This was a pretty good pitcher’s duel.
David Huff tossed a complete game for Cleveland to get the win. 9 innings, just four hits and a walk. Was a great line. Matt Harrison went seven innings, giving up just five hits, a walk, and one earned run. It’s unfortunately the two unearned runs that cost him and the team the game.
There wasn’t much to the Rangers offense. Four hits total. Two of them by Michael Young, and one of those scored both runs. Was a two run home run in the fourth. The other two hits were singles by Elvis Andrus & Vlad Guerrero. Not much offense, but those two runs were holding up well.
We were only six outs away from the win. Then they made two errors in quick succession after having made just four in the first previous eight games combined. One was Elvis, and one was Michael Young, so it was pretty surprising.
Sadly the sweep got away from us.

The Rangers got out early in this game, and never looked back. Colby Lewis started the game. It was supposed to be CJ Wilson, but he came down with a case of food poisoning and couldn’t start. So Lewis took the hill, and did a pretty great job.
He came out a bit earlier than I think he should have, but he did get into a bit of trouble in the sixth – mostly due to his high pitch count (117 in 5.1 innings) Overall, his line was not bad outside of that. 5.1 innings pitched, three hits, four walks, and two earned runs. However, the big deal in his line was the strikeouts. TEN of them in 5.1 innings. That’s sixteen outs on his ledger, and ten were strikeouts. Makes me wish he didn’t throw so many pitches, as he probably could have gotten way more than 10.
Dustin Nippert, Darren Oliver, Chris Ray, & Neftali Feliz came in after him. None of them allowed any runs. Although Ray allowed two walks in 0.2 innings. Feliz got his second save.
But this game was more about offense. First off, the Rangers had 15 hits total. Only Michael Young had none. He’s now batting .156 for the season. He’ll eventually be fine, but it is a very Mark Teixeira style slow start for him. Arias only had one hit, lowering his batting average to just .440 :) Josh Hamilton came alive. 3-4 this game. He drove in the first RBI of the game in the first inning. Elvis Andrus also had three hits. Pedro Borbon woke up a bit after being virtually asleep offensively so far. 2-4 with two RBI’s and a run scored. Chris Davis had two doubles. But the big exclamation point was Nelson Cruz, who had another home run. Sadly it was a solo shot, as Josh Hamilton was thrown out trying to steal third right before the home run.
The win felt good, and felt like a game we were going to win almost immediately. We’re now 5-3, and are in first place in the AL West. That’s quite cool. :)

Rich Harden started his second game of the season. It went better than the first one, although it ended up with the same decision. That’s a no decision. Rich was wild again, walking three and giving up five hits in his six innings of work. The tribe scored one in the first and one in the sixth off of him. The first one though was a solo home run off the bat of Shin-Soo Choo. Given that came with nobody on, and most of the rest of the stuff he gave up led to just one run, one could say he did decently, all things considered. Technically it was a quality start, but it didn’t feel like one. Given the way Harden was presented to us, I expect 7 innings, 12 strikeouts, and 4 hits, maybe one run each game he pitches. Granted, the Harden we know before he signed here says we’re not likely to get that, but he is the guy most likely to strike out 15 or something. He did good, although it still felt like a letdown to me.
Dustin Nippert & Darren Oliver pitched the next two frames, and by this point, it was the bottom of the ninth. So Ron Washington brings in Frank Francisco. This is the same day that Washington said this to the press:

Rangers manager Ron Washington said on Monday he’s going to use reliever Frank Francisco in the sixth or seventh inning — preferably in non-pressure situations — while he gets himself together.

Uh, OK. Bringing him in in the bottom of the ninth in a tie game certainly qualifies for THAT. But, he did manage to pitch a perfect inning, although he had a liner to short, and a flyball that went to the warning track. It could have quite easily been worse.
The Indians threw out Fausto Carmona. He’s an enigma, he could be freakin’ fantastic, or he could be all over the place. We saw a bit of both today, but mostly the good pitcher. Carmona went eight innings (111 pitches), allowed five hits, four walks, but just two earned runs. Both coming in the fifth. And one of those was on a wild pitch by Carmona himself (the other was on an RBI single by Michael Young).
Overall, there wasn’t a ton of offense. The Rangers had eight hits. Two by Joaquin Arias, who has had a torrid few games here. Two by Nelson Cruz, who leads the league in everything. The rest were scattered.
The game went to extra innings, our first of the year, and I hate these. Long time readers of my site have heard me rant about how many times the Rangers lose in the 10th inning. Not this time. Josh Hamilton got on board, and Nelson Cruz hit another home run to win the game 4-2 in 10 innings. Neftali Feliz came in, mowed down the Indians in the bottom of the 10th for a save.
I would have preferred Harden get the win, but I’ll obviously take the win.

The Rangers finish the last game on the homestand with a nice win. 9-2 over the Mariners. Our offense woke up, and it wasn’t just Guerrero & Cruz. We had a nice spread of it amongst the lineup. In fact, the only Ranger not to have at least one hit was David Murphy. But he was excused because of the extremely bizarre way he got on base the two times he did. He reached on two consecutive at bats via catcher’s interference. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen. Oh, I’ve seen the interference happen from time to time, but never two straight at bats from the same guy. Very weird.
Vlad Guerrero went 3-5, and his batting average sits at .500 for the season so far. Quite gaudy. However, the bigger surprise here is Joaquin Arias. He went 3-5, making it two consecutive games he had three hits. His average also is at .500. Arias isn’t too far off of Guerrero in at bats, either. To this point, Arias has 16 at bats, and Guerrero has 24. So it’s not one of those “Oh, he’s just gone 3-6 for the season, so he’s .500” deals. I think most people see Arias as a “hanging on” guy – that he’s only here because Kinsler is out, and we didn’t have a seriously better option. He definitely is seizing this time, it will make for an interesting choice once that time comes.
Josh Hamilton looked good, as he had a couple of doubles. Elvis Andrus had a triple. Mike Young had a home run. So we had some nicely spread out offense. Was good to see that. We did have a guy thrown out at home, and also at second to end an inning, on a really bizarre play. But overall, the offense showed up, and showed up well. Nine runs and sixteen hits. Yeah, it was there.
Pitching was pretty good, too. Scott Feldman pitched way better than he did on opening day. This time, it was seven innings, seven hits, and two runs (although one was unearned). He got his first win of the season, and his ERA sits at 2.57 after two starts. Doug Mathis & Chris Ray each pitched scoreless innings (although Mathis’ inning wasn’t terribly smooth).
But it was a good win. Something nice to get out on the road with, as the Rangers don’t come back home until Friday the 23rd. In the interim, we go through Cleveland, the Bronx, & Boston. That could be rough. Cleveland won’t be AS hard as the other two, but it has (on paper) the possibility of being ugly. We’ll get an early test as to how good this team really is.
Perhaps it’s good we’re going in there without a closer that is awfully wobbly. I can see Feliz being the closer for this whole road trip quite easily.

On paper, I thought this game was going to be a Mariners win. Felix Hernandez versus Matt Harrison. Especially after Matt had not had any mound time (when it counts) in ages.
But what we got was not what I was expecting. Felix Hernandez was good. Yes. But Matt Harrison was just a smidge better. Just look at their lines:
Hernandez: 7IP, 7H, 3R, 2ER, 1BB, 5K, 1HR, 110P
Harrison: 6IP, 6H, 1ER, 1BB, 4K, 0HR, 110P
Yeah, Hernandez was out there longer, but he did give up more runs. The pitchers left the field with Harrison on top. Dustin Nippert and Neftali Feliz held down the fort. Nippert had a little harder time, as he gave up two hits, but neither surrendered a run.
Then Frank Francisco came in and laid an egg. A big stinky smelly one right in the middle of the diamond. For the second time in a few games, too. He gave up three hits, three earned runs and a walk. In 0.1 innings pitched. Faced just five batters, threw fifteen pitches. He was rather lustily booed, and his manager lost confidence, as Feliz was named the “temporary” closer not long after the game was over. Yikes!
It was annoying as hell, but lost in the annoyance was the fact that Joaquin Arias went 3-3 against Felix Hernandez. That was a really impressive feat. Wouldn’t have expected that from Arias, but we’ll take it.
P.S. I’m bloody sick and tired of Felix Hernandez being called “King Felix” – even by our own announcers. Come on Lewin. He’s not our player. That we’re promoting an opponent with an “ego boosting” nickname like that really bugs me. Most players (like say CoCo Crisp) have a nickname that’s part of their name. Yeah, his name is “Covelli Crisp”, but nobody calls him that. All the records and everything say Coco Crisp. Nobody calls him “King Felix”. He’s Felix Hernandez. If I was a Mariner fan, I might be inclined to say that, but I’m not. And I don’t think our announcers should be doing that, either. Grumble, grumble..

