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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.

First off, I get done writing an entry for yesterday’s game, and then I turn around to write one for today’s game that just finished. So I see the score, which is good. Then I see this article. Can we stop this, please? DO NOT WANT! Too many of these small fiddly “don’t matter” things. Sigh.
Eddie “Replace your divot, please” Guadardo was the only pitcher who really had what could be considered a bad line. Went 0.2 innings, giving up two hits and two runs. Then he discovered he had a hangnail, and had to come out of the game (OK, I’m exaggerating JUST a bit). Jason Jennings started, and went 3 innings, giving up three hits and one earned run (two runs total). More importantly, he had four strikeouts and one walk. Elizardo Ramirez, Robinson Tejeda, & Wes Littleton all threw scorless frames, and Sidney Ponson made his Rangers debut. He went two innings, and faced only six batters. Walked one (erased on a double play), and struck out one. I hold no real hope for Ponson and the Rangers long term, but you always want to see a better line than a bad one. I could take the stance that I want him to have an ERA of 54, so he’d be released, but then that would hurt my team in general.
Offensively though the story was Gerald Laird. Gerry had two home runs (both solo shots), and Michael Young also contributed with a solo home run in this game. Young went 2-3 and had a second RBI besides his home run – the fifth came from Edgar Alfonzo.
Former Ranger Alfonso Soriano had a home run in this game (off divot boy). I was busy at work again with a project that has been demanding almost all my afternoon time for the last month to 6 weeks, so I didn’t get a chance to listen. Hopefully we finish the project before the season starts. :)

Any long time reader of this site knows that I don’t care for extra inning games. We always seem to lose them. And we always seem to lose them in the tenth inning, too. If we can get past the 10th or 11th, we have a shot, but we usually don’t get there.
So it was quite the surprise when I saw the game score on the 6PM news saying that it was in extra innings. Much bigger surprise when I saw the score on the 10PM news that we had won in extra innings.
This game was driven by Josh Hamilton again. Mr. Tattoo went 3-3 with an RBI and a run scored. The RBI was a home run, which was shown on the Channel 5 10PM news. Bound for AAA (or another team) catcher Adam Melhuse chipped in with an RBI and a 2-2 game. Hamilton’s home run wasn’t the only tater by the home 11 either. Ben Broussard & Nelson Cruz also went yard. (This paragraph turned out to have way more silly phrases than I normally have in my writing).
Most of the Ranger first stringers in this game threw an ofer as well. Young, Cat, Kinsler, Blalock, etc… That was a bit of a surprise.
Vicente Padilla went 3.2 innings, and game out with one of these “minor injuries”. All the quotes afterwards were saying the usual niceties about how it’s not a big problem, how it’s nothing to worry about, etc, etc, etc.. But I’m seeing way too many of these. Something is going on, and I’m not sure I like it. Anyway, Padilla wasn’t helped by defense, as he gave up two unearned runs (and no earned runs). Still had more walks (3) than strikeouts (2). Scott Feldman wasn’t all thatr great either, although he did pitch four innings – I believe the first Ranger pitcher to do that this spring. Feldman gave up three earned runs on six hits and a walk. A few too many for four innings.
Kazuo Fukumori pitched another scoreless inning. That’s all he’s thrown this spring in his six innings of work overall. It’d be nice if he could carry that over into the regular season and keep it going. We could use a performance like that.

Josh Hamilton is in spring turning out to be everything we have hoped for so far this spring. His batting average at the moment is .450. He only went 1-3 last night, but had a big two run RBI triple, which at the time gave the Rangers the lead in the game. Rangers fans have been excited about this kind of stuff before, but given the man’s background (in baseball, not his personal life story), you have to be just a little excited about this. :)
Rangers minor leaguer Nate Gold also helped here with a solo home run in the eighth inning (off of Trevor Hoffman, no less). This was another of those spread out offensive attacks. The seven Ranger hits in the game were by seven different players. Only Gold and Hamilton had extra base hits, the rest were singles.
Rangers pitching was pretty good too. The only one that really qualified as not great was Matt Harrison, who gave up three hits and one earned run in his two innings of work. In fact, Harrison was the only pitcher who went more than a single inning. Every one of the seven other Ranger pitchers went just one.
The Padres were not helped by their fielding. Three of the five Ranger runs were unearned. Shawn Estes gave up four of the five, only allowing one earned.
Next up is Vicente Padilla against the White Sox on Tuesday. Let’s see if his surprisingly good spring keeps going.

Don’t have a lot of time to write about this. Rangers lost. Kason Gabbard wasn’t good. Eric Hurley wasn’t good. Ian Kinsler was picked off first base.
Jarrod Saltamacchia had a two run home run, Kevin Mench doubled.
Rangers dropped below .500 for the spring. That’s a place they’re familiar with a bit too much.

With only 11 games played so far, a theme has cropped up. Something Rangers fans can relate to over time. The starting pitching stunk. AJ Murray was the stinker-du-jour today. Two innings, six hits, one walk, four earned runs. Kam Loe, who seems to be pitching himself down the pecking order in the last 12 months followed, going one inning, allowing two hits and two runs. That’s six of the nine the Pads got right there.
The only real offensive highlight for Texas was Kevin Mench’s three run home run in the seventh inning. That closed the Rangers scoring. We did have two other runs, but they both game on singles by Mike Young and John Mayberry, Jr. Ian Kinsler had a double, but that was it. Seven hits in all. One homer, one double, and five singles. Not a major offensive threat.
That’s mostly due to San Diego’s Greg Maddux & Wilfredo Ledezma. Between the two of them, they went six innings, allowing two runs and three hits (Ledezma also walked two). The big damage was against their third pitcher (Heath Bell).
Not much going on for the Rangers this Saturday. The loss drops us to 5-5-1 for the spring.