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Pitching! Pitching! Pitching! Two days in a row – Woo-hoo! :) We also got our first back to back wins of the spring, too.
I always love it when we play the Pirates or Phillies in spring, because I’m from PA, and both of these teams seem more interesting to me for some reason. Wish I could have heard it, though. Hell, I wish Interleague play lets us play them, but it doesn’t. Hopefully Bud will work something out for next season.
Anyway, we got decent pitching again today. Starter Rick Helling went 4 innings, scattering 6 hits, and allowing only 1 earned run, while walking one, and K’ing 4. Zimmerman, Munoz, Cordero, & Chuck Smith went the other 5 and gave up no earned runs (although one unearned was scored against Smith, who got a save). On the flip side, Pittsburgh got great pitching too, with one exception. Jason Phillips, who only went 2/3 of an inning gave up all three runs the Rangers scored, walking three with only one hit – but three walks (including one with the bases loaded to Stevens) is never good. The rest of their pitching went 7 1/3 innings, giving up no earned runs, and only 3 hits. There’s been some buzz about Pittsburgh being better than most people think – if they get pitching like this all the time, they will be.
Speaking of that, the Rangers only had four hits all day – two by Frank Catalanotto, and the others by Gabe Kapler & Bill Haselman. Not really a whole lot there, we didn’t really win this game, it was handed to us by Jason Phillips.
Today’s game is on the radio, that’ll be cool. I wish the Rangers would get their act together with 2000 TV coverage – read something in the paper today that there will be NO spring games on the TV, there are supposed to be three according to the published schedule at the start of spring – I’m hoping they still happen.

Pitching! Pitching! Pitching! This is what the 2000 Rangers are supposed to be all about, and we got it today. Big time!
What a game not to be on the radio. A two hit masterpiece by Kenny Rogers, followed up by three innings of shutout, no hit ball from Tim Crabtree & Doug Davis. The only mistake Kenny Rogers made in his six innings was a solo home run to Shannon Stewart in the fourth. Other than a single elsewhere, that’s all Kenny (or Crabtree/Davis) gave up all game! My – I would have loved to have seen this sucker, these are really fun games to watch, unless of course you’re the team it’s being done to. :)
Royce Clayton continues to rise to the leadoff challenge this spring, going 2-4 with a double and a couple of RBI’s. Ruben Mateo also went 2-4, the remaining 5 hits we got were scattered among 5 other players. We were assisted by two Toronto errors, but for some reason, this just “feels” like a game where we got timely hitting. We did get a solo HR from Chad Curtis who could turn out to be our starting left fielder for awhile if Rusty isn’t ready. If Sele falters in Seattle, it’ll make the Rogers signing look that much better (at least to me)…
Bad news about Rusty Greer – he’s back in D/FW to have himself checked out – could be bad, let’s hope not. Not much movement with Wetteland or Venafro, either. :( Venafro might solve the “What to do about Mark Clark & Matt Perisho” issue (Stick Perisho in the pen, let Clark start unless he sucks the rest of spring) with his injury.

I did listen to this game on the radio – or at least most of it. This weekend was a big social weekend for me (saw Weird Al on Sat night, and Mission to Mars on Sunday). Since I got disgusted listening to the Rangers drop another one to the Twins, I bailed out after the Twins scored two more in the 7th – and started to get ready to go out for the evening.
However, there was some interesting stuff in the game. Our first run came rather interestingly, on a fielder’s choice, an error, and a passed ball. The next pitch after the passed ball, Lee Stevens went yard for a two run home run, pulling us within two runs. However, we gave them right back, and I got disgusted. It turns out the Cat hit a home run in the 9th that I didn’t hear (but read about in the box score). Was nice for them to pull it back and make it interesting, but hopefully when we start removing some of the pitchers that aren’t going to be with the club when we break camp, we might start getting some more realistic pitching from the folks who will be pitching after March.
Our boys in the field were rather sloppy in the second, giving up three runs this way: Infield hit, stolen base allowed, error (on Pudge), a walk, a wild pitch, a double, and another infield hit. Blech.
We’re back on the radio Wednesday against the Orioles – Just two more weeks (from yesterday) till the return of Ranger baseball to TV, and three weeks until the start of the new season! :)

A Ranger game on the radio during the Spring, but unfortunately, I couldn’t listen. I was headed out to see Weird Al Yankovic in concert. I got to hear the first two innings, but there wasn’t much there to listen to.
I am listening to Sunday’s game as I write this, so I think I’ll just skip commentary on this game short of this.. “Doh! 0-3 against the Reds in the Spring.”

