In the rubber game of the Yankees series,  Scott Feldman took the hill against Phil Hughes.  Feldman was pushed into service due to the doubleheader a few days ago.  It’s the perfect use of the spot start.   One feels bad for Feldman sometimes.  On one hand, he pitched his way out of the rotation after his 17 game win season a few years ago.  But, with all the increased pitching we have lately, he’s the prime guy to have the short stick, and stuck in long relief.  Good enough for a major league team, but not good enough to crack the rotation.   Still, he was making a spot start here, and given his lack of being stretched out, it was unlikely that he was going to get a ton of innings, perhaps not even enough to qualify for the win. [Read more…]

As is my policy for the last several years or so, I don’t write about losses to the Yankees.

I will however, write about Pudge separately during this week some time.

Bit of a disputed call for the deciding run, but I’m super busy at the moment, I’m taking a mulligan on this game.

Well, OK, we know we weren’t going 160-2.  Bound to lose sometime.   But even the loss we had in this game was’t awful.  Sometimes there are losses where your team just doesn’t show up, and gets run over.  There’s times when you’re bludgeoned to death with too much offense.  There’s games where you have 4 or 5 errors and give it away.  This loss was like none of those scenarios (or half a dozen other I could name if I felt like it). [Read more…]

You know, that pun in the title was so awful, I considered not doing it, but it just screams to be used, so I had to.  :)

Game 1 of the day/night doubleheader started at noon, and I was in full daddy mode at that point.  My wife works Saturdays, so I forgot the game was on until it was in the third inning.  When I turned it on, the Rangers were already up 9-0!   Mildly disappointed when I saw I had missed an eight spot in the first inning.   I was a bit more annoyed when I found out that Adrian Beltre came out of the game with that big ugly word – hamstring.   That will be evaluated tomorrow, but one NEVER wants to hear that word associated with injury. [Read more…]

The Rangers rejiggered their starting rotation to put Yu Darvish third, and Matt Harrison fourth.   It was explained as a way to keep Darvish on the same number of days rest.  I think it’s more to break up the two lefties in the rotation.  Still, no matter what the reason, Yu Darvish took the mound in game one of the Tigers series that started on Thursday night in Detroit.

He’s still walking too many people, but he pitched more like the guy we thought we’d be seeing.  His line was 6.1 innings pitched, two hits, one run allowed, five walks, and five strikeouts.  Not liking all the walks, but the two hits was a big improvement.   He had an excessive number of pitches for 6.1 innings as well (121).  A lot has been made that he’s thrown more pitches in a game a lot over in Japan, but I’m not buying it.  He’s throwing too many pitches.  Walks need to come down.   Still, he got the job done, and that was the bottom line.  I couldn’t see him pitch, this was a radio game for me, but it sounds like he was pitching much better than before.  He’s also 2-0, so this is good.   He’s definitely getting better with each start. [Read more…]

I have to say, after the first inning of this game, I was concerned.  We were in Boston, and we went down 2-0 to the Red Sox in the first inning, when Colby Lewis looked rather pedestrian.   The bottom of the first started with single, home run, single.  Then Colby kept it together, even after allowing another double.  Those two runs in the first three batters were all he allowed on his ledger.   After the first, Colby scattered four hits from innings 2 through 7.  He never walked anyone, and struck out seven; throwing a total of 107 pitches in seven innings.  Right on target.  Despite the way the game started, it was a rather well pitched game for Colby.  The kind of thing that gets forgotten about when your offense has twenty one hits and eighteen runs! [Read more…]