Sunday was the second of the two televised spring training games. Unlike Saturday’s game, I did get to see this one – well, most of it. I was again doing some church stuff (it was Resurrection Sunday after all), so I didn’t get to see it until late. Which means I sometimes fall asleep on it if I don’t get to start watching until after 10PM like I did this one.
Still, it was nice to see the Rangers play well. Granted, it is the Giants, who probably won’t threaten a team made up of current and former Rangers beat writers for the various local newspapers, but there was some nice stuff in this game. Several great defensive plays, including two guys thrown out at home.
You can tell we’re reaching the end of spring training. The same nine guys who started for the Rangers also finished. Even the pitching roster we sent out there seemed fairly normal. Mendoza went 5, Francisco went 1, Littleton went 2, and Rupe finished up and got the save. Which brings up another point. I’m starting to get mildly concerned that CJ Wilson has not yet appeared in any games lately. I know what the team is saying, but if he’s going to be the closer, he should be getting “A” work.
Speaking of “A” work, Michael Young seems in fine shape in terms of his stats. He went 3-3 yesterday, and raised his average to .388. Josh Hamilton, the darling of spring took an ofer, and his average dropped below .500. Jarrod Saltamacchia seems to have gotten it together a bit. He’s now batting .276 after going 2-3 on Sunday. Ben Broussard, who seemed in low gear for most of March is doing better. He’s now at .267.
A couple of other guys are not doing that great; and they’re on the roster. Milton Bradley, Marlon Byrd, & Frank Catalanotto are all under the Mendoza line. Not good for guys we’re counting on.
Luis Mendoza pitched well again which will be good if he remains in the starting rotation. Five shutout innings. Speaking of pitchers, I was quite surprised to see how young Tim Lincecum was. Good Lord, he looked like he belonged in High School. Given the comments that Tom & Josh had about him, I have to say that is not an uncommon remark.
In a fairly useless note that might make Rob Neyer proud, our 7/8/9 batters on Sunday may have set some sort of record for letters in their surnames combined. Between Catalanotto, Saltamacchia, & Broussard, that’s 32 letters. Not bad for the bottom part of the lineup. :)

The first televised game of the season came against something that I thought was far more important, going to my daughter’s Easter egg hunt on Saturday afternoon. Jamey’s spent a bunch of time talking about his kid lately, so I thought I’d use my site to give my offspring a mention. :)

Seeing THAT was far more important than any other Texas Rangers game I’ve ever seen or will see. I did get to see the top of the first inning, where we scored two runs and Blalock got picked off first, but that was all I actually saw. By the time we got home from the egg hunt, and spent family time, I had to attend an Easter Eve service at church, so it was too late to start watching the rest of the game. So this was a box score only game for me, even though it was on TV (and radio for that matter).
Ian Kinsler and Michael Young had great days. Both went 3-3. Kevin Mench was 2-3. Hank Blalock was 2-3. Jason Botts was 2-5. Lots of hits. Eighteen in all – six of them were doubles. No home runs, however. Kind of surprised we didn’t have more runs than we did with all those hits. Of course, pickoffs to end an inning don’t help much in that regard.
Eric Hurley started the game and got a bit torched. 4.1 innings, ten hits, two walks, and five earned runs. The rest of our pitching staff (Rowe, Wilson, Benoit, Wright) didn’t give up any runs at all.
Nice to beat a division rival like that.

