That’s one Wash for each loss in a row. Seven of them. As with most of the recent games in the 2008 edition of the Texas Rangers, there’s little to like. It did, however start off pretty decently, at least for me.

I work across the street from a Chili’s. I had gotten an email from them recently saying they had a new Soup & Salad deal for lunch (the express lunch). So I decided to walk across the street for that. I’m siting there eating my bowl of really extremely good Chicken Enchilada soup, and the TV’s there were on. Baseball Tonight was just finishing, and it was noon, so I mentioned to my waitress that the Rangers game was starting, and she had the bartender change the channel, so I got to see the first inning of the Rangers game in High Def. I have not seen a Rangers game that way before – at least not like this (meaning not at demo setups in your Best Buys, that kind of thing). It was seriously cool watching it that way. Michael Young’s home run was pretty cool, too.

Jason Jennings took the hill, and I got to see Curis Granderson’s leadoff home run – which actually got me to say out loud at Chili’s “here we go again”. I was pretty much done at this point, but I hung around to see the whole first inning in High Def. If I was’t on my lunch hour, I might have ordered some beers and watched the whole thing that way. :)

The problem today was the longball. Jennings gave up three of them, and Kaz Fukumori gave up two. Seven of the eight Tigers runs all came off one of the longballs. Speaking of Fukumori, man, what the heck happened to the guy in spring training? He was lights out, and when the lights went on for the season, his lights were knocked out. Thing is, his ERA went DOWN to 20.25 after this outing. Ugh.

We never could get much going this game. After the initial high of being in the lead (gasp), we never could get anything going. The Rangers managed just four hits total (two were by Michael Young), and looked pretty lifeless.

We limp home to play the Twins at home this weekend. Hopefully, maybe, the team will show some life after getting home. We’ve already tied the record for worst start in team franchise history (even including the Senators days?) according to the local press, so some home cooking might help.

Something’s gotta.

The Buccos got off to their usual start. Behind early. Only this time it wasn’t perennial “run surrendering guy” Matt Morris, it was Ian Snell.
Snell’s actually been a decent pitcher for the Pirates, which on the surface isn’t that difficult a thing to do. The Buccos haven’t had a winning season since Barry Lamar played there, and that was 16 years ago. Snell is supposed to be one of the long term blocks of the Pirates rotation, and outside of the first inning, he didn’t really do that bad. Ian gave up four runs overall, and all of them were in the first inning. After that he settled down and threw five innings of shutout ball.
In the bottom of the fourth, the Pirates strung together a few singles, and got a sac fly, which scored two. OK, that’s helpful, but then in the following frame, Jason Bay smacked a two run home run off Cardinals starter Todd Wellmeyer to tie the game up at four apiece. A few more singles sandwiched around a double brought in three more runs in the bottom of the eighth to give the Pirates the lead, and the eventual win. Domaso Marte, who followed Snell, got the win, and Matt Capps picked up his sixth save of the season so far. That’s an interesting number as the Pirates only have nine wins total. That’s a better percentage than Steve Carlton’s 27 wins in 1972 for the Phillies, the year they only won 59 games total!
Nate McClouth, a bright spot for the Pirates took an ofer tonight, but his average is still pretty darned good at .349.
Other offensive highlights for the Pirates were doubles by Xavier Nady and the rookie Brian Bixler. There was the aforementioned home run by Jason Bay, as well as eight other singles. Was a nice comeback win, and in PNC Park, too. Good feeling for the Pirates in this one, for sure.
What the heck is all this?
I covered another game, as I there was no way I could bring myself to cover the fiasco in Detroit tonight. On top of that, I spent most of the night watching weather reports about all the storms in the area, and only superficially paid attention to the Rangers game. Here’s all I have to say about the Rangers and this one:

I don’t know why, but the path to a win now seems worse than the terrain of the Hartz Mountains of Asia. There was a momentary feeling that we were over our blip of bad play there, but we definitely seem mired in the mud, that’s for sure. Our starting pitching is generally doing well, there doesn’t seem to be any one glaring thing that if it was fixed, you could say “Hey, we’d be 14-7 instead of 7-14”. Just don’t seem to be able to get out of our own way.
Milton Bradley has been a nice surprise, as has the starting pitching ERA. Josh Hamilton was tied for the league lead in RBI’s after this game, so it’s not like we’re total shite. I’m reminded of a graphic I’ve used before here. Seems appropriate again.

As for the specific game, there isn’t much fun to say about it. Frank Catalanotto’s early home run was a nice feeling, but that was pretty much wiped out by the three home runs Detroit got in the third. I saw that before I started skipping forward on my TiVo. Anyone else expecting Padilla to plunk someone in the back? I certainly was.
I don’t think we’re quite at the point where I’m ready to panic, but I am now skipping more of the games on my TiVo than I’m actually watching.
P.S. Josh Lewin should probably understand the references at the top of this post.

You know, I thought I was disgusted after Sunday’s game, and being disgusted with that to the point where I had a one word review. This one annoyed me more, and I’ve written quite a few more words. But it still boils down to a one word exclamation.
SHIT!!!

SHIT.

Jason Jennings bounced back, had a decent outing on Saturday against the Red Sox. Gave up just two runs in six innings. Unfortunately, Joaquin Benoit blew it late and gave up a home run to Manny Ramirez, giving the Sox the win.
Dammit.

That picture pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? As a habitual nail biter myself, I can understand Gerald Laird’s doing so here.
This game was a mess. Of course, the big blast was David Ortiz’ grand slam in the third inning. Mendoza’s outing really hurt the overall team pitching. TR Sullivan said it very well, with this:

Mendoza gave up seven runs in all, as his ERA went from 1.80 in his first two starts to 9.00. The Rangers’ rotation ERA also went up from 3.65 — third best in the league — to 4.18.