Seattle comes to town, and they seem to be in the same place we are. Bats aren’t working, the pitching is OK, but no offense. And for most of this game, it appeared this was going to be the same old story for the 2010 Rangers. Using the word “old” to describe a pattern in Game 4 is somewhat comical.
Anyway, Ranger fans know that so far, the offense has been Vlad Guerrero & Nelson Cruz, and that’s it. Everyone was was batting close to zero. If not actually zero. For the first five innings, it seemed it was going to be the same this game, too. Nelson Cruz had a solo home run in the bottom of the fourth inning, which at the time tied the game 1-1. That changed in the bottom of the sixth, when our play by play went like this:
Michael Young grounds out
Josh Hamilton walks.
Vlad Guerrero doubled to the 407 sign, scoring Hamilton from first.
Nelson Cruz singles, scoring Guerrero.
Chris Davis singles, moving Guerrero to second.
Pitching change: Shawn Kelley comes in
Taylor Teagarden strikes out
Joaquin Arias singles, scoring Nelson Cruz. Davis to second.
Elvis Andrus singles, scoring Davis. Arias to third.
Julio Borbon files out to Bradley.
That’s the most sustained offense we’ve had the entire season so far. It resulted in a four spot in the bottom of the sixth. Something that was needed. Josh Hamilton also doubled in Michael Young in the bottom of the seventh, so the game ended with a nice offensive output. Hopefully that breaks the ice, and things start happening, as there’s no way that Guerrero & Cruz could carry us like that on their own for too long.
Anyone else thinking AL Player of the week for either (or both) of them?
Even though that was a big deal, I felt the bigger deal was Colby Lewis. Lewis was the beneficiary of the offense, but he didn’t need all of it, as he pitched nearly as well as CJ Wilson did the other night. Lewis looked fantastic. Way better than I ever remembered him as a Ranger before. He went seven innings, gave up one earned run on five hits, and four walks. Few too many walks, which was the down side to his performance, but it didn’t seem to hurt him much at all. Tossed 103 pitches, which was probably partly due to the walks. But still, it was a great performance, and he deserved the win.
To finish up, I had started working on a golden sombrero image for Taylor Teagarden, who I thought struck out four times, but the box score says it was just three. I’ll save the image, but I do have something positive to say about Taylor. He threw out Ichiro Suzuki on an attempted steal. Made Ichiro look like he was was Bengie Molina slow he was out by so much. That was impressive.

