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A little while ago I made the remark that Scott Feldman really was the Rangers staff ace. That notion is now getting some movement as Dave Barnett referenced the fact that Feldman is the real staff ace now. Makes you wonder, if all things are equal if Scott Feldman will get the opening day nod for 2010. He certainly deserves it. Millwood has held that position the last few years, but man, he doesn’t really deserve it in 2010, does he?
Today was highlighted by seven shutout innings for Scott Feldman. He scattered five hits and a walk – none of them in the same inning. Which would explain why a five hit shutout had only one 1-2-3 inning (the third). He left with 111 pitches thrown, which would possibly be the only knock on him, that’s a few too many pitches. Not obscenely too many, but a little on the high side. General convention says you should have 105 through seven. So not too awful, but the lack of more than one 1-2-3 probably contributed to that. But you can’t argue with this.. This was the fourth shutout in the last nine starts for Feldman. Wow.
Offensively the game started with a bang. Cleveland starter Fausto Carmona was beyond awful. 0.2 IP, 5 H, 5ER, 1BB, 1K, & 2 HR. He threw 41 pitches, and only got two outs in the game. I mean, as much as it was good for the Rangers to have a performance like that, you felt bad for Carmona (although not TOO much – haha). Those five runs were all scored before 11:30AM Dallas time. And that’s all we got offensively this game. That’s all we got for the majority of the game – we didn’t get any more until the ninth inning.
The biggest individual performance was Esteban German, who went 5-5. Nelson Cruz was the only Ranger without a hit, taking an 0-5. Marlon Byrd, however, continued his assault in Cleveland. While he didn’t have as many hits as the doubleheader, he did have four RBI to go with his 2-5 performance. Other notable things is that Pudge had 3 RBI’s. We also had 10 batters in the first, scored nothing else for seven more innings, then had a total of 11 more in the ninth as well. We had five runs in the first, and five runs in the ninth. Probably could have had a lot more in the ninth, as we left the bases loaded.
The game was finished off with some fantastic defense in the ninth inning. There was a great lineout to Elvis Andrus, and then a big play from Andrus to Chris Davis.
For the first time since the end of the 1999 season, the Rangers are 19 games over .500. They’re also just a game and a half behind Boston for the Wild Card. Of course, as I write this Boston hasn’t played yet tonight, so it could end up being just one game. LET’S GO ORIOLES!

Marlon Byrd went 4-4 with a walk in game 1 of the DH. In game 2 he went 3-5. That’s most impressive – combined, Byrd went 7-9 with a walk. Wow.
But he wasn’t the only one hitting this game. Everyone did – nobody took an ofer. In fact, just three of the nine Ranger batters had a single hit (Andrus, Jones, German). Three guys had two hits (Cruz, Murphy, Teagarden), and three guys had three hits (Kinsler, Byrd, & Davis). There was a ton of offense. If you count game 1, that’s 21 games in the doubleheader, which was a nice bounceback after the scoreless streak we had just gotten over. Five doubles, a home run (Davis), and a pile of singles accounted for all of that.
Bradon McCarthy was charged with five earned runs. I say charged, because Eddie Guardado allowed the two inherited runners he took the mound to to score. Those runs were the only ones allowed, though. None of the Ranger relievers were charged with any runs. McCarthy, if you take away the last couple of runners pitched fairly well, and looked like the early season McCarthy. Man, you get the feeling that the 2009 incarnation could be good just in case he could stay on the field. Oh well.
Kind of pressed for time, plus it’s hard to write about a game while another one is on (I’m listening live to the Wednesday game at the moment). Nice to get a sweep, even though both Boston & Anaheim won. We still gained half a game on those by the benefit of the doubleheader sweep.
We’re now 6-0 in three doubleheaders this season. That’s sweet.

