Rangerfans.com

Brandon McCarthy had appeared to turn the corner, and was pitching better (if not awesome). Or at least it seemed that way. Then he got sidelined by the infamous blister injury. Our best pitcher of VERY immediate vintage goes down on the DL, and we bring back Kameron Loe. I don’t think anyone (except maybe Kam himself) thought that this was going to be a good thing. Kameron, like much of the 2007 Rangers, has been a disappointment. I think most people figured he’d show up again much later in the season, not this quickly.
So back up to the majors comes Kameron to the land of Pieroghies, and the extremely tasty Primanti Brothers sandwich (my wife’s from Pittsburgh, I know it well). Kameron was more than up to the challenge for his return. As was theorized on TV last night, he might have been helped by the fact that he was leading 1-0 when he went out to pitch first. A lead in the first is not something Ranger pitchers have enjoyed much at all this year. That happened due to a lead off home run by Jerry Hairston Jr. Hairston doesn’t hit a lot of those, so they’re nice to see when they crop up. Loe was cruising along, not allowing much of anything – just five hits and three walks in all. He was helped out by two double plays. In fact, Loe was the first Ranger starter to go eight innings in a game, and we’re at game 66. That’s not good. I personally would have liked to have let him try to get the complete game shutout, but it was probably good to get him out with 8 and a shutout before he could blow the shutout in the ninth.
Kameron even chipped in with a single, and a run scored! :)
Congragulations to Travis Metcalf who got his first major league hit in this game, a home run to left field. It appeared security was talking to the guy who got the ball, so I hope Travis got it back.
Gerald Laird also had a big home run, a three run shot in the seventh – in fact, 5 of our 6 runs were on home run balls.
I spotted Jamey Wright in the dugout in Pittsburgh on TV last night. There’s been a lot of talk that he will be activated and pitch a few starts for us. I’m not thrilled with that, but I’m even less thrilled that he’d have to be activated from the 60 day DL. Unless they also then DFA Sosa, and bring up Jason Botts, while moving a pitcher back to AAA – who knows, could be what the Rangers are waiting for, other than Sosa’s 600th.
One more remark about Loe. The quote he had about AAA pitching coach Andy Hawkins fixing his mechanics after just one start was quite disturbing. The quote went something like “Andy saw a problem with my mechanics about my delivery position – I corrected it, and it’s all good again” (I’m seriously paraphrasing there). Uh, why did Mark Connor not see that for as many starts as Kam made in the majors before he was sent down. The other remark by Kevin Millwood about not knowing what he’s doing wrong is also not good to hear.
I wonder how long before we start hearing about getting rid of Connor instead of Washington (which is a bunch of crap).
BTW, the picture of the Primanti Brothers sandwich that is in the linked Wikipedia page above was one I took some years ago when I was up there visiting. The thing is EXTREMELY good. If you’re up there, go to the original location in the Strip District. It’s awesome!

I’m running out of ways to describe how inept this team looks. But hey, Frank Catalanotto went 2-3 and raised his average to .188 – HERE WE COME!
Makes you wish for the days of the inaugural Texas Rangers team in 1972. Our starting rotation then was:
Dick Bosman
Rich Hand
Pete Broberg
Bill Gogolewski
Don Stanhouse
Mike Paul
If you look up their records, the best win/loss record was either Dick Bosman at 8-10. But the WORST ERA of any of them was Pete Broberg at 4.29. That’s about a point and a half better than the lowest starting ERA of the 2007 edition of the Rangers (McCarthy at 5.90).
But remember, Pete Broberg was our pitching hope for the future!
I can’t think of any reason to write about the actual game on Wednesday evening at all.