Where have we heard that headline before? Eh? Anyone? Certainly not with the Texas Rangers.
C.J. Wilson took the hill, and like most Rangers fans, I probably wondered how this would work out. Yeah, he was brought up as a starter some time ago, but he’s been a reliever for such awhile that I don’t think most fans saw him as anything else other than a reliever. So it was to my surprise that he wasn’t only decent in his first start of the season, but quite good! His total line was seven innings pitched, five hits, two walks, and nine strikeouts. For an ERA of zero! That’s because he ALLOWED NO RUNS.
Neftali Feliz came in and struck out the side in the eighth and set it up for Frank Francisco.
Who stunk up the joint, giving up four hits, a walk and three earned runs in just 0.2 innings. His ERA is now 16.20. Bleargh. Darren O’Day and Darren Oliver cleaned up the mess, but the damage was done. This was a really spectacuarly pitched day, save for the 5 minutes Frank Francisco was on the mound.
The real shame of it was that we only scored one run. And that one was a gift – we scored on a wild pitch run in from third. That was it. The Rangers had just five hits. THREE of them were from Vlad Guerrero. Nelson Cruz & David Murphy each had one, too, but man. That’s some weak offense. Guerrero is batting .636 after the first three games. If you took him out of the equation, I bet our entire team batting average would be around .100. It’s pretty pathetic. That we scored enough in the first game to win is now looking like something of a miracle.
Ricky Romero & CJ Wilson both battled well. Was a great afternoon pitcher’s duel in great weather. It’s a shame neither of them got anything out of their efforts.

This was a weird game.
First off, the non weird part. It was the first game I scored on my iPad. I’ve used the software called Scorepad for awhile now on my iPod Touch (and for a few years before that on my old Palm PDA), but now that I have an iPad, the screen real estate makes just about everything easier to do. If you have an iPhone, an iPod Touch, or an iPad, you should look at Scorepad. It’s good stuff. Anyway, about the game..
This was a very weird line game. The Blue Jays had seven runs on five hits, and three errors. The Rangers had four runs, also on five hits with an error. Two of the Jays errors came on the same play.
But we did get out first. Michael Young scored on a muffed play by Toronto third baseman Edwin Encarnacion. We had a chance to get more, as there were still runners on base, but we didn’t get anything. Toronto tied it up in the third on a ball that was a true textbook definition of wind swept home run ball. There was no way that ball should have gone out under it’s own power. Alex Gonzalez really lucked out there. It got worse in the fourth when the total number of walks given up by Rangers pitching game back to bite us.
Let’s put it this way. Between Rich Harden & Dustin Nippert, they pitched 6.1 innings. They walked NINE Blue Jays. It’s part of the reason the Blue Jays had more runs than hits. On top of that, there was a hit batter in there somewhere. But the two runs the Jays scored came on consecutive bases loaded walks. Not good. That was pretty deflating.
We got some good feeling back in the bottom of the fourth, as both Vlad Guerrero & Nelson Cruz walloped solo home runs on back to back pitches. That tied the game again at h3 in the bottom of the fourth, but that’s as close as we’d get. The Jays plated two more runs in the top of the fifth, then additional ones in the 7th & 9th.
Rich Harden was really all over the place, which was also bizarre as he struck out eight batters. Walked five. Had no control, but had enough stuff to strike out guys. It was maddening, because early on I thought if he went 7 or 8 innings, he’d strike out like 14 or 15 guys. Sigh. Darren O’Day continued to look good, and Darren Oliver gave up his first earned run of the year (including all his spring time). Overall, a not very well pitched game. Way too many walks.
On the positive side, Vlad Guerrero led what little offense we had by going 2-4. Chris Davis had a double, and Elvis Andrus singled in there, too. But Guerrero looked like old Guerrero, which was really nice to see.
Didn’t like the loss, but it’s still early. I’ll get over it quickly. Just concerned about Harden.

I arrived at the ballpark around 10:40AM. I generally go by myself, so tailgating wasn’t an interest to me, although there was a lot of it around. I saw a bunch, as I parked in the Six Flags parking lot. It ended up not being too bad to park. Getting out was an adventure, but I did see lots of tailgating as I walked past it.