Milton Bradley took to the field in an official Cactus League game for the first time (as DH), and went 0-4. Not exactly thrilling. Bradley is a decent enough hitter, so I’m not worried, but no matter WHO the player is, you never like seeing ofers.
Ben Broussard and Frank Catalanotto had the best of the Rangers offense this game. Ben had three hits, and Frank had two (one a double; the only ebh of the game). Problem with the game in general is those two guys were 50% of our hits. The Rangers were definitely shut down offensively in this one.
We did pick up a run in the third, but that was it. Funny thing is that one run held up for awhile, as the Angels didn’t score until the sixth.
Pitching was good in this game. Sydney Ponson went three innings, and gave up no runs and just three hits. Franklyn German threw a scoreless inning. Kam Loe, who seems to be regressing in general, went three innings, giving up four hits and a walk, allowing two runs. Robinson Tejeda, who continues to be the engima he was in Philly went 1.2 innings, giving up three hits and a walk, and the other two runs the Angels got. Elizardo Ramirez mopped up Tejeda’s final inning, getting the last out.
Jered Weaver looked like he was in fine season form. He went 6.1 innings, giving up seven hits and a walk; striking out six. He allowed just the one run. The Angels pen didn’t allow anything either.
Was a pretty decently pitched game all around, except for Loe and Tejeda (who weren’t godawful either, but not that great).

When I followed Kevin Millwood in Philadelphia, the one that that always dogged him was that he wasn’t cut out to be the number one pitcher in a rotation. That his mental makeup wasn’t cut out to be the top dog, especially in a market that tends to devour its sports players. So he goes to Cleveland, and pitches one really good season, having a fantastic season in the ERA department, and signs a five year deal with the Rangers. He has a good first year, winning 16, if his ERA was up. 2007 was not terribly good for Kevin.
That brings us to 2008. Kevin Millwood makes his first official spring training start. He was looking good. From a pitching standpoint, this was a good outing. Kevin went five innings, giving up no runs on just three hits and walk; striking out five. This is the kind of pitching we need from him if we’re going to go anywhere. As for his makeup, well, he seems to fit in well here in Texas. We’re not as rabid (well, unless your last name is Galloway) as the press in Philly, and Kevin’s laid back demeanor seems to have a nice Texas fit to it. At least that’s my perception of it. So I continue to hold out hope that he really can be the number one pitcher we need him to be. As always, our pitching needs are great. Yeah, everyone always needs more pitching, but the Rangers always seem to need it more than others. Especially when you look at the other teams in our division (except maybe Oakland this year), our guys don’t seem to stand up. It’s where we need more of the type of pitching Kevin showed yesterday in Tuscon.
One of the other questions of this spring is the catching situation. In the offseason, a statement was made that Saltamacchia was named “the man” for 2008. That definitely seems to have changed, as a lot of local press is making it out to seem that it’s assumed now that Saltamacchia will be starting at AAA to get the regular job, while Laird will be the guy in the majors. Quite frankly, despite last year’s offensive dropoff, Laird is definitely a better defensive catcher. I don’t think anyone believes that Laird is the long term guy at catcher, but he is the guy now. The future is any number of names (Saltamacchia, Ramirez, Teagarden), so you keep Laird. Then there’s the mix of Broussard not doing well offensively at 1B, so he could go there, too. We’ll find out more in the next 7 days I imagine.
About this game itself, Saltamacchia muddled the offensive situation at catcher by going 2-4 with FOUR RBI’s, and a run scored on a home run. Hank Blalock also homered. However, Salty’s batting average is at .231, which is not great. Yeah, you could say that you need a larger sample than spring, and you hear a lot that spring numbers don’t matter as much. However, more jobs are won and lost based on the small samples in spring, so it definitely seems like Salty is going to AAA. At least for now. Things change much, and if you’re reading this site, you know that. :)
This game had a lot more extra base hits than singles. We had two home runs (Blalock, Salty), and three doubles (Blalock, Salty, & Josh Hamilton). Just two singles in there.
Wes Littleton had a bad outing, and doesn’t seem to be doing many favors for himself. He went just one inning, giving up five hits and one walk for four earned runs in all.
It’s almost time for big cuts to be made, and these bad performances like Littleton had tend to weigh rather heavy in the minds of the decision makers, who according to an article in the DMN today are going to be working out their roster in the next few days or so.

