I forgot that we played a second game on Thursday evening, going against the Japanese World Baseball Classic team. This was an exhibition game, it didn’t count in the spring training standings – was also a split squad game.
It’s pretty hard to write about this, as I can’t seem to locate a box score for it anywhere. If you know of one, please leave a comment below where to find it. This is one I would have liked to have watched on TV. From what I can see, it appears to be a pretty evenly played game through five, when we were up 2-1. However, it broke out from there, as we scored two in the 6th and four in the 7th, to essentially seal the deal.
Some highlights: Ian Kinsler went two for three with an RBI, RA Dickey went three innings giving up just one run, and John Danks threw three innings of scoreless relief for the win. For Japan, their starter Daisuke Matsuzaka went four innings, giving up just one lone run – their pen let them down.
ST9: Rangers beat Padres in a slugfest, 15-10
Took a look at the linescore right now before heading home for the day, and wow. Another game with no pitching to speak of. The Rangers won 15-10.
ST8: Rangers get shelled by Royals Thu, 12-4
No recap from me – too busy at work to write.
ST7: Rangers beat up A’s 10-3 on Wednesday
No recap from me – too busy at work to write.
ST6: Rangers beat Cubs 6-5 on Tuesday
I’ll have more on this later, as I was watching the World Baseball Classic games this afternoon, so I haven’t had time to check out what happened here in detail.
Edit Later: No I won’t – I got too busy with work on Wed & Thu to go back and write about Tuesday’s game.
ST5: Rangers win slugfest, 13-11 over Diamondbacks
The game just ended, and there’s no box score available yet, but this looked ugly. 36 hits, 24 runs. Yeah, yeah – I know. Spring Training. Players we won’t see anymore. Still. Bleargh! :)
I’ll have more on this one once a box score shows up and I get some time this evening to sit down and write. :) Although I will say this. D’Angelo Jimenez got the save? He’s not a pitcher – I can’t wait to see the box score on this one!
Later Update: When I saw D’Angelo Jimenez got the save, I immediately IM’ed Jamey Newberg who called that “bs”. :) He was right, it was the wrong name in there. But given as many hits and runs we had, the thought of having a position player isn’t that unrealistic. :) Anyway…
As I’ve said already, this was an offensively dominated game. There was no coverage at all, so it was a “refresh the box score” game. After I saw us go up 7-2 after the top of the second inning, I was feeling pretty good. Then we went up 12-3 after 5, I was really feeling good. Then the old Peckaway theory came into play. The Dbacks started coming back. It was 12-8 after 6, 12-11 after 8, and then we got one in the top of the ninth, which we needed, as they also scored in the bottom of the ninth. As I said, no good pitching around, really. Of the 13 pitchers used total by both sides, only 3 of them didn’t give up any runs at all (Fabio Castro for us, and M Chico & F Heredia for Arizona). The worst offender was Russ Ortiz, the starter for Arizona. He gave up 7 earned runs on seven hits and two walks in his two innings of work.
That was capped off by a Kevin Mench grand slam. Mench added another RBI later on to lead all players with 5RBI in the game. Joaquin Arias & Adrian Brown both went 3-4 for us, and both scored. There’s just too many players with hits, runs, RBI to detail here, just look at the box score below. :)
13-11 – seems like a mid season game to me. :)
Rangers lose to Brewers Sunday 9-3
The Rangers lost to the Brewers on Sunday by the score of 9-3. There was a big old ugly 6 spot in the 8th that was the primary reason we lost.
However, I don’t feel like writing about it right now. The adoption I mentioned yesterday fell through, and I’m pretty devastated. :(
Rangers hang on in Spring Game 3 to beat Royals 9-8
Well, I listened to most of today’s game. However, since I have a 10 month old baby, and today was daddy’s day to spend with her, you can’t give the game your total attention. I did listen to it, but didn’t take in many details. These are the only actual notes I managed to take: :)
* Royals go up 2-0 on a 2 run double by Doug Mientk in the 1st
* Rod Barajas brings it back with a home run first pitch back from a knockdown pitch
* Home run in the 9th
I was going to retroactively create an update, however, before I sat down tonight to do it, I found out that I’m going to be an uncle, my brother and his wife have been trying to adopt a child for awhile now, and got “the call”, and are going across country tomorrow to handle all that, so my mind is elsewhere right now. :)
Rangers lose to Royals on Friday, 7-6
Game two of spring training ended the same way that a lot of regular season games have gone for the Rangers recently. We lost. But we lost blowing a lead, and oh yeah – we scored all our runs on home runs. That sounds awfully familiar, and a tad scary. Yeah, yeah – it’s only game 2 of spring training, but still.
