Spring Training Game 2 was one that I didn’t realize was on the air. I had forgotten to check the Rangers games not on the radio to see if the opponent’s radio coverage was on. It was, but I didn’t notice that until the score was already 2-1 KC in the seventh. I listened towards the end, but not much excitement there.
Offensively, this was a different beast than yesterday’s game. Yesterday’s had 16 runs and 28 hits between the teams. Today’s game had just 6 runs and 13 hits. Yesterday there was just 3 or 4 Rangers used that didn’t have a hit. Today, it’s the opposite. Just six had hits – nobody had more than one. Of those hits, just two were doubles (Nelson Cruz, Max Ramirez). Not a lot of power here at all.
The other side wasn’t much better. They had seven hits, and two of ’em were extra bases (2B – Billy Butler, 3B – Rick Ankiel), the rest were singles. They just pushed more across.
Zack Greinke started the game for the Royals, and from what I’ve read and see in the box score, he was as advertised. Three scoreless innings, with just one hit given up. Other than the single he gave up, the other nine batters he faced were outs. In the three innings of work, he faced just ten batters. No idea how dominant that was, as the box scores in spring don’t list pitch counts, but one over the minimum is always a cool thing to see.
Rangers pitchers counted four today. Each of them pitched two innings. The best was Dustin Nippert (third). He gave up no hits in his two innings. Feldman gave up 3, CJ Wilson 2, and Neftali Feliz gave up two. Overall, a decent pitching performance, if not too far leaning towards the great side. Eight innings of work, seven hits, four earned runs. Just a lone walk, though (Feliz), so there wasn’t a ton of wildness.
After game one, I had that pipe dream where I was going to see constant spring scores of double digits every day, and a winning percentage of like .850 for the spring or something. Ah, the innocence of Spring Game 1 comes crashing back to earth with Game 2. I shouldn’t be surprised by that.
Saturday we’re back on the radio again.
Vlad Guerrero in MLB 10: The Show
I picked up MLB 10: The Show for the PS3 on Tuesday (saved a gift card from Christmas for that), and started playing. The Rangers lineup is surprisingly correct. However, they have several older uniforms in there, going back quite awhile. They don’t have the sleeveless one from within the last five years or so, though – I rather liked that one.
Anyway, Vlad is in the game with a totally tarred batting helmet which I found amusing. Check out this screen capture below (he doesn’t stand that way in the box, I caught it in mid practice swing). One thing about the uniform, though. It’s an older one, but it had a “4” on the armband. So whoever put the uniform together for the game for the Rangers team copied it from the year they wore a “4”. Anyone know offhand who that “4” was for, and what year that was? Thanks. You can click on the thumbnail below for a larger version.
ST1: Rangers crush Royals in Spring Opener 13-3
Well, today was the day that the season started. Oh, the season opener isn’t until about a month from now. And there were a few intrasquad games earlier this week. But given that I write something about all the games (well, about 95% of them), the season really started for me today, since I have to now write about the games again. Like most off seasons I think I’m going to have these grand plans realized of writing multiple times a week about what’s going on. If I’m feeling particularly lofty in my goals, I think I’m gonna write like Jamey Newberg or Joey Matschulat – yeah right. :) But I do enjoy talking about the games, so here goes another season. My 12th since I started this site in December of 1998.
My wife and kids were out at the Dallas Arboretum today, so I had the house to myself – for most of the game. I sat down with my battery operated portable radio (cool that game 1 was on the radio), and was playing “MLB 10: The Show” on my Playstation 3 at the same time, so it was baseball overload. The Rangers were the visiting team here, and as such batted first. The first inning was fairly uneventful, except for an unearned run that Rich Harden gave up.
The unearned run was helped along by Jarrod Saltamacchia, who hit a runner trying to steal second. It then allowed the guy to go to third, who scored not long after that. Dave Barnett commented that he hoped that was just “first spring game” issues, and not a larger problem, as the throw was way off the bag, apparently. But Salty made up for that in the next inning when he walloped a three run home run.
Later on in the game, Matt Brown (our Rule 5 guy) hit another three run home run. That wasn’t the only way we scored. Julio Borbon got on, stole second, was pushed to third by a Michael Young groundout, and then scored. We also had run scoring doubles (Vlad Guerrero plating Mike Young). That hit by Guerrero was his first hit and RBI in a Ranger uniform. That STILL seems weird to me, as I’ve been following Guerrero since he was in Montreal.
Colby Lewis came in and handed me a big bottle of “shut up juice” by pitching a perfect inning. Yeah, it’s just spring game 1, but it sounded impressive on the radio for sure.
