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Well, of the three games against the Angels, this is the one I figured we’d lose, because of Ramon Ortiz. Never in my dreams would I also expect us to get beat by Benji Gil! Man, Benji Gil was on fire against us – I doubt it was because of us, but he certainly seemed like a far better shortstop than at any time he played with us. It was even interesting to hear Bill & Tom almost fawning over him.
Not a whole lot to talk about in this one – the main story was Ramon Ortiz shutting us down for 7.2 innings – he ran out of gas at the end, and gave up a couple of runs, but was outstanding in his pitching. I went to look for him on my fantasy leagues, and of course, he was taken on 3 of 4 – I nabbed him for another one, dropping Doug Davis from that team.
Anyway, Randy Velarde continues his early season onslaught, getting a double and an RBI – he’s been a spectacular pickup for us – surprised me, that’s for sure. Speaking of pickups, I’m rather glad we have Caminiti, even though he’s not batting all that great so far – his defense at third is a major upgrade over Lamb or Tatis.
Hopefully, we’ll do better tomorrow.

Well, here starts the chain of games that keep you up past midnight. I was watching on my TiVo, so it made it a little better, as I didn’t start watching the game until 9:45, but when you can take the commercials out, it goes faster. :)
Darren Oliver has already won as many games as he did last year on his second start of the season. That’s great and sad at the same time. However, he again pitched like he didn’t really want it – being wild all over the place, not being terribly consistent – but showing just enough to get the job done. Makes me wonder if he pitched against someone good like the Yankees or the Indians – he’d be 0-2 instead of 2-0.
Tim Crabtree really tried to give the game back to Anaheim, it seemed. His first pitch hit a batter, and the next pitch was a double, scoring the guy he hit. However, he got it together, and the game finished with a 7-5 for the home eleven.
A Rod got booed pretty loudly when he came up to bat – I’m not terribly sure why. I can certainly understand him being booed in Seattle, or in one of the other cities where he had talked to about signing, but it kind of surprises me about him being booed all over the place. I wonder if he’ll get booed in Minnesota, too? Ruben Mateo looked good, getting three RBI’s on a base clearing double, finally coming through with the bases loaded.
Mark Petkovsek pitched well again, proving probably that his first two outings were an aberration. Overall a good game, if a bit wild with Oliver on the hill. Still, a win is a win. :)

What an incredible series of baseball. Sure, we lost two of three, but there was some damn great games here. None was a blowout, all were tight to the final out – and with 17 more against the Mariners, this bodes well for a good season of baseball!
I wasn’t too thrilled with the game after the first 4 or 5, when we had left 9 on base. I forget offhand how many we left on base altogether, but we made the game a lot harder on ourselves than we had to by leaving so many men on base.
It was a tight game again, with Kenny Rogers rolling along, his only blips were two solo jacks given up – otherwise, he looked good (if not awesome, he didn’t seem that crisp to me, but he got the job done). He was pulled for a situational pitching match up in the 7th, one I didn’t agree with either (Kenny looked miffed on TV). Zimmerman got out of that inning, however in the next inning, the Mariners scored two runs on a pinch hit two run home run by Mark McLemore!?!?! – Where was this power when he was with us – two home runs for Mac in two games? Guess that’s what happens when you lose your starting job. :)
Anyway, at this point, Randy Velarde had already been brought in as defensive backup earlier in the inning, and he provided the win – with a home run to take the lead and the game. Tim Crabtree got his second save in as many chances in the 9th. A great win, a great series of baseball!
We’re off tomorrow, and then we’re off on a 9 game west coast swing against our three division opponents.

Another really damn exciting game – that’s two in a row. I wonder what Sunday afternoon will bring?
Both starting pitchers in this game (Doug Davis & Brett Tomko) seemed to suffer the same problem. They pitched well the first three innings, but melted down in the fourth. Actually, Doug didn’t leave till the fifth, but gave up a run in the fourth, and several in the 5th. Tomko got knocked out in the fourth after a two run jack by Andres Galarraga, and a massive home run by Ken Caminiti – it was one of those blasts that you don’t even doubt. Even before the camera had switched from Cammy to the right field porch, I knew it was gone. My wife, who was elsewhere in the house, heard me get excited about that, and came in to watch. Fortunately, with TiVo, I can back it up, and watch it again – I don’t have to wait for their replay, I can make my own. :)
Anyway, at this point, we just cruised for the rest of the game, going into the 9th only down one run. Things were feeling pretty good actually, until the 9th – when Tim Crabtree (getting an inning of work) gave up two runs, putting us down three. This gave us the unfortunate circumstance of going up against Kaz Sasaki down three, which is almost as bad as going up against Mariano Rivera down three.
Anyway, we actually managed to pull off two, in a very exciting fashion, capped off by a two run double by A-Rod. That was A-Rod’s third double of the night, breaking out of his “slump”. :)
Petkovsek pitched well, throwing 2.1 innings of scoreless relief. Combined with his two other fiasco appearances, that LOWERS his ERA to 12.6. This is what we signed him for, I know the first two appeareances were abberations, but still – 12.6? Jeff Brantley also threw a scoreless frame.
Another loss to Seattle, but damn – another great game!

What a cool game! We lost, obviously, but it had a lot of the feel of that massive win last season against the A’s when we came back to win 17-16 or something like that.
The only huge negative to this game appeared to be Rick Helling, who looked totally lost out there. He didn’t have any control, his pitches were all over the place, and he just generally appeared like he had pitched yesterday. The Mariners jumped all over him, and forced him out in the fourth inning. Rick’s ERA is now 11.00, a positively disgusting ERA – this is something I would have expected out of the 5th starter, not the first. However, we did have some nice spots pitching wise – and I refer of course, to Pat Mahomes. Pat pitched 4 2/3 innings of scoreless relief. In fact, the only person he didn’t retire was the first batter he faced – everyone else he got out, which was awesome to see. When he was pulled, I was wondering aloud why, because he was cruising so well. Anyway, Venafro came in, pitched to one batter, and then was pulled for Zimmerman. Zim did his “thing” by giving up a home run ball, but not right away like usual. He waited until the 10th inning to do that, which cost us the game. Zim didn’t pitch all that bad, but his annoying tendency to give up home runs in pressure situations is really starting to bother me.
A big night offensively for Raffy. He scored a couple of runs, and drove in 5, including a massive 7th inning grand slam, which really put us back into the game. In the bottom of the 8th, we had a chance to take the lead after tying, but a play very reminiscent of Pete Rose happened – Ken Caminiti barreled into Seattle’s catcher at the plate, completely bowling him over. However, Tom Lampkin held on to the ball, and Ken was out.
After that, I just had one thing to say. Kaz Sasaki & Ichiro Suzuki. Blech. :)

Well, this one wasn’t as good as the two before it. It was more like opening day.
It struck me as one of those games where we didn’t particularly pitch bad, but the hits that the other team got really counted. Ryan Glynn, while down only 3-2 when he left, was pitching fairly well. For the second night in a row, a Ranger pitcher was hit by a batted ball. Glynn came out immediately, and while nothing is broken, you never like to see a pitcher hit by a ball – whenever it happens I think of Bryce Florie. Jeff Brantley came in to relieve Glynn, and caught the Jeff Zimmerman disease – giving up a home run on the first pitch of relief. That made it 6-2, and it just went further downhill from there. Can’t win ’em all, but you never like to see losses. :)
The best thing of this game was Randy Velarde, who has proven to be a great pickup for us. He had a home run this game, as well as a double, and great defense. Also, Chad Curtis has played extremely well in center field. Makes me wonder what we’ll do when Ledee & Kapler come back – my guess is Porter goes back to AAA, and Curtis becomes outfielder #4.

First off, sorry for the delay in writing. I was sick on Thursday, and had to go home and rest. :)
It was great going to the park again (for a game, anyway) for the first time in the better part of 6 months. I really missed going to games – and I probably would have enjoyed it better if I was feeling good (I haven’t been feeling all that great the last couple of days). I had gotten free seats for opening night from the Rangers, so the fact that I didn’t have to pay made it all the nicer, too. :)
Anyway, I had a different feeling going into this game with Darren Oliver on the mound. If he was pitching last year, I would have been scared to death. I also saw him in Round Rock last year when the Drillers played the Express – Darren was there on a AA rehab assignment. He wasn’t good there, either. However, this night was different. While not a stellar pitching performance, he pitched well enough to get a win. He went 5 innings, giving up no runs, although he did walk too many (with a rather high pitch count) – which accounted for his loading the bases in the first and second innings. He walked 5 in 5 innings, but K’ed 6 Angels, too.
On the offensive side, I walked in thinking – it’s game 3, and no home runs – we have to get one tonight. We did. Galarraga got his first as an American Leaguer, scoring 3 – Pudge followed up later with a solo jack.
All in all, it was a great game – and my wife had treated me to a Schlotsky’s sandwich for our dinner at the game. Much better than any of the food at the Ballpark. :)

