we were lucky that we only gave up two runs. Pidente wasn’t as sharp as he was on the second day of the season. He didn’t stink up the joint like Dickey did, but it was passable enough. In all, Pidente went six innings, giving up 3ER with 3K, and 3BB to get his second win of the season, which was also the Rangers’ second win of the season. Good winning percentage for Vicente so far. :) Our bullpen was only one hit away from perfect. Between Alfonseca, Otsuka, & Coco, there was just one hit and no walks over three combined innings. That’s the way that it’s supposed to work.
On the other side, former Ranger Kenny Rogers didn’t fare as well. He looked like Kenny, he wasn’t dominating at all, that’s not his style (to me). But he pitched a total of 5.1 innings, and gave up a lot of hits (twelve), and all five Ranger runs. We had four doubles, and eight singles against Rogers. No home runs, but some hits at the right time, including the most opportune one, a double to the top of the wall in front of the Rangers’ bullpen by Brad Wilkerson. Brad had struck out three times in the game at that point (he did strike out four times anyway), and was down 0-2. He jacked the last pitch Rogers threw in the game almost out of the park scoring two and giving Pidente the win. Pidente was probably out of the game at this point, so the runs were very well timed. Ian Kinsler continues his torrid start to the season, going 2-4. In fact, the bottom of the lineup (Laird & Kinsler) scored four of the five runs.
There were a total of four ex Rangers on the field Sunday – Rogers & Pudge being the most notable. The others were Craig Monroe & Marcus Thames. But something Pudge did had the potential to be a problem. Late in the game, Pudge hit a screaming liner at Mike Young for the final out of the inning. It happened so fast that Pudge didn’t even get out of the batters box, and when that happened he tossed his bat back in the general area of the on deck circle. It ended up hitting the feet of the next Tiger waiting to bat. If that had missed (Pudge wasn’t watching), I wonder how much the press would get on him if said bat throw had hit a cameraman? I’m sure someone would have played that up. This wasn’t shown on TV, I watched my recording on TiVo when I got home.
To tie this up, the reason I’ve been calling Vicente Padilla “Pidente” is because of a connection to back home. Long time HOF broadcaster Harry Kalas means baseball to me. Kallas is to the Phillies what Eric Nadel is for the Rangers, only Kalas has been at it longer (35 years now I think). Anyway, a few years back, Harry called him “Vicente Pidente” and to this day my brother and I find that pretty amusing.

For the last few years, I’ve always said that I hate it when the Rangers go up against rookies, or guys who have only pitched a couple of games in the majors. You’re supposed to score 8 runs in the first inning against guys like that, but we always seem to get shut down. Tonight was one of the latter.
The Tigers tossed Justin Verlander against us. Wow, did he look electric. As good as Curt Schilling and Josh Beckett looked against us a few days ago, Verlander looked better. He only allowed two hits over 7 innings while striking out 7 and walking two. Brad Wilkerson himself struck out three times this game. The only two hits we got at all were singles by Nevin & Blalock (who comitted his second error of the season already). The Tigers threw two relievers for the last two innings, but the game was over by then.
The reason it was over was that Kevin Milwood pitched more like the other bit name Scott Boras pitching client we have a recent history with and not the 2005 AL ERA leader. Milwood gave up four in the first frame on his way to giving up 5 total (4ER) runs on 8 hits over his six innings pitched. Although most of the damage was done in the first inning. Take that out, and he wasn’t too bad, but you can’t forget about the first, it happened. And it was enough. Hell, the first run was enough the way Verlander pitched.
Still, despite now being 1-5, I’m nowhere near ready to panic. I’m sure we’ll see an article by someone saying that it’s because Jaramillo isn’t here that we’re not hitting. There will be Internet forums where people will give up on the season completely, and radio call ins on Monday saying the season is over and start talking about how the Cowboys will go 16-0 because of Terrell Owens. Don’t panic. Wise words from the late Douglas Adams.