Back on the radio! Coolness. :)
A roller coaster game for me listening on the radio. We got out early and big, and I was hoping that unlike a lot of other spring games so far, we’d be able to keep the lead. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be. We got out to a 4-0 lead in the second inning thanks to the second grand slam of the pre-season for the Rangers; this time by Tom Evans, who really has to be given a look for third if he keeps this up for another couple of weeks. Evans’ slam (he was 2 for 3 today) was his fourth homer so far, the 13th by the Rangers, and the second slam (the other was Kapler). There were also two triples in this inning, one by Gabe Kapler, and the other by Royce Clayton. We did score a fifth run when Clayton was hit in by Rusty Greer, I believe. We batted around this inning, and I felt good.
However – after a masterful appearance by Darren Oliver (3 IP, 40 pitches, 1H, 1K, 3 broken bats), he left, and the Jays caught up with home runs in the 4th (Segui off Crabtree), the 5th (Lopez off Munoz), and the 6th (Bautista off Benoit). There goes another big lead. However, the back end pitching was perfect – Doug Davis & Chuck Smith combined to pitch three perfect innings – retiring all 9 they faced.
During this time, we picked up four more runs – one more by the long ball (McDonald who was 2 for 2 off former Ranger Eric Gunderson) in the 8th. I was busy during this time, and didn’t get to pay much attention, I only heard the long ball score personally.
One other highlight was a spectacular catch (going by the radio guys’ voices) by Ruben Mateo to end the 7th inning.
Was a nice win – hopefully our relief pitching gets it going before the season starts. So far they’ve been less than stellar this spring, but that’s not a whole lot to worry about yet. Still feeling good (if different) about 2000.

Another spring game not on the radio. :(
This score looks awful familiar. 8-6 in extra innings. Unfortunately today it went the wrong way. We lost to the Red Sox in 11 innings, 8-6. Rick Helling continued his bad trend of last season by giving up two home runs today – he gave up far too many last season in my opinion. Pitching was overall pretty bad today. Helling went three, giving up three hits and three earned runs. Glynn went two giving up two earned runs and hitting a batter. Corey Lee & David Elder both gave up an earned run. Jonathan Johnson & David Sikorski did not, but neither of these figure to be with the big league club when we head north anyway.
We had two errors, one by Scarborough Green and Mike Lamb.
We hit 250 for the day, going 10 for 40 as a team, leaving 6 on base. Our ten hits were spread out all over the place, the only person to have more than one hit was Jon Shave, the other eight were by eight different Rangers. We had two doubles (Evans & Pudge) and a triple (Clayton). A little surprising (to me) speed on the basepaths, with steals by Curtis & Mateo, although Gabe Kapler got caught stealing. Speaking of being all over the place, all six of our runs were batted in by six different Rangers!
Not a whole lot else about this one to say. Disappointing loss (aren’t they all?) – but tomorrow we have a game on the radio again (KRLD). Yay!
If we keep up these losing ways, the Yankees might overtake us in the Grapefruit league standings! :)

Another spring game not on the radio. :(
Twenty hits. 10 inning win. 5-6 with a HR for the Cat. 4-6 with a 3B for Mike Lamb. Every Ranger pitcher today had at least one K. Those were some of the good things about today’s game.
Fifteen men left on base. 0-4 & an error for Dransfeldt. 3H, 2ER, 1 Inning for Munoz. These were some of the bad things about today’s game.
I don’t have much time to write about today’s game, as I’m leaving the office for the day in a few minutes (tonight’s my bowling night). 20 hits, eh? When I saw that on the line score (before I saw the box score), I thought… “Man, there must have been a lot of blown opportunities for runs”. With 15 men left on base, yeah, I’d say there was. That’s never good. I tend to go on a lot about how spring doesn’t count, but damn.. FIFTEEN? Nice to see the Cat bust out with a really awesome day. Would have been nice to see.
Gotta run, but I wanted to add that it’s always nice to see an extra inning win, instead of an extra inning LOSS!

Another spring game not on the radio – even if it was, I wouldn’t have been able to pay attention, was busy with work today.
However, a 3-1 score isn’t that terrible of a loss. I just hate ones where we lose giving up more than 5 or 6 runs. We were out-pitched, I’d wager (not having seen or heard the game). Both teams had only 5 hits, although one of Tampa’s was a home run off of Benoit. No dingers for the Rangers today, after going deep five times yesterday.
A pitcher I’m not terribly fond of beat us today, Chad Ogea. Being a lifelong Phillies fan, I’ve kept tabs on them, and Chad was in Philly last year – and was really really bad there. It would be like getting beat by Todd Van Poppel now. :) Mark Clark pitched three scoreless innings, allowing only one hit. I’m really hoping he’ll be the dark horse and pitch really well this year. Last spring, I wished he would do as advertised, which he didn’t. I was a fan of him coming here before, and I’d love for him to do well, although I’m not optimistic.
Of our five hits, two of them came from Royce Clayton, who seems to be stepping up to the challenge of taking over the leadoff spot so far this spring (going 2 for 3 today, but with a caught stealing). The other three were from Luis Alicea, Kelly Dransfeldt, & Ruben Mateo. Of the three runs the DRays scored, only one was earned – there was an error by Tom Evans in there (not seeing a game log, I can’t specifically comment).
Wish I could have seen this on TV, I like pitching duels – although a pitching duel tends to be a bit more boring on the radio. :) Tomorrow is another day for no radio from the Rangers. Next scheduled radio game is Friday.