Someone in the local DFW media (I can’t remember who – TV guy, newspaper, blogger) said “Well, the schedule is looking easy for the next two weeks”. That was a stupid thing to say. This is the 2007 Texas Rangers. Nothing is easy. Unless we could play ourselves, in which case we’d have the best record in baseball.
I’ve been to a few games at PNC Park – it really is as gorgeous as it looks on TV. Too bad the team has been historically bad the last 10-15 years or so. If you’re ever in the area, you really should try to go. The place is really REALLY nice. Honestly.
Anyway, our troubles in this game can be boiled down to Kevin Millwood’s bad pitching, and our own bad luck. We hit into I believe five double plays, including one in the ninth, when we appeared to have some momentum building towards a comeback. We also got screwed in one inning when Sammy Sosa made a major blunder on the basepaths. He should have scored, and we would have had second and third with no out. After that move, we had bases loaded and no outs, and couldn’t score. That was not a brilliant maneuver. Sosa did have a decent night with the stick though, going 2-3 with a double and a couple of RBI’s.
But Kevin Millwood went 4.1 innings, giving up 5ER (6 in all) on 8 hits and two walks. Not good. His season ERA is 7.82. Wow. I mean YIKES! We’ve always had the running gag that our pitching is horrible, but even Mark Clark wasn’t this bad.
We did have some action late, though. We got a run in the 8th, and then two in the ninth when it seemed we were going to double our way to a win. Kinsler had a double, then Brad Wilkerson had another, driving in Kinsler. Adam Melhuse stepped up, and hit a ball off the wall which should have been a double, but it was hit so hard, he was held to a single. It’s too bad as the next batter was Ramon Vazquez, who hit a ball off the bat that looked like a double, but it went right into the glove of Pittsburgh’s first baseman, and Melhuse was a dead duck. That was a deflater play – whatever momentum we had hitting around the Pittsburgh relievers in the ninth was gone.
We lost. Again.
When is Botts coming up again?
Oh, and all this talk around town the last few days about Washington being run out of town. Come on folks – give it a rest. This is not Jerry Jones’ team. You don’t run people out of town after half a season. They have to be given a chance to do something – one year is not enough. Even two isn’t – to me you need three. I hope we don’t run Daniels & Washington out of town – that kind of knee jerk crap is what Jerry Jones would do. If we do that, I give up. There will be no pleasing Ranger fans. You have to stay the course. Go watch Cowboys games if you want to run these guys out of town now. That opinion is a disgrace.

Aw crap. We had another really great comeback in the bottom of the ninth for the second night in a row. That was a great feeling. The downside is we went into extra innings, which always seems to me to be a loss, we usually lose them in the 10th. If we survive the 10th, we have a shot, but again, the extra innings bug bit us, and we lost the game on a 12th inning home run by Geoff Jenkins.
So… CRAP!

Wow. I mean, wow. First off, nothing before the 9th inning mattered, except Brandon McCarthy pitched pretty well. Baby steps, I know.
Then the ninth. Francisco Cordero came in, got two outs, and then we were down to our last strike. Wilkerson got on. Then the fun began. We were down to our last strike in three or four straight batters, they all got on somehow. As Josh & Tom were pointing out, Cordero probably had a bunch of negative things in his mind in this park and all that – because he has been totally unhittable this season, being very Gagne in his prime like. Until tonight, Cordero had only given up one run all season, and had not blown a save. Well, tonight Cordero blew a save, and gave up FOUR runs for the Ranger win in the bottom of the ninth. It was quite amazing. I admittedly knew the score beforehand, but I had to watch that even though I knew how it ended. It was still pretty darn cool to watch.
And on the night where Teixeira went to the DL. Speaking of moves, I found it odd that today’s roster moves had two position players coming onto the 25 (Wilkerson, Metcalf) and the two roster subtractions were a fielder (Tex), and a pitcher (Loe). This tells me that another roster move is due in a day or so when we bring up who will take Loe’s spot on the roster.
We also acquired Adam Melhuse from Oakland for cash – that will probably work better than Chris Stewart as a backup, plus there’s big connection to Ron Washington too. I’ll just wrap it up with these two pictures: