John Koronka came up on Saturday for a spot start, and wasn’t terribly good, going 5 innings, giving up 6 hits, 3 walks, and 3 earned runs. Not exactly horrible, but not a great line, either. Wandy Rodriguez was already here, and threw a good game against the Rangers, going 6 innings, 4 hits, two walks, and just one earned run.
Once again, that’s the story of the game, our offense couldn’t get anything going. In all, we had just six hits. Two were by Ian Kinsler, who seems to have come out of his uber slump a bit. The other hits were scattered amongst four other players (Young; a double, Cruz, Laird, Mahar). Cruz’ single was responsible for the lone Rangers run.
I also have to admit to not having the patience to watch entire games all the way through now considering how generally crappy the team is. I don’t think I watched more than a few minutes of this, I just skipped forward on my TiVo to see the end score.

Well, after the team left Orlando with just about every Rangers fan in existence feeling about as bad as you can probably feel, they headed to Houston to begin the first of six annual games against the Astros; Interleague play is back. I like Interleague play. Victor Rojas does not. It’s a good thing then that mlb thinks (they actually may) make more money during these games, that means it’s a lock that it won’t go anywhere.
Before the game started, we got the news that Hank Blalock is going to have to undergo that same “remove a rib” surgery that Kenny Rogers did a season or so ago. This will sideline him for quite awhile, they say 10-12 weeks or so, but realistically, it’s the season, I would think. Couple that with the fact that they put him straight on the 60 day DL, you figure it out. They don’t expect him back any time soon. So the parade of new callups continues. I have more roster pages to make. :)
Robinson Tejeda turned in a good outing. He took a no hitter into the sixth inning, which was busted up by Craig Biggio – no shame in that. Odd though that you take a no hitter into the sixth, don’t survive the inning, and only give up one run (which was actually given up by Scott Feldman). Just seemed odd that he would be brought out then. But Tejeda got the win, going to 4-3, with a season ERA of 4.53. Not awesome, but not as godawful as some of the other ERA’s we have on our staff. Frankie Francisco followed Feldman and gave up two runs (on top of Feldman’s run), and made the game feel closer than it really was. For the first time in ages, this FELT like a game we should win. Which is amusing, giving how hapzardly the lineup was put together (or so it felt).
Offensively, we were led by Ramon Vazquez, the callup from a day or so ago. In what I believe is his first action as Ranger, he went 3-4 with a home run. Actually, now that I look at the stats, he had one RBI, and one run. The solo home run. So his 3-4 wasn’t really THAT productive, but 3-4 always looks good in the box score. Nelson Cruz and Sammy Sosa both had two RBI’s, as did a few others (Vazquez, Lofton, & Young). The five spot in the third was the backbone of this game for us. Was nice to see that up there. And on the road no less, which I think brings our road win total this year to two. ;)
Also, Eric Gagne got a save. It was only his second opportunity all season, and this was Game 42. Bleargh.
With all the injuries, we’re about to see some strange lineups going forward. I wonder if all those changes will have any impact on our bottom line.

OK, NOW I give up. When’s opening day 2008?

Yeah, I know they have some good players, but they’re the freakin’ Devil Rays!
We should be 3-0 against ’em in Orlando.
We suck.

I had to time shift the game due to some family duties, but I really wanted to see this game. For some reason I felt something good was going to come out of Brandon McCarthy. Not that I was thinking no hitter, or something like that, but I just had a feeling he was going to do well. So I broke out my Palm, and decided to score the game. I was also curious to see how it would come off on TV. It actually kind of reminded me for some reason of the park that the Corpus Christi Hooks play in. As the game started, it felt like I was watching a minor league game. The camera angles were off – it took me a couple of innings to get a feel for what would be called a ball and a strike because they weren’t the usual camera angles I’m used to seeing. Apparently I’m not the only person who thought that, Richard Durrett wrote about that over on the DMN Baseball blog, too.
McCarthy had a decent line overall, but seemed a bit shaky in the second and third innings where he gave up the three runs the Rays got. Walks didn’t help – they never do. In all, Brandon went 6 innings, giving up 3ER on 6H & 3BB. He did strike out seven though, which was a good thing – and no home runs, either. Since I was scoring, I was paying attention to pitch count, and it did seem a tad high (110 over 6 innings). Still, after the horror that were some of his early starts, this was a decent outing.
Benoit seems to have solidified himself as an important part of our bullpen after several shaky years there of not even knowing if he’d be on the team – this is good, it’s nice to have a consistent link backwards like that with Jack. I admit I was one of the people calling for his head a few years ago, but I really like the fact a homegrown guy has gotten through it and found a place where he can be productive.
Our late inning pitching dodged a bullet once, but couldn’t dodge the same one twice. When you have to intentionally load the bases for a force out at home, it’s never good. We got out of that in the bottom of the ninth with Otsuka on the mound, but we had to do it a second time with Feldman on the mount in the bottom of the 10th, and that one didn’t work. Actually, Feldman’s would have been harder, as it was bases loaded, nobody out. So we lost that game. Unfortunately, it seems to be a common occurrence on the road – what are we, something like 5-100 as the visiting team this year already?
Offensively, we had only 7 hits, and they were scattered. Only person with more than one was Hank Blalock – who also had a solo home run in the game. Brad Wilkerson had a double, but had to come out of the game with.. wait for it… a gimpy hamstring. We actually had more extra base (3 2B, 1HR) hits than singles, which doesn’t usually happen. Outside of Hammer’s home run, the other two runs we got were on sac flies.
And speaking of hamstrings, Tampa Bay lost Rocco Baldelli to that, we lost Brad Wilkerson. Seems there’s a boatload of hamstring injuries around baseball this year. That wouldn’t be from guys who aren’t taking steroids, would it? ;) Nah, I don’t really mean that, but there are an awful lot of them. Seems odd.