Another notable was the appearance of Alexi Ogando, who if you’re reading this site know has been trapped in legal immigration hell for the last few years and couldn’t pitch. This was his first appearance as a Ranger since he was drafted I think 5-6 years ago. He struck out his first batter, and went on to pitch a scoreless inning.
All told, our pitchers (seven of them) tossed a great game. Of the three runs the Royals scored, two of them were unearned, and all told, the Rangers pitching gave up just seven hits in nine innings. Not bad, not bad at all. Colby Lewis was perfect, and Tanner Scheppers was as well. Doug Mathis had the worst performance, giving up three hits and the lone earned run in his two innings of work. Everyone else gave up just one hit (Harden, Snyder, Ogando, Strop). It was a really well pitched outing by our staff.
Can’t say the same for the Royals. The Royals threw five pitchers out there, and none of them escaped unscathed. Kyle Davies started (5H, 4ER), and he was followed by former Ranger Robinson Tejeda (4H, 2ER), Philip Humber (4H, 1ER), Anthony Lerew (5H, 2ER), & Matt Herges (3H, 4R, 3ER). Of course when the Rangers have 13 runs on 21 hits, you’re going to see numbers like that.
Take a look at the linked box score, you can see all the carnage. It was really nice to have a baseball game to listen to. Had I been outside, I would have had a beer, but I enjoyed the hot dogs and the pink lemonade I had while the game was on.
Oh, and finally.. Victor Rojas has left MLB Network to go back to play by play calling. I wish Vic had stayed here. No offense to Dave Barnett, but I really REALLY liked Victor Rojas. In time, I’ll probably like Dave too, but I liked Vic’s way of saying what he felt. Plus Vic remains a friend, and I’ll never forget how he contacted me years ago when he first got the Rangers job. So good luck to you personally Vic. But your new employers? The heck with ’em. :)
14 Players Signed
The following 14 players were signed to 2010 contracts:
- Andrus, Elvis SS, Arias, Joaquin INF, Cruz, Nelson OF, Davis, Chris 1B, Harrison, Matt LHP, Hurley, Eric RHP, Madrigal, Warner RHP, Moscoso, Guillermo RHP, O’Day, Darren RHP, Ogando, Alexi RHP, Ramirez, Max C, Saltalamacchia, Jarrod C, Strop, Pedro RHP,
Teagarden, Taylor C [ Link ]
Here we go!
And it begins today. Rangers on the radio at 2PM.
Speaking of Radio.. I see Victor Rojas has left MLB Network to be the play by play guy for the Angels? Oh Vic. If you were just going back to play by play, you should have stayed here. Oh, you just don’t love Texas. I see how it goes. :) j/k.
Hope it goes well for you personally, just not your new employer as such.
Bobby Bragan Patch
Saw this story on the Rangers site tonight..
The Texas Rangers today announced that the team will honor the memory of Bobby Bragan by wearing a uniform patch during all games in spring training.
Bragan, who spent over 70 years involved with professional baseball, passed away on January 21 at the age of 92 in Fort Worth. The former major league player, coach, manager, and executive was a long-time front office employee for the Rangers, serving in public relations and community capacities.
The oval patch contains the red and blue lettering, “BOBBY BRAGAN, 1917-2010” with a white background and red border. It is located on the right sleeve of the Rangers’ blue jersey tops, which the club will wear for all spring training games in 2010.
Following spring training, the jerseys will be available for purchase with a portion of the proceeds benefitting the Texas Rangers Baseball Foundation. The team also plans to donate a number of the jerseys to the Bobby Bragan Youth Foundation, which has provided over 500 scholarships to Dallas-Fort Worth area students since its inception in 1992.
The Rangers will wear the Bragan patches for the first time on Tuesday.
I have to confess. When I saw the story, I didn’t remember who he was. :(
Khalil Greene Gone
- IF Khalil Greene’s contract voided by the team [ Link ]
All Rangers Games in HD for 2010?
While the official schedule of HD programming for the 2010 season hasn’t been posted yet, I read something tonight that gives me hope. You see this will be the third (and second full) baseball season since got an HDTV. Baseball looks so much better in HD, that when they have just an SD feed, I frequently will not watch the game and listen on the radio instead. Snob, perhaps, but after you go HD, you don’t want to go backwards.
Anyway, last year there were 120 games in HD, covering Fox Sports Southwest, Fox 4, and KDFI Ch 27. In 2010, almost all of them are Fox Sports Southwest. Here’s my count of what channels have how many games for the Rangers in 2010:
Fox Sports Southwest: 131
TXA-21: 25
Fox 4: 5
ESPN: 1
That’s a total of just 30 out of 162 to be on free over the air TV (which I believe is a first for the home opener not being on free OTA TV), 132 are pay cable. That’s quite a percentage shift. If you’re just over the air TV, you’re getting screwed. But you should get cable or satellite anyway if just for MLB Network – they are awesome.
Anyway, of the games produced, I would think the bulk of them would be in HD. ESPN is guaranteed HD, and The Fox 4 games are national, so that’s a guaranteed 6. I’m not sure about TXA21, as they’re new in 2010.
But what follows is why I posted this. Saw this news story about the Brewers games on Fox Sports Wisconsin being 100% in HD for 2010. Makes me think if the Brewers can do it, we can too. If it comes out we can’t, I’ll want to know why.
Washington, D.C. (February 24, 2010) — For the first time, all Milwaukee Brewer baseball games will be in high-def this season on Fox Sports Wisconsin.
That’s according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
The regional sports channel will broadcast 136 Brewer games in high-def this season.
Of the remaining Brewer games on TV, six will be televised nationally on Fox or ESPN, which will also cover them in HD, and 15 will be broadcast by the local station WMLW, according to the newspaper. (Apparently five games will not be televised this year; there are 162 regular season games.)
Fox Sports Wisconsin’s coverage of the regular season will start on Monday, April 5, when it airs the Brewers-Rockies game at 1:10 p.m.
Opening of Camp Catch Up
Well, I haven’t written much lately, despite the start of camp as a few projects have opened up for me that could lead to full time employment again. Something I still don’t have since last May, so that is by far my #1 priority. To that, I’m gonna add a thoughts on recent events.
First off, Jamey Newberg’s quote from this past week is something I want to answer. Jamey asked this.
“Does it mean anything when Bobby Valentine says on ESPN on February 18 that Ron Washington is on the hottest seat of any manager in the league?”
Perhaps it’s just my sarcastic nature, but it could be viewed as he’s doing a passive aggressive thing to perhaps get his old job back? He was there when Nolan Ryan signed on to Texas back in 1989. Now that Nolan’s running the show, perhaps Bobby V is looking to play the same card only backwards? :)
C.J. Wilson’s mouth: CJ took some heat right as camp was opening when he said this..
“It’s no secret I don’t think I should be limited to the set-up role. I have too many weapons,” Wilson said. “Here is the reality. It is real simple. There are not very many guys that have the stuff that I do that would be willing to sign here if they were free agents. There is no experienced pitcher that has my stuff that would sign here, historically.”
It’s an interesting scenario, as one feels he lost the closer’s job much the same way that happened between Rod Barajas & Gerald Laird a few years ago. Got hurt, someone else stepped in, didn’t get it back. On one hand, I can understand his frustration. On the other hand, you don’t go mouthing off about your employer and why nobody else would want to sign here. Yikes. Nolan Ryan handled it well, but I wonder if that stuff will factor into the subconscious of those making decisions around here. I don’t have any desire to see CJ out of here, but think for a minute if he was paired with Ozzie Guillen. hahaha. :)
The Catching Situation:
What happened? We were stocked with catchers, who were backlogged behind Laird. We move Laird to Detroit and now we find ourselves looking for bottom of the barrel free agent catchers to shore things up? Saltamacchia hasn’t worked out, Teagarden hasn’t shown he can be a #1, and Max Ramirez? Dunno. Where’d our big glut go? A bit scary there.
Endy Chavez signed:
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. See Joey M’s commentary for more on that.
Rangers miss payment:
It was announced that the Rangers missed a close to $40 million payment into an MLB fund that helps fund – I don’t remember exactly what, but references to deferred money to Arod, Juan Gonzalez, and Rafael Palmeiro came up. It was said that the payment could be something the union could file a grievance over, but have decided not to, leaving it to new management to figure out. Apparently it was factored into the price of the sale of the club, so it’s probably a non issue. Amusing how well Tom Hicks is trying to screw the pooch on the way out the door.
Josh Hamilton predicts 96 wins:
That’s a lot. When you realize it’s just 9 more games over last year it doesn’t seem like a lot, but 96? I’d love for that to happen, as it pretty much means we’d be in the playoffs. Come on Rangers!
Brad Wilkerson:
Brad Wilkerson signed a minor league deal with the Phillies today, which does NOT include an invite to camp . He supposedly retired last spring after being released by the Red Sox. This isn’t a big deal, but I just wanted an excuse to post this picture again:
Endy Chavez
- OF Endy Chavez signed to a minor league contract with an invite to spring training [ Link ]
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