The Rangers drop to 1-4 after tonight’s loss to the Tigers. It’s way WAY too early to panic, but it is disappointing. I was expecting to be 3-2 at this point.
This one started out the way most of our games went. We were in it early, and just a few things here and thre seemed to let the game slip away. John Koronka started, and looked decent early. Where have I heard that before – even just in this season so far? Despite his line (5IP, 6H, 4ER), he didn’t seem all that bad for me. I won’t be upset to see him get another start. He looked better than his line. Plus he’s a lefty, which itself is something that will probably earn him another start at least.
Rick Bauer, who was called up after RA Dickey was sent out after last night’s debacle followed Koronka. Bauer went three innings, giving up just one run on 4 hits. That wasn’t bad at all. I know he was called up to provide bullpen relief, as Koronka wasn’t expected to pitch very long, but he looked decent out there.
Mike Maroth, who usually gets bombed when he pitches against the Rangers turned it around tonight. He did have a lot of hits (8) for the innings pitched he had (5.1), but he only allowed one run.
We couldn’t get much of anywhere against the Tigers pitching tonight. We did have eleven hits overall, but only managed two runs against the Tigers. Young, Tex, & Nevin both had two apiece, and the rest were scattered amongst the lineup. Mike Young did get a home run – but everything else was a single. Unless you get a boatload of singles (way more than 11), you don’t always score a bunch of runs.
Ian Kinsler continued to impress, going 2 for 4, and raising his batting average to .462 for the season. In fact, after tonight’s action, here’s a comparison of stats. I’m sure in the long run this won’t remain the case, but for a purely homer reason it’s amusing to compare:
Runs Scored: Kinsler 2, Soriano 1
Hits: Kinsler 6, Soriano 4
Doubles: Kinsler 1, Soriano 0
Home Runs: Kinsler 1, Soriano 0
RBI: Kinsler 1, Soriano 0
Total Bases: Kinsler 10, Soriano 4
Walks: Kinsler 1, Soriano 0
Strikeouts: Kinsler 0, Soriano 4
Stolen Bases: Soriano 1, Kinsler 0
OBP: Kinsler .533, Soriano .375
Slugging: Kinsler .769, Soriano .286
Batting Average: Kinsler .462, Soriano .286
Salary: Kinsler $327,000, Soriano $10 Million
You’ve gotta love all that. :)

This game’s tone was set almost immediately. On the second pitch of the game, Brandon Inge hit a home run over the left field wall. Then Magglio Ordonez. Then Chris Shelton. Then Shelton again. Then Craig Monroe. Then Marcus Thames. And shortly after that, R.A. Dickey was pulled out of the game. Dickey tied a major league record for most home runs allowed by a single pitcher in a game. Later on in the game, Brian Shouse allowed one too, so we gave up 7 home runs to the Tigers. That’s a lot of flyballs. Dickey faced 18 batters, and six of them got home runs. Not good at all.
Dickey’s knuckleball looked nothing like the one that Wakefield threw against us. His allowed a lot of runs too, but his at least moved like a knuckleball. Dickey’s ball tonight looked more like a slow hanging slider. From the looks of it on TV, it seemed like I could hit. It didn’t look good at all. The only possible saving grace (and probably the only thing that allowed Dickey to be in there long enough to give up 6 of them) is that 5 of the 6 were solo home runs (the 6th was a 2 run job). If there were runners, I’m sure he would have been pulled sooner. The guys on Baseball Tonight said tonight that “R.A.” stood for “Runs allowed”.
On the positive side, Ian Kinsler had a great night, going 3 for 3 (and a walk) with his first career home run, plus he deked RF Magglio Ordonez on the basepaths and got a double out of a ball that by rights should have been a single. He looked quite good tonight offensively. He did bobble a couple of balls, and also comitted the first error by the Rangers. But he did look good out there, despite the error. Mark Teixeira also went 3 for 4.
Mike Young (who had another error in the same inning as Kinsler) went 3 for 5 with a 3 RBI double in the bottom of the ninth. Mark Teixeira was also 3 for 5 with one RBI. The only other two hits by Texas were Phil Nevin & Adrian Brown. We had a couple of guys with a lot of hits, and not many scattered through the rest of the lineup.
Fabio Castro made his major league debut tonight in relief of R.A. Dickey. Castro went 3.2 IP and gave up 2 runs (only 1 earned). His line wasn’t great, but he did pretty well in his major league debut. No obscene lines (like 6HR allowed).
Yeah, we lost this game from the beginning, but it wasn’t near as annoying to me as the 2-1 loss last night.

Wow. That was one seriously good, but seriously frustrating game. A lot was written about Josh Beckett’s American League debut at home in Texas. A lot was written about how Beckett would dominate this game. And he did. He’s a good pitcher, I expect that. What I don’t think most people were expecting is that Kameron Loe stood toe to toe with him and was beating Beckett for most of the game. The Rangers went up 1-0 in the first inning and it stood that way until the seventh.
Loe was actually better than Beckett was, but the game’s difference was a home run Loe gave up in the seventh inning to Trot Nixon. That was the game. It was a shame, as Loe was brilliant. My heart sank on that, because I felt he deserved better than that. We couldn’t come back against the Sox. We came close against Mike Timlin, but Mark Teixeira was thrown out at the plate on a hit that I didn’t think we should have tried to score on. Oddly enough Boston didn’t bring in their closer (Foulke) to close out the game. They brought in Jonathan Papelbon. That raised a few eyes, I’m sure.
It was amusing to see Manny Ramirez stike out on some more high cheese for the second night in a row.
I hate writing about games that we should have won but lost due to one small thing. Sigh.