For the first time in a couple of years, I did not attend opening day. When tickets went on sale, the only ones that were available were mostly crap seats anyway, and since I’m going two other times during opening week, I decided to blow it off this year. I’m still happy with that, as I avoided a lot of crowds, but I did miss it.
I listened at work, and I have to say, this was the most into it I was listening at work for awhile. So much so that when the Rangers turned that double play in the bottom of the ninth, I jumped out of my chair screaming with my fists in the air! Fortunately, I have my own office, so no one saw that. :)
Our eight hits were pretty evenly spread – the only ofers were Rusty and Raffy. Pudge, Cat, & Curtis scored our three runs. Not a whole lot of offense here, but there was just enough to win – because our pitching was pretty damn good. Kenny Rogers went 7+ innings, giving up just two earned runs. Zim came in and was in 99 form, shutting down the threat in the 8th, giving up donut.
And Tim Crabtree. He took Wetteland’s number, he also took his “give them a heart attack before getting the job done” mentality. :) The defense really bailed him out in the 9th – it was a cool inning. Glad he got the save.
My first game of the season is Wed night. Can’t wait!

And so it begins. I have to say, I was far more worked up this season for the first game than I was the last couple of years. I can’t pin it down to any one reason. Sure, I’m excited about the new players, the game in Puerto Rico was a lot of fun to watch, but I just can’t pin it down to one thing. I went out to the Ballpark early and checked out the scene there – had my picture taken, picked up a magnetic schedule, and some other cool free stuff they were doing. However, I did not stay and watch the game there. I was recording everything on my TiVo at home, so I could watch it at my leisure, in a more comfortable environment. I love the Ballpark, but watching an entire game on the Jumbotron is hard on my eyes. Anyway, I came back home, and it was cool, because when I left the Ballpark, the radio pre-game came on, so I was listening to that on the drive back to Garland.
I got home, watched the pre-game stuff, and then when my wife got home from work, we proceeded to watch the game. I have to say, I truly loved the lineup intros. The crowd’s reaction to Pudge was just awesome – was a “chill down the spine” moment. Really great stuff there.
We got off to a pretty good start I thought – ARod singled in his first two Ranger at bats, scoring a run. However, a problem I didn’t like last year cropped it’s head again. We went 0-10 with runners in scoring position today. This is not good. The ballpark itself played all kinds of havoc with the game (and yesterday’s, too). Rusty Greer got screwed out of a popout that was blown way out of his reach, Pudge got jipped of a home run by the wind, and the Blue Jays got a home run that probably should not have been a home run, but because of the tiny power alleys in this place, it was a home run.
Anyway, you can’t totally blame it on that – we didn’t execute with men on base – we certainly had enough runners early to have a 6-1 lead, but we were tied 1-1 most of the way through the game. Rick Helling didn’t pitch all that bad, but got burnt by his usual nemesis, the home run ball; a bigger problem here than anywhere else. Our bullpen was totally ineffective in the 7th inning, giving up 4 runs on a gob of hits – Mark Petkovsek faced four batters; all four got hits. Jeff Brantley looked good in the 8th, though.
ARod had a bit of an inauspicious start as a Ranger. He went 2 for 4 with an RBI and a run scored, he also committed an error, and a couple of other plays that should have been errors. The one error looked like a true error, but the other two looked like turf issues – he slipped on the turf once (which happened to Caminiti, too), and tripped over his own shoelaces once. I blame the first one on first game jitters, and the others on crappy turf. Either way, ARod has already made more money than I’ll make in a couple of years salary. :(
Lookin’ forward to Tuesday afternoon for some real home Ranger baseball. :)