Luis Mendoza, who looked good in six appearances late last season appears to be making a major case for himself to be in the starting rotation, and not the spot where you don’t need him all the time (aka the fifth spot). In his six appearances last season, he had three starts. All totalled 16 innings, 13 hits, 4 earned runs, four walks, and seven strikeouts. ERA of 2.25. Small sample, I admit, but they’re still decent numbers.
One always wonders if quick flashes in the pan will stick going into a following season. It’s spring, so you can’t get too excited, but Luis’ performance yesterday certainly will help him. He went five innings, giving up just two hits and one run. Only one strikeout, but more importantly – no walks!
Ian Kinsler led off, and led the offense, going 3-4 with an RBI and scored twice. Nice game for Ian. Hank Blalock and Marlon Byrd both doubled. However, Adam Melhuse had a home run that really excited Steve Busby who was calling the game for an mlb webcast. It sounded like a monster shot as I was listening online.
I did realize as I finished listening to the game last night that I’m ready for the season to start. Tired of no games on TV – ready to go guys. I know it’s starting earlier than normal this year, but I don’t think I’ll be getting up that early to watch the games from Japan.

This game started with a pitcher who has beaten us several times already. Cha Seung Baek. I remember the first time we faced him, he was one of those guys who fit the pattern I’ve noticed where pitchers we never have seen before dominate us. They get rocked by everyone else, but against us – it’s Cy Young time.
Well, Baek has been such a pitcher against us. Today was no different. Today he went four innings, giving up no runs and one hit. He continued his streak against the Rangers. I suspect next time it will be the same. We had nothing for a really long time, because our old friend R.A. Dickey also shut us down. Dickey went three innings of shutout ball with three hits and two strikeouts. Between the two of them, we had next to nothing going on. Eric O’Flaherty came on and pitched the eighth and then fell apart in the ninth.
The two runs the Rangers had were in the bottom of the ninth, and as I recall, we left the bases loaded, or left a few guys on. Made it interesting at least, but we were really shut down by Baek & Dickey in this one. We had six hits in all. Five singles, and a double by Jason Ellison.
Our pitching was pretty good, too. Jason Jennings continues to look good so far this spring. He went four innings, giving up one run on two hits and no walks. Robinson Tejeda threw a scoreless inning, Josh Rupe threw TWO scoreless innings, and Wes Littleton gave up two runs (one earned) in his inning of work. Our final pitcher was Jeff Mathis, who from the sound of Victor’s call was not all that great.
Was nice to hear Victor on the webcast. I’m glad to hear our guys on these mlb webcasts for a change, as opposed to hearing some random mlb guy or worse, another team’s announcer.

I’m about out of time to write tonight, so I’ll make this one short.
Josh Hamilton walked and doubled to extend his on base streak to 13, where it ended, as he struck out on the fourteenth.
Kevin Mench went 2-3 with a double, raising his spring average to .355.
Gerald Laird homered while going 1-4, making his average .276.
David Murphy continued a pretty torrid pace, but not like Hamilton’s. Murphy is now batting .417.
Sidney Ponson pitched like the guy everyone expects him to be. Bad. 2.1IP, 6H, 4ER, 2BB. Bleh.
I twisted my ankle, and it’s starting to hurt a lot just sitting here, I need to go soak it in the tub. Yeah, I know, TMI, but it’s hurting me to write right now. :)