Game two went a lot better than game one. As I’ve said a million times before when facing a knuckleball pitcher, you either are shut down and get nothing, or you tee off and score 50 runs. There doesn’t appear to be any middle ground. Tonight we got the “tee off” version. We faced Tim Wakefield, whom we always seem to have decent success against. And we got off quickly, going up 4-0 after the first four batters of the game with no one out. That pretty much set the tone for this game. All the offense that wasn’t there against Schilling was against Wakefield.
On the flip side, Vicente Padilla delivered what Millwood didn’t in the first game – a dominating pitching performance. He had great movement on all his pitches, a dominating looking curveball, and he threw some really nice smoke when he needed it. He struck out Manny Ramirez twice. In fact, Ramirez struck out three times (the other by Otsuka). He was definitely kept in check. Padilla looked really great, and I felt he could have come out for another inninmg, but I guess you don’t want to stretch ’em out too far this early in the season.
Offensively, we were led by Phil Nevin, who had a total of 5 RBI for the night on two hits. We had 13 hits in all, spread out pretty nicely. The only starter without any hits was Laynce Nix, who has been bashing the ball the first two games, but hasn’t anything to show for it yet. Oh, and Kinsler didn’t have any hits either, but that’s not a problem. Kevin Mench had two doubles, Mike Young got one for his first hit of the season, and of course being the Rangers we had three home runs (Nevin, Barajas, & Wilkerson).
Overall a much more enjoyable game for Rangers fans than opening day was. Tomorrow we face Josh Beckett, who will be pitching at home (he’s from Texas), so he’ll probably be way up for that game.

Opening Day. What’s more fun than opening day? It’s a day that every baseball fan loves, a day for optimism, and all those other stereotypes you hear around now. But we had a beautiful day of weather, I was there at the game with my wife and baby, and it was wonderful. So was Curt Schilling. That’s the baseball story of this game. Curt Schilling. He dominated the Rangers, going 7 innings, giving up just two runs on 5 hits. The two runs were a line shot home run by Blalock into the wedge in the right hand corner.
A couple of highlights for me were watching Ian Kinsler make his major league debut, and getting a single off of Schilling. Schilling had a classy thing to say about it later when asked about giving up a knock to a rookie. Schiling said (something like) “He’s a major leaguer, he deserves to be there”. Nice statement by him. Kevin Milwood looked great in the first three innings. Then he seemed to run out of gas a bit too early, which is a surprise there. But again, Schilling locked us down pretty good.
It is definitely a bit more work when you have a one year old baby with you at the game. Credit to my wife who had to deal with most of it, as Samantha wanted mommy to hold her most of the time. Samantha normally would have napped for about two hours during the time we were there, so it made for a fidgety baby. But it all went well.
Parking was major ass, because I had to park all the way in the back of the parking lot out by Rt 30 and behind the Seimens building. I left about 2 hours and 45 minutes early, and I still couldn’t get to my usual parking spots. It was insane, I hate parking out that far. Next year we leave even earlier for opening day. Sigh.
There were some new ballpark things which I didn’t get a whole lot of time to check out. There is a new concert type area set up on the third base side on the hill next to Mark Holtz lake. I didn’t get much time to check it out, but it could be interesting. There was a new picnic area outside the old gates on the first base side. Both were constructed to have the same general astehtic (sp?) feel as the rest of the park around it, so it doesn’t stick out like a bright orange something going “I’m new!”. Neither I got much time to check out as we were running rather late due to the parking situation. But they definitely could be useful. Inside the park is where they should focus their attentions – new scoreboards, fix broken seats, missing cupholders, etc. The place is definitely NOT a dump, but there are certain things (fix the sound system) which would help overall in the experience.
Oh, and beer is $6 now. Sigh.
Baseball is back. Life is good.

Well, it’s almost 2AM, and I had intended on writing a bunch about my first trip to the Ballpark tonight. However, there was so much roster movement to take care of I don’t know how well I’ll be able to write. I’ll save my writing about what’s changed at the ballpark for Opening Day, which I almost never write about the actual game in my report. I will say this. I’m curious how they got an actual Lexus car up into the 200 level. If you come up the escalator on the third base side of the park, you’ll see what I mean.
The way this game started out, it felt like we were going to have to invoke the World Baseball Classic’s mercy rule. We were up 3-0 after three batters, and after a few more, we had three home runs in the first inning to go up 5-0. Brad Wilkerson added a solo home run in the second (his second of the game) to put us up 6-0, and life was good. However, R.A. Dickey then gave up a grand slam to Miguel Cabrera in the third, and we were back to a ballgame. However, that’s where the scoring stopped. The final score was reached in the top of the third.
Actually, Dickey wasn’t all that bad except for the slam. He struck out the side in the first inning, and looked as dominating as a knuckleballer can look – can a knuckleball pitcher be “dominating” anyway? The rest of the game was filled with a bunch of players that we’ll likely never see again. I did manage to keep up with all the changes on my Palm scoring program, which was unusual, I usually fall behind when scoring a spring training game in person, since I can’t pause it to catch up like I can at home. :)
It was nice to see a game again at the park. That’s it, game on. Bring on Monday afternoon!

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