The only thing I can think of to write about this is..
Sigh.

A phrase that I know some people would rather go away certainly applied on Sunday afternoon. It was Mother’s day, so it was fitting to break out the old tired phrase, “Chicks dig the longball!” There were eight of them in all.
The Rangers got ’em from Ian Kinsler (his team leading 10th, a two run shot in the 3rd), Hank Blalock (his third, a solo shot in the fourth), Brad Wilkerson (his fifth, a two run shot in the 6th), and the best one, a walkoff solo shot by Nelson Cruz in the bottom of the ninth. The Angels had four as well, and surprisingly, none by #27. Two of their four were by Gary Matthews, both two run shots. Their others were by Shea Hillenbrand, & Mike Napoli.
Now, in all both teams combined for 22 hits, of which eight were home runs. The teams combined for 3 doubles, so that’s 11 extra base hits, and 11 singles. In the overall scheme of things, it wasn’t dominated by home runs, but darnit, when there’s that many of them, it just seems so much sexier to say “the game was dominated by home runs!”. In a way it was, 12 of the 13 runs came off of home runs, so it is right I suppose, but there were 14 hits that weren’t home runs. Ah well, I guess I’m just being too pedantic again.
Mike Wood was our starter, and he didn’t have a great line at all. Went four, gave up 7 hits and 1 walk (plus 3 of the 4 Angels HR’s). CJ Wilson gave up another run (solo HR), but Benoit, Otsuka, & Gagne followed up and stopped the home run barrage. Millwood comes off the DL tomorrow, I would expect Wood would get sent back down.
I remember being at the park some years ago when the Rangers had 7 or 8 home runs themselves, it’s quite entertaining to watch that many of them. Bet the folks roasting at the Ballpark Sunday afternoon enjoyed it. Especially the longballs.
Chick dig ’em, you know.

This was a game I only peeked in on – as it was a day when I was watching Samantha (mommy was at work), I only got to see a few pieces. I did get to see the lone really good bit, which was Texeira’s home run, and I saw Kam Loe take his frustrations out on a water cooler in the dugout. Overall, it was the typical loss to the Angels. :(
Bartolo Colon returned from the DL to pitch against us. He wasn’t that dominating – in fact his line was pretty pedestrian for him against the Rangers. He went 6IP, 5H, 3ER, 2BB, 6K. Decent stuff, but not totally dominating. The three Angel relievers didn’t allow any runs, so they kept things in check – as they usually do.
On our side, Kam Loe was not terribly good the first two innings. He gave up all 5 of his earned runs there, but after that, settled down, and didn’t allow any more runs until he exited the game after the seventh inning. That sounds very Chan Ho Park like. On the positive side, Loe didn’t allow any home runs.
We did have three more errors, one of which led to an unearned run given up by Otsuka in the 8th. Is it me, or do we have way too many of those in 2007? Seems higher than usual, but I haven’t had the time to do the research to look that up.

