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Jerry Narron gets contract extension

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ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Texas manager Jerry Narron, who took over last month after Johnny Oates’ resignation, will be given a two-year contract extension.
Owner Tom Hicks confirmed Saturday night that Narron will get an extension through the 2003 season. The deal had not yet been signed, and general manager Doug Melvin will be working out details of the contract over the next several days.
“Doug and I have had extensive conversations over the last few days, and we both agree that Jerry Narron is the right person to lead the Texas Rangers,” Hicks said in a statement.
“We have been very impressed with the way in which Jerry has handled the ballclub over the last four weeks under some very difficult circumstances.”
Narron, who first joined Texas as Oates’ third base coach in 1995, became the team’s 15th fulltime manager on May 4 after Oates resigned. At the time, Hicks and Melvin said Narron’s appointment was for the rest of this season.
Even though the Rangers had lost three straight games and were 8-17 under Narron going into Saturday night’s game against Minnesota, Melvin expressed confidence in Narron, who had no previous managerial experience.
“He’s still learning on the job, but he feels good and has a lot of energy,” Melvin said.
Texas was 11-17 and 11 games behind Seattle in the AL West when Narron took over. The Rangers went into Saturday night’s game 19-34 and 22 games back.

Roster Transaction

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  • P Ryan Glynn placed on the 15 day DL
  • MGR Jerry Narron got a contract extension through 2003.

G54: Rangers win a well played game, 3-2

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Coming to the game, I was thinking two things:

  1. The Indians had already lost today, so we could go ahead and win this game.
  2. This was going to be an awesome pitching performance, with Radke & Rogers on the hill.

I wasn’t disappointed. I was at the ballpark for this game, and it was awesome! In the first inning, Pudge jacked a home run off of Brad Radke, and I felt the game would go in our favor early. However, Radke turned it up a notch, not allowing virtually anything for quite some time after that. We gave up two unearned runs in the top half of the second, giving back the lead we quickly got. However, Radke walked two (a shocker) in the fifth, allowing an eventual sac fly to tie the game. It stayed at 2-2 into the 10th.
Radke & Rogers both battled, and stayed out there for quite awhile. However, our pitching was better in the pen. Juan Moreno came on, and was virtually perfect. He struck out four in a row over 2.1 innings, allowing nothing. Zim came in and pitched the rest of the 9th and the 10th, and allowed just one hit, but looked like ’99 Zim.
That set the stage for the hero of the game, El Caballo. In the bottom of the 10th, we worked the bases full, and Sierra stepped up, hit a deep ball to right field, and it wasn’t caught, allowing the winning run to score. It was a great feeling, winning late, winning after coming back and against the first place team’s best pitcher.
A great game, and I was glad I was there to see it!

G53: Rangers give it up early to Twins, lose 10-7

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Well, the Twins come in to town. And the result from Game 1 is no surprise. Actually, I was hoping we’d lose all three games, because of a couple of reasons.

  1. We’re not going to win anything this year, so a couple more against the Twins won’t matter.
  2. I don’t want to help the Cleveland Indians.

I really figured we’d lose, and quite frankly, it’s an odd feeling rooting against your own team. It was another typical Ranger loss. We handed it away early, and lost the game. :(

Roster Transaction

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  • P Doug Davis recalled from AAA Oklahoma
  • P Aaron Myette optioned to AAA Oklahoma.

G51: Pat Mahomes sucked, Rangers lose 11-2

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Well, so much for Pat Mahomes in the starting rotation. I suspect he’ll be back to the pen. I didn’t believe the bit where he was effective in the pen, but really shaky in the rotation. I believe it now. Given how bad the pitching is this year, I suspect he’ll get another shot in the rotation, but he doesn’t look like he belongs there right now.
Other than that, all I have to say about this game is – YUCK! I turned it off after the first inning. ;)

Roster Transaction

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  • P Jeff Brantley released.
  • P Mike Judd claimed off waivers from Tampa Bay
  • C Bill Haselman moved from 15 day to 60 day
    DL.

Ruben Mateo sent to AAA, Jeff Brantley released

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  • Also, in a bit of a surprise to me, Ruben
    Mateo was sent to AAA Oklahoma on Monday to work on his bat.
  • In further roster moves, Jeff Brantley was
    released, and we picked up a pretty decent pitcher (if not awesome) off
    waivers from Tampa Bay, Mike Judd.

G50: Rangers defeat Kansas City 8-2

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It was nice to see Raffy get two home runs again – he looked much more like himself this game. The two home runs were typical Raffy home runs. Big, majestic, over the right field wall, and you could tell it immediately.
KC started Mac Suzuki, the pitcher who pitched in the Kingdome a couple of years ago for the Mariners and gave up 9 RBI to Pudge; I was hoping for a repeat, but Mac got tossed quickly. Oh well.
Interesting event; a power failure that caused about half the lights in the ballpark to go out, delaying the game for about half an hour. It looked funny on TV, I wonder what it was like there.
Overall a pretty damn good game, Rick Helling looks like he’s figured it out, now with three strong outings in a row.