As I’m writing a few games’ commentaries on Sunday night off of box scores, the first thing I do is scroll down the page to look at the pitching lines. After the last few stinkfests, I expected another line somewhere where a Ranger pitcher was horrendous and the rest were pretty good.
Well, this game five Rangers pitchers threw, and two gave up runs, and just one was crappy. That was Frank Francisco, who threw just two thirds of an inning, giving up hits, three earned runs and four walks. With a line like that, you’d think he’d have more runs scored against him. Eric Hurley started the game, and went four innings. He had a bunch of 2’s on his line. Two each of hits, runs, walks, strikeouts.
The stinkfest came from the Rockies starter this time. In a stink that you’d actually need TWO Mark Clark outings to get to, Mark Redman went 4.2 innings, giving up ELEVEN hits, seven earned runs, but just one walk. Ewww….
David Murphy was the big name here (mostly because Josh Hamilton didn’t play today). Murphy 3 for 4, scoring twice, and knocking in four. Two of the three hits he had were two run home runs. The other hit was a single. Nelson Cruz also had a good day, going 2-3 with a solo home run of his own.
Ben Broussard went 1-3, and his average is .219. There’s been some talk that Shrek might get time at first base. Kevin is batting .321 this spring, and if these two players keep this up, I wonder how realistic the possibility is that Ben doesn’t make the team, and Kevin does as a first baseman. Jason Botts & Ramon Vazquez also had two hits each.
Nice offensive day that ended with a 10-5 win by the Rangers.

Josh Hamilton continues to tear it up in Arizona, by going 2-2, and reaching base for ten consecutive plate appearances. His average has now been raised to .607 for the spring. Quite insane. Even for spring numbers, which are generally out of whack anyway.
The Rangers had four guys with two hits (Hamilton, Shrek, Marlon Byrd, & Ben Broussard). Broussard had better get a move on, as you hardly hear his name in game reports. Ben & Ryan Roberts each had a double. Shrek had a triple, and nobody homered, so there were a lot of singles (twelve of them).
Kason Gabbard started, went three innings, and continued the “starter stink” I mentioned for the game report right before this one. Gabbard’s line was 3 innings pitched, seven hits, seven earned runs, and four walks. Ugh. He’s my leading candidate for the Mark Clark performance of the week.
Elizardo Ramirez followed, and threw two scoreless frames on three hits.
Robinson Tejeda threw a scoreless frame.
Jamey Wright finished up by throwing three innings, allowing four hits and one run. Not bad.
Our old friend Ron Mahay threw a scoreless frame for the Royals, too.
As for the Royals offensively, I’ll just copy this out of the official mlb recap: “The Royals strung together seven hits and a walk before making three successive outs in their six-run fourth inning. They hit for the cycle — Billy Butler homered, David DeJesus tripled, Mitch Maier and Tony Pena Jr. each doubled and Joey Gathright, Alberto Callaspo and Alex Gordon each singled. Butler’s homer was his third in Cactus League action.”
This makes the Rangers 9-6-2 in Cactus League action so far this year.

The Rangers record now includes a -2 at the end of it, and that’s not two losses. It is two ties. This game did go to extra innings, it ended after 10, though. Generally that stuff is decided ahead of time, from what I can gather.
We do have another person on the injury list (which is dangerously close to being larger than the active player list). This time it was Frank Catalanotto leaving the game with back spasms. I know I’m writing this on Sunday night, and this game was Thursday, but still. Great. Not.
Both team’s starters had the air of “stink” in their box score lines.
Mendoza: 3.1IP, 5H, 5ER, 1BB, 1K
Jimenez: 4.2IP, 8H, 5ER, 2BB, 6K
They both went longer, but as we’re at the midway point of the month now, you should be seeing a lot more of that now. Relievers on both sides were quite good. There were eleven relievers combined for both teams. Between all those pitchers and the twelve innings of work, they had eleven hits, and just two earned runs. Not all that bad on the reliever side. Actually, Mendoza’s damage was all in the fourth inning. He was perfect in the first three frames, but a stink bomb like the fourth tends to discount the good work in the first few for most people.
Offensively, the Rangers were led by Hank Blalock, who had a three run home run. David Murphy also had a solo shot, and both Michael Young & Josh Hamilton had three hits. Hamilton is now batting .577 after this game. Obviously those kinds of numbers won’t translate long term into the season, but even if he bats just 50% of that, it’s .288, which isn’t anything to sneeze at, either. I think he’ll do better than THAT, however.