I didn’t get to listen to much of this game, due to projects at work – so much so I even forgot it had started, and tuned in in the bottom of the second when we had been up 3-0 already. At that poiint we had had two home runs already – one by Phil Nevin again, and one by Ian Kinsler.
Rangers starter Rick Bauer was good, going two innings, giving up just one hit, and striking out four. That was a good line. The next two Ranger pitchers were Antonio Alfonseca, and Fabio Castro. Alfonseca gave up a home run, as did Castro – Castro’s was on the first pitch he threw. That’s all I heard for awhile due to work concerns. When I tuned back in again in the seventh, the first thing I heard was the Royals taking the lead, going up 6-3 in that inning. They added another one to go up 7-3.
The Rangers got their only other runs in the ninth, when Aaromn Baldiris jacked a three run home run to make it 7-6, and that’s where it ended. KC pitcher Juan Cedeno had a terrible inning in the 9th, giving up 4 hits, three runs in his frame. He did, however, strike out the side. We left the tying run on base.
Again, a rather familiar sounding game. At least tomorrow I’ll be home and might be able to concentrate on the game more, although I’ll be doing the Daddy thing as Mommy works on Saturdays. :)
Rangers & Royals play to a 5-5 tie in first Spring Training Game
Well, the first official spring training game of the season ends in a 5-5 tie after 11 innings. As I’m sure you’ll read from a lot of fans today it was great to have baseball back. It always is. But it’s always tempered by the fact that it’s not our announcers. We got to listen to the Royals’ announcers, who really irritated me (more on that later).
I missed the start of the game due to it being on while I was working, but I tuned in just in time to hear Phil Nevin take one out of the park for a home run. In the third, our offense was aided by an error by Mark Grudzilanek, allowing another run to score, giving us three. It should have actually been a lot more than that, but we left the bases loaded in that frame against Jeremy Affeldt. Kevin Mench had a sac fly in the fifth, ending our offense. At that point we were up 5-0, and feeling good, as none of our pitchers had given up much.
In the top of the sixth, Buck Showalter made wholesale changes in the field – something that started me on the Royals announcers calling our entire team on the field “a bunch of players no onas hever heard of”. Oh, like anyone’s ever heard of guys like Mat Tupman or Ryan Baerlocher, either you twonks. Really irritated me. Anyway, the players that Buck brought in for the sixth were Jamie Burke 1B – Aarom Baldiris 2B – Joaquin Arias SS – D’Angelo Jiminez 3B – Jason Botts LF – Adrian Brown CF – Adam Hyzdu RF – Nick Trezniak C.
And that was just the fielders. Buck made a boatload of pitching changes – having used 8 pitchers in all. Josh Rupe started, and went two innings of shutoutball. Thomas Diamond followed, and went 1.2, giving up no runs, but did allow a hit and two walks. A little shaky, but got the job done. Of the 6 that followed (Volquez, Walker, Durocher, Wasdin, Diaz, & Mahay), we gave up 5 runs over 7.1 IP. 2 were by Durocher, who we won’t see in the bigs, and two were by Wasdin, who we will. The other was by Edison Volquez, who probably won’t break camp with us, but will be up at some point, I’d wager.
However, the guy of the day was our old buddy Benji Gil, who is still floating around. He’s in camp with the Royals on a non roster invite, and today looked good. He had a double and a triple driving in the Royals’ first and the tying runs. Another former Ranger was in this game, pitcher David Elder. David Elder is known for two things. First he was the guy we sent to Cleveland in a trade for John Rocker. Second, he was the pitcher on the mound when Rafael Palmeiro got his 500th home run (which I was there to see). Elder was pretty good in his one inning of work – he was perfect.
One final thing about the Royals announcers. They were riding Buck Showalter pretty hard about all the pitching changes. All I wanted to do was to tell these guys to shut up and announce the game and stop whining about the opposing manager. Especially when their own manager used two MORE pitchers than Buck did. The Royals threw 10 pitchers, we only had 8. Really irritated me. Remind me not to listen to thse twonks again, OK?
The game went extra innings, but I was forced to stop listening after 9 due to being called away at work for something. It’ll be nice to hear Eric Nadel & Victor Rojas tomorrow afternoon. :)