Ugh – ugh – UGH! To add to the lovely overall performance, we had another error, this time by the guy wearing Rusty Greer’s old number; Jason Botts. All three Rangers pitchers (Mendoza, Rupe, Nippert) gave up runs, although one of Nippert’s was a result of Botts’ error.

Rangers batters had only six hits overall. Only one was a single. Four doubles and a home run. The home run was Hank Blalock’s, and the swing reminded me of that home run he had in Chicago a few years back in the All Star game. It looked nice.

In all a pretty craptacular performance by the Rangers out there.

Given this Wednesday was my daughter’s birthday, and my mother was in town this week for the event, I didn’t spend much time thinking about the Rangers outside the time I watched the games, so I tuned in for this one, and saw Roy Halladay, and got bummed. He dominated us last week, and generally it’s hard to beat a pitcher like that. But, as the saying goes, that’s why you play the games.

The Rangers started by making a few roster moves, and rested some guys. Michael Young did not play, nor did Hank Blalock. Playing short was swiss army knife (thanks Josh) Ramon Vazquez. Playing third was a kid making his major league debut, German Duran. A few other roster moves had to be made to make room for Duran, as he wasn’t on the 40 man roster, either. The 40 man roster was to move Thomas Diamond to the 60 day disabled list, and the 25 man move was to put Marlon Byrd on the 15 day DL. I don’t recall much being said about Byrd being hurt, I wonder if this is one of those fake DL moves or not. Anyway, watching Duran at the plate against Halladay was somewhat painful. Felt bad for the kid, as he was up three times, and struck out three times. He also looked like a kid. He was born after I graduated high school (June 1983), which is becoming a far more common occurrence. Still, it probably was a major thrill for the kid, which was cool to see. For some reason, seeing kids make their major league debut continues to be something fun to watch. Haven’t gotten THAT jaded about the game yet. ;)

Vicente Pidente took the hill for the Rangers, and followed up the previous game’s performance by Kason Gabbard with one of his own. Vicente went seven innings, giving up seven hits, three walks, but most importantly just a single run. Jamey Wright and CJ Wilson followed up with scoreless frames of their own, sealing the win. But Pidente looked pretty darned good, and I’m wondering if all the talk about him being a different player in the spring is true. He’s now 2-1 with a 3.12 ERA. Pretty decent numbers for the first couple of weeks of the season. Extrapolated over the whole season, that’s 24 wins. That’s probably dreaming, but it’s a great start, I hope it continues.

David Murphy had three doubles in this game. Too bad some of them couldn’t have come in the previous game when we had 6,334 men left on base. Still, three doubles against a Cy Young pitcher is nothing dismiss too lightly. Murphy was the only Rangers batter to get anything other than a single against Halladay.

Josh Hamilton’s monster home run power hasn’t shown up yet, but he continues to hit the ball hard, no matter what he does (single, pop up, or foul). When that light goes on, I wonder if we’ll start hearing talk about the old “Hit it here – win a suit” sign that used to be on top of the scoreboard in right field at our park. You think if all the planets align right, he probably COULD do that. Or, he could hit one into one of the hotel rooms in Toronto, too.

Come on Josh, “Hit it here!”

In a game that took four hours and fifty three minutes, the Rangers finally prevailed, and got back in the win column. But not for a lack of trying to give the game to the Jays. Jack Benoit had a bad outing, giving up three runs (only two earned – uh oh, another error!) in his one third of an inning of work. Oddly enough, Benoit was credited with a hold. His successor on the hill (Wes Littleton) was charged with the blown save, despite not giving up any actual runs of his own. I mean I know WHY this happened, it just seems odd. That’s all.
Kason Gabbard started the game, and pitched well. I thought he deserved the win, actually. Six innings, seven hits (OK, a few too many), and two walks. But only two runs, which was the important part. This felt like the first week of the season again. Not the sharpest pitching outing, but certainly effective, and enough where he should have gotten the win.
Toronto burned through their entire pitching staff (save for the other starters), I believe, including finishing up with AJ Burnett which threw the final inning.
When you have a 14 inning game, you get some weird stat lines. One of the weirdest is Milton Bradley, who shows as going just 2 for 3, but with FIVE walks. Michael Young was 2-8, and Josh Hamilton was 4-7. Some weird sounding numbers there. :)
We had seven doubles in all (Catalanotto, Bradley, Botts, Hamilton, & Young), with two of the guys (Catalanotto & Hamilton) getting two each. Jason Botts finally broke through for his first hit of the season; a solo home run in the fourth. Frank Catalanotto also had a home run, he had a good day overall (3-7 with three runs scored, and an RBI).
Unfortunately, our men left on base problem continues unabated. The team left a total of NINETEEN men on base. Granted, it was a 14 inning game which helped that number a bit, but even if take out the average of that for the extra innings, we still left over a dozen men on base. That’s not good at all. The individual left on base numbers were downright nauseating. There were FOURTY ONE men left on base by individual batters. The worst one was David Murphy, whose numbers were 11 in that department. Ugh.
This night’s entry in the Bad News Bears Rangers fielding clinic was Ben Broussard, who had a throwing error.

I know it’s way too early for this kind of serious depression about my baseball team, but after listening today, all I can think of is the picture below. It feels that way for some reason.
Also, anyone listening to the game catch the irritation in Victor Rojas’ voice? He was (as was everyone) astounded at the play that left Marlon Byrd at third when he should have scored, putting the runner behind him into a rundown and an out. But when they went to commercial, Rojas sounded positively disgusted. Reminded me of the time that Tom Grieve swore at Hideki Irabu a few years back when his mike was not closed like he thought it was.
Anyway, tell me if you think this picture is how you feel at the moment.