I was at this game, only my second attended game of the season so far, which is some sort of record for me, I think. I’m just starting to get weary of the drive back and forth between Garland and Arlington. Anyway…
There was little to talk about for the longest part of this game. John Lackey allowed a first inning single to Mark Teixeira, and then did not allow another hit until the seventh inning. He retired I believe it was 16 in a row at one point. Lackey was outstanding. I knew he’d be when I was there to witness his debut a couple of years back here at the Ballpark. Lackey didn’t give up anything until the bottom of the ninth when he seemed hittable. Lofton led off with a single, Michael Young doubled, scoring Lofton in an odd looking play when Lofton ran through a stop sign, and SHOULD have been out by 15 feet. After Tex grounded out, Slammin’ got his 596th career home run, and that was it for Lackey. In fact, the home run to Slammin’ seemed like Lackey had been irritated at the way a play went in the inning, and seemed more a victim of his own emotions there than his skill at this juncture in the game. But that was all we got. Made things interesting a bit in the bottom of the ninth, but this was really John Lackey’s game. He utterly dominated us for eight innings.
Funny thing is Vicente Padilla wasn’t bad at all, either. He went 7 innings, allowing 3ER (4R total), and was not terribly crisp, but had some nice defense behind him – for the most part. I say that, because Ian Kinsler “bucknered” a ball in the fifth, allowing two runs to score. Now scoring rules only allowed one to be an unearned run, but IMO, both should have been. Fortunately, Padilla was helped out by four double plays in the inning, a couple of which he was involved in himself! Ron Mahay was roughed up a little in the ninth, but it didn’t really matter the way Lackey was pitching.
One amazing thing about this game is that Vlad Guerrero had NO hits. He did walk twice (once intentionally), but to see Guerrero with 0H in the box score is quite a feat!
Speaking of Sammy Sosa, did anyone else notice mlb.com set up a “Road to 600” section just for him? I’m not sure when they did this, but I first noticed it when putting together this writeup.

As is the custom with day games during the week, it’s spotty if I can get to listen to the game, and even if I can, I can’t always pay attention, depending on the level of actual work I have to do at the office. This was no different. I listened to the early stuff, and it was a pretty well pitched game early on. It was 1-1 through four innings, and then I had to go run an errand out of the office. That was fine. I was driving, so I could flip on the radio, and I caught most of the Rangers three run top of the fifth. That contained the rather entertaining rundown that Gerald Laird scored on. Surprised to hear that on the radio. Was much more entertaining to watch on the news highlights later.
So I’m running my errand, and I come back to work, and now they go up 7-1, which was very nice to see. I decide to do some other work in the office that takes me away from my desk for about 15 minutes or so, and I come back to my desk, and see it’s 14-2, which prompts a “Excuse me? Why did that have to happen NOW while I was away from my desk?” :)
Anyway, with a score of 14-2, you know there was offense all over the place. We actually had 3 of our starting 9 go ofers (Kinsler, Kata, & Cruz). Mark Teixeira went 4-5 with three doubles, raising his season average to .283. Sosa was 3-4, Blalock was 2-4, and Laird was 3-5 (going back over top of the Mendoza line). The biggest single offensive moment was Victor Diaz who pinch hit for Blalock in the 8th. Diaz then got one of the rare pinch hit grand slams in Rangers history, and the Rangers first slam of the 2007 season. Was pretty much the final nail in the coffin of this game. I missed it due to work, but it was nice to see THAT on the highlights. :)
Brandon McCarthy got the win (third of the season), and is seemingly turning the corner in terms of horrific performances, although his pitch count left a bit to be desired (104 in 5.1IP). He only gave up one earned run, a solo shot to Melky Cabrera, and had just five hits. Frank Francisco gave up the other run the Yankees got, and they were followed up by Willie Eyre & Eric Gagne, who was seeing his first action since coming off the DL a couple of days ago. Chien Ming Wang didn’t pitch well, which is odd, giving how well he’s done – I don’t expect him to have too many more of these performances for the Yankees; which is good, as we’re done with ’em for 2007 already.
Oh, and I noticed that ESPN didn’t like the game, because Baseball Tonight didn’t have their collective heads up Steinbrenner’s ass by leading off with the Yankees like they normally do. Jamey Newberg said it well a couple of days ago with this:

I hate the ESPN mentality that that every other team, with the exception of Boston, is sentenced to playing the role of the Washington Generals. That baseball needs the Yankees to be great. No, it doesn’t.

Don’t back down from that, Jamey!
Oh, and as to why I don’t cover Yankee wins over the Rangers? Well, first off the Yankees suck, and secondly they get enough coverage, I don’t want to give ’em any more. ESPN can I’m sure find a little extra to give ’em for the coverage I am not. I just don’t feel like writing about Yankees wins. I used to, but got tired of thinking of 500 word essays to give the Yankees the electronic middle finger, so I just don’t bother now.