 

So I get into the park, and do my usual walk around to see what has changed. For the most part, the park itself is largely unchanged since the end of last season. One major change was the gift shop. It used to be that they had a gift shop, and then an art gallery next to it. The art gallery went away years ago, and in it’s place has been “more” gift shop, but the old gallery space was still physically there, with a few doors to let people go between the places. They finally gave up on that pretense, and knocked the walls down between them, so the whole space is one giant gift shop, with an oval checkout area in the middle. So it seems a lot larger now, even though it really isn’t.
Additionally, the old museum is not there anymore. Or at least part of it isn’t. The downstairs has been converted to a “Texas Rangers Hall of Fame”. They moved the old plaques from the other side of the stadium over here, and put together some new stuff. The problem is that I couldn’t see it, as it was blocked off for a “Private Party”. They had just put out a bit on the weekly FSSW show about that being there, and it was free for everyone to see. Then they go and block it off for the first game. Real smart. Hopefully I’ll be able to get in there and get some pictures and report on it shortly.
I also ran into an old friend. When I had season tickets, this guy was across the aisle from me, or next to me or something, so it was nice to see an old friend. We chatted a bit, and that was cool. Nice to see you Tom!
So I got to my seat about an hour and a half before the game started, and settled in to read some newspapers and Ranger reports I had brought with me. I missed Rangers batting practice unfortunately, so I got no pictures of that. While looking around I noticed there were two new places the Rangers managed to find to put advertising when it wasn’t there before. You can see ’em here. The tarp that covers the pitchers’ mound, and the manual sweepers the groundskeepers use. Oh joy. There was also minor stuff like the new Friday TV Channel having its name up here (there was a sign that said TXA 21 – CBS 11), too.

 

One other cool thing is that the hot dog vendors were dressed up like very old school hot dog vendors with white pants, and red and white striped shirt, and a red hat. Had a very old school feel to it.
Something else I wondered about. The fans in right field right behind the 407 sign. Who are they? They have signs there all the time, and today was no different. Had a “Welcome Vlad” sign, which was nice to see.

The pregame ceremonies got underway, and we had the usual gaggle of events. Brought out Rangers alumni. Most of them are names from the past I suspect most casual Rangers fans don’t know. Then they had the big names like Mark McLemore, Rusty Greer, et al. They also had a guy I liked, but wasn’t the most popular, Mike Munoz. They also had the player introductions, and I heard a small smattering of boos for Ron Washington. I thought there’d be more than that due to the usual fickle nature of Rangers fans in this town. Had the Canadian national anthem, and then Neil McCoy sang our National Anthem. Had the jet flyover, and then the first pitch ball was brought in by parachute by a fellow named Dana Bowman, who was a double amputee from the service, which was quite cool. The ball was delivered to Roger Staubauch who threw out the first pitch. But not before he juggled three baseballs for a little bit on the mound. Even the Rangers alumni stood on the side watching all that. It was pretty cool. Here is a thumbnail of several pictures from the ceremonies:

   

   

   

   

So the Rangers finally take the field, and the season is ready to go. Scott Feldman takes the hill, the freshly minted #1 starter for the Rangers, with a nice fat contract extension in his pocket. He got started off fine, getting Bautista & Hill quickly, but gave up a sharp liner to Adam Lind for a single, and Vernon Wells followed up with a really well struck two run home run to give the Jays the early lead. While Feldman wasn’t bad at all, he was hit hard a lot. Even most of the outs were well struck. It kind of put a damper on the feeling of the day. The crowd was pretty quiet. Adam Lind struck again in the third with a solo home run to right. That really felt deflating, especially since Feldman’s pitch count was way up at that point.
The bla wasn’t helped by the fact that the Rangers could not manage much of anything. In fact, they couldn’t manage to get anything for quite awhile. Toronto starter Shaun Marcum was really strong. He carried a no hitter into the seventh inning. His changeup was deadly, the Ranger hitters could NOT locate the thing at all. In fact, going into the seventh, the Rangers only had two base runners. One was a hit batter (he hit Vlad in the second), and then Michael Young reached on a fielding error. That was it. So when we got to the seventh, it wasn’t expected to be much of anything.
Feldman had settled down, and ended up pitching seven innings himself. Innings 4-7 were more like the Feldman we knew, and he ended up with a good line, despite being hit around a bunch in the beginning. His final line was 7 innings pitched, 5 hits, 3 earned runs, and three strikeouts. But he didn’t walk anyone, which probably helped a lot.

