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Whoa. We beat Barry Zito. That’s never happened before – ever. I’ll have more to say about the game tomorrow. I will say this now. We’ve played three games. Alfonso Soriano has had an error in all three (although the one in game 2 he didn’t deserve).

After thinking about it overnight, all I can think of to say about the game is damn – we had some great pitching, and against Barry Zito. Wow. So far the pitching has been great in the first three games – something I did NOT expect to happen at all. A nice opening series, even though we lost 2 of 3.

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Uh, excuse me? Did someone replace Chan Ho Park last night with someone else? I sat there watching Chan Ho Park pitch, and damned if he didn’t seem like a totally different pitcher. His fastball was sharp and had movement on it, and his curveball. Yikes – it looked like Barry Zito’s curveball. It was absolutely amazing how awesome he pitched. It was by far – no comparison the best pitching performance he had in a Ranger uniform. Nothing was even close. Park gave up seven hits over his seven innings, and struck out eight – a lot of them on called third strikes. Unfortunately, a short sequence in the 6th inning cost him the game. He gave up a triple on a ball that was botched by Kevin Mench in right. A single followed, and then his only mistake was hit over the fence. Park came back the next inning and was brilliant again. It’s a real shame that we couldn’t get any runs to cover that small mistake, because Park really deserved a win the way he was pitching.

Unfortunately, Mark Mulder was the opposing pitcher. Mulder gave up even less. Mulder gave up 5 hits over his seven innings, and just one run.

We never got much going offensively, and the one run we did score was a small ball run – scoring on an a fielder’s choice that never left the infield. I’ll take this pitching performance from Chan Ho Park any day. It was quite amazing to watch.

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The season starts. However, I don’t much care for games that START at 9:45PM. Blech. We need to move out of this division, just so the locals here can watch games at a more human hour Could be worse, when I was growing up in Philly, when the Phillies were in Los Angeles or San Diego, games would start at 10:05! Ugh.. However, it was nice to have “real” Ranger baseball on the TV again. Thank god basketball is done, too. Really sick and tired of seeing college basketball on my TV. I wish it was that which was facing a lockout and a season off instead of hockey. Anyway, it was nice to have Josh & Tom back. They of course, wasted no time getting into their routine (which I enjoyed) – they were talking about movies almost right away. :)

It was Kenny Rogers vs Tim Hudson. I wasn’t expecting greatness out of the game, but when we had a bunch of runners on early, I said we had better take advantage of it, as you don’t get a ton of opportunities against Tim Hudson. We actually had quite a few baserunners, and while we scored four times this game, we left far too many men on. It’s only the first game, so I won’t freak out about it, but I don’t like to start the season on a bad trend like that. Kenny Rogers pitched pretty decently. It wasn’t the greatest I’ve seen him pitch, but he wasn’t bad, going 7 innings, giving up three runs, qualifying for a quality start. He didn’t seem terribly crisp, but he was effective when he had to be. A nice outing by him. His Oakland streak continues. :)

Offensively, we never seemed to be able to follow through on the opportunities presented to us. We left quite a few people on base. I’m not sure how many at the moment, but I think it was around 10 or 12 or so. The new guys were good. Fullmer was as advertised. Hard player, can whack the ball, will have his jersey open. :) Can’t wait to see him face Ben Weber of the Angels. Alfonso Soriano did what he normally does, except strike out. He didn’t do that. He went 1 for 3 with a walk and a hit batter, so he had a decent OBP. I did feel that Soriano got ripped on the error he was charged with. It should have been a it. Mark Teix

I also can’t let this go without saying it’s good that we locked up Mike Young through 2008. That’s a great move on our part – I just wish it hadn’t taken so long. I also think that after next year we need to do the same with Nix, provided he shows improvement. Along these lines, I did say something my wife laughed at when Soriano came up the first time. I said “You’d better do good so we can trade your ass in July.” :)

We lost. Despite all that, I enjoyed watching the game. I just wish it wasn’t so late when the games started.

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Saturday’s game was rained out and canceled too. That means we close out spring training on a five game losing streak. Today’s game was going to be an agreed upon eleven inning game, too because yesterday’s was rained out. I wonder what we’re going to do for pitcher’s work now.

It’s too bad, as I’m sick this weekend with a fever, and was looking forward to the game on TV this afternoon. Oh well. The real deal starts Monday night. I miss first game of the season in our home park. I hope that comes back next year.

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Nothing to report here. A rainout. As it’s this late in the season, it won’t be made up, either. Probably good, as I have a fever, and I don’t think I’ll still be awake when the game was scheduled to come on in about three hours from when I’m writing this.

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