David Murphy solo home run in the second
Julio Borbon solo home run in the third
David Murphy fielder’s choice RBI in the fourth
Pudge double, scoring David Murphy in the fourth
Elvis Adrus double, scoring Julio Borbon in the fifth
Marlon Byrd three run home run in the seventh
Julio Borbon solo home run in the ninth
Pudge double, scoring Byrd & Cruz in the ninth
That’s the list of the Ranger runs, and how they scored. That’s all after the Rangers had gone sixteen innings without scoring a run at all, so it was a nice breakout. They needed all of that to get the win, however. Would have been nice to coast, and not worry like that.
Julio Borbon’s two home runs were great, it was the first multi home run game of his career, and he raised his career home run total from 1 to 3. :)
Marlon Byrd was the big deal, though. Byrd went 4-4 with a walk, so he was on base all five times he came up. Scored twice, had three RBI’s.
The team also had five doubles, a specialty of recent Ranger vintage, too.
But, as usual, with a game that had a total of 20 runs between both teams, there were some epic level pitching breakdowns. Of the nine pitchers used total between both teams, only one didn’t allow any runs. That was the final pitcher by Cleveland (Mike Gosling), who only pitched 1/3 of an inning. He also only threw one pitch, too. I’m not going to list all the pitching awfulness, as there was a lot – just look at the MLB Recap link above. Man, it was some pretty ineffective pitching. For the record, the Rangers threw 136 pitches total, and the Indians threw 163.
But the game was definitely closer than I wanted it to be. Still, a win is a win. We’ll take it. We need a lot more this month.

I noticed an article that came out last night which had an update on the sale of the Rangers situation. The full article talks about a few things, not just the Rangers – the relevant part of the article is about halfway down the page under the subtitle of “UPDATE ON POTENTIAL SALE OF THE TEXAS RANGERS”. A few of the bullet points.

• Hicks is looking for about $600 million for sale of the team.
• The Rangers value appears to be currently lower than the San Diego Padres. (eek)
• The only names that have come out are David McDavid & Nolan Ryan, so no new names in the article.

The article also goes on to say there could be ownership issues for the Stars, too. While it doesn’t explicitly state that, the words used in the article imply (or maybe I’m inferring, not sure) that there could be an attempt by creditors to force control of the team from Tim Hicks, despite there not being any move to sell the Stars at the moment.
I suggest reading the article. It isn’t all new news, but it is a good summary of the current situation, as it is known to me.

Not much to say about a rainout. I had the game recording on the TiVo, and when I saw it was rain delayed, I padded my recording by three extra hours at the end. It appears to have been called somewhere around a two hour and 20 minute delay from the outset tonight, although I’m not 100% sure about that.
Anyway, it will be made up as part of a doubleheader on Tuesday night – the first game is now scheduled to start at 4:05.
That makes two doubleheaders in a week for the Rangers. Haven’t seen that in awhile.
Tommy Hunter was supposed to start Monday night, and will start Game 1 of the doubleheader. Brandon McCarthy will start Game 2.

I don’t even want to write about this. :(

I missed most of this game, as I was driving around in the afternoon, and only heard bits of it on the radio. When I started listening, the Rangers were up 3-0 going into the bottom of the first. Then they gave up a run to the O’s in the first. Then they gave up another run to the O’s in the bottom of the second. They picked up one in the top of the third, but then gave two more back to the O’s in the bottom of the third. That was the end of the scoring for the Rangers. The O’s however, tacked on a single run in the bottom of the fifth, which turned out to be game winning run, as no more runs were scored after that for either team.
Sigh. At least the Red Sox lost.

The Rangers closed the gap in the wild card race to just two games with a win in Baltimore, as Boston got shellacked in Chicago on Friday night. They did it with a familiar story, really awesome starting (and relieving) pitching.
Wait.. WHAT?!?
It’s amazing that the 2009 edition of the Texas Rangers is seemingly more known for its pitching than its offense. Scott Feldman, who took the mound in Baltimore on Friday night is one of the best examples. He’s 15-4 on September 4th, and that’s really amazing considering he started the season in the bullpen. While his record wouldn’t be that radically different, perhaps maybe 17-4 if he won both of the starts he might have gotten in early April, it’s even more amazing if you look at the numbers of those three appearances.
Apr 9 – Cleveland – 2.1 IP, 5H, 4ER, 2HR, 2K, 0BB
Apr 13 – Baltimore – 2.2IP, 4H, 3ER, 1HR, 3K, 2BB
Apr 22 – Toronto – 1.2IP, 2H, 2ER, 0HR, 1K, 2BB
After those three relief appearances, his ERA was sitting at 12.15. Which was actually a drop, because after April 9th, his ERA was 15.43! A guy with an ERA over 12 isn’t a likely candidate to be added to the rotation, but he was. His first start was April 25th in Baltimore, actually. He went five, threw 78 pitches that game, and was not terribly stretched out, in a spot start for Mr. Anna Benson. Scott never left the rotation after that. While I do not believe it’s a realistic option, just seeing his name mentioned with the words “Cy Young” in the same sentence is nothing short of totally amazing. I know great players can come from any round (as evidenced of what the 62nd round once produced in Mike Piazza), but the fact that we’re talking about a potential Cy Young performance from a 30th round Texas Rangers self drafted starter is just stunning. I know Kevin Millwood is technically the staff ace, but wow, is Feldman pitching like it. If we make it to the playoffs, I know who I want in there easily multiple times in a five game series. :)
Scott last night went 6.2 innings, allowed just four scattered singles, no runs, and a couple of walks. Left with 102 pitches thrown, and two guys on base, so he was pulled before it got out of hand. His performance Friday night lowered his ERA from 3.72 to 3.62.
Scott wasn’t the only pitching story – Neftali Feliz took over for Scott and threw the final 2.1 innings of the game. As good as Feldman is, you look at Feliz and go – “Oh wow” – if his numbers hold up like they do now, it would be stunning. I don’t think it will, there will be a crash, or an adjustment, a comedown, or whatever you want to call it at some point, but Feliz is fantastic, too. Last night he went 2.1 innings for the save, allowed NO hits, NO walks, and struck out two. He lowered his ERA to 0.41. ZERO POINT FOURTY STINKIN’ ONE! Wow. Can he be a weapon in the playoffs.
I mean who would have thunk it? The Rangers have been out of the playoffs for a decade now, and when we got back? We were led there by our pitching. Just amazing.
On the other side of the ball, we didn’t exactly destroy Baltimore, but had a decent amount of offense. Double by Davis, home run by Cruz, and six singles accounted for our runs. Andrus & Byrd had two hits each, the rest were all 1fors. The RBI’s came from Byrd, Cruz, Pudge, and two by Chris Davis on his double.
It’s a lot of fun to be in this race, isn’t it?

Well, day one of this series had a major thrashing of Texas by Toronto. Day two was a doubleheader that we swept, but lost Michael Young. So what would happen for an encore on the third day? Well, some good, and some bad.
The good was that we won the game. That gave us the series 3-1, and on top of that, we gained ground on both Boston & Anaheim, as both of them lost their games, too. As of the end of the day, we were now just 3.5 games behind Anaheim, and 2.5 games behind Boston for the Wild Card. That’s a pretty good feeling.
The bad was that Josh Hamilton came out of the game, with what was described later as lower back soreness. I spotted that when he ran out the double, he wasn’t running terribly hard, and after he did get to second, it took him awhile to stand back up, he was in obvious discomfort. So I wasn’t surprised he came out at all – although the TV announcers seemed to be.
Tommy Hunter took the mound for Texas, and while he wasn’t lights out like he’s been in a few starts lately, he did decently. Certainly enough to get the win, which he got – his seventh of the season. Tommy went 7 innings, giving up five hits (two of which were solo home runs), four runs on a couple of walks. Not exactly dominating, but a decent outing. He did come out with just 86 pitches, which was a low number for seven innings. Not entirely sure why he came out when he did, really.
Chris Davis handled third for this game, but he’s not expected to be the regular third basemen while Michael Young is out. That’s expected to be a mix of Omar Vizquel & Esteban German; mostly Vizquel.
Offensively, Nelson Cruz had the best night, going 3-4 with two RBI and two runs scored – one of which was on his six inning home run. Hank Blalock also had a couple of hits, and the remainder were scattered amongst the Ranger bats; nobody else had more than one. There was another home run – a solo shot by Elvis Andrus, and a double from Josh Hamilton. But not a lot of sustained power inside innings, as evidenced by the 1-1-2-2 score breakdown for us.
Jarrod Saltamacchia was activated off the DL – he still needs his surgery, but he’s being carried as the emergency catcher, and as a pinch hitter – he’s not expected to catch again in 2009 unless something goes very wrong ahead of him with Taylor & Pudge.
We’re 75-58 with just 29 games to go. If we do well in Baltimore and Cleveland (like sweep both, which is possible), we’d come back home 81-58, and that would guarantee us at least not to have a losing season. But realistically, at the rate we’re playing, I’d like to see them do way better than just that. WAY better.