I got the shots above of Vlad Guerrero, because I knew he’d be a great photo op. When he misses, he screws himself into the ground, and I was right. See the above picture. :)
Anyway, we finally got to the seventh, and we finally managed to break through. Michael Young flew out to center, and then Josh Hamilton worked a walk, which was the first “offensive” base runner we had the whole game. Vlad Guerrero finally broke the no hitter with one of his patented swing at garbage and get a bloop single to right. This had two on for Nelson Cruz. Cruz golfed a ball into the Rangers bullpen for a game tying three run home run. It seemed a lot like a ball that Vlad Guerrero would hit, too. I commented to the guy sitting next to me that “we finally have a right fielder that can hit the slider down and away. Old #19 would be sitting on the bench now.”

  

What’s cool about the three Cruz shots above is that in the first one if you click through and look at the really large version, you can see Cruz with his arms in the air. That was cool to see.
Neftali Feliz came in (to much cheering) in the 8th, and did not pitch well at all. He only pitched 2/3 of an inning, and gave up two hits, two walks, and allowed the Blue Jays to retake the lead, 4-3. Darren Oliver came in and stopped the bleeding. Quite well. He struck out Lyle Overbay and then got John Buck to fly out. This brought us to the bottom of the ninth.
It started off quite well. Michael Young jacked a double to the right field corner, splitting the outfielders. Josh Hamilton was called out on strikes, prompting some arguing from him, which doesn’t usually happen. Vlad Guerrero jacked a single to right as well, pushing Michael Young to third. At this point, Vlad was lifted for a punch runner, David Murphy. Meanwhile the crowd is going nuts, as you can smell the victory. Nelson Cruz came up and blooped a double down the right field line. It scored Michael Young to tie the game, and moved Murphy to third. That left Cruz on second and Murphy on third with one out. The Jays intentionally walked Chris Davis to set up a force at any base. It brought up Jarrod Saltamacchia, who has an unfortunate history of not coming through in situations like this.

After working a 2-2 count, Jarrod launched a ball into the right center field corner for a single, scoring Murphy and winning the game in a walkoff. It was quite exciting, to be honest. The shot here was right after Saltamacchia hit the ball, and you can see the runners on the move.

I have to say that after so long in the game of being shut down, I didn’t feel we would win this game. Hats off to Shaun Marcum for shutting down the Rangers for so long, but I am glad we got the win on opening day. While I was there. One amusing note. It was overcast most of the time. The only time the sun came out was right around when the Rangers started scoring. :)
Great win – and with a walkoff on opening day. Hard to beat that.

As I said earlier, you can view my entire photo gallery of shots online at the following link:

In the final exhibition game of the spring, the Rangers lost to the Royals 10 to 7. They played the game in Frisco, and had I not been at my church’s Easter Egg hunt, I might have turned up.
Nelson Cruz, who was out for the previous couple of games went 2 for 2 with an RBI double. Michael Young had a hit, and finished spring with a torrid batting average of .429.
Matt Harrison started, and didn’t fare too well. Gave up five runs in five innings. He gave up seven hits and a walk. However, that was by far not the worst pitching performance of the day. That fiasco goes to Chris Ray. Ray only got one out, and around that one out he gave up a walk and four hits. ALL FIVE of those guys scored. Five runs in 1/3 of an inning. That was pretty darned awful.
Frank Francisco pitched the final inning, and was perfect. Finished spring with an ERA of 3.00 (fairly meaningless, but still, lower is better even in meaningless pitching stats).
In all, the Rangers had 14 hits, and eight of them were doubles. Which is nice to see, as we’ve been a fairly decent doubles machine as a team recently.
The Rangers finished the spring 10-19-1. Not exactly tearing things up, as only two teams were worse than them. Those being the Nationals (10-20) and the Pirates (7-21). Still, one doesn’t feel that bad heading into the regular season, despite the worst record in the Cactus League. This team just feels better than that.
Bring on Monday!