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Oh man, what a game! What’s really interesting (about the game) is that there wasn’t much to talk about until the 8th inning. Before that, Ryan Glynn was a bit wild, walking five batters in the first three innings (actually, that’s all he walked), with two of those coming across for runs. Take away those walks, and Glynn pitched a decent ballgame. He went six innings (one batter into the 7th), and allowed 6 hits, and three runs – the third coming on a solo home run in the 6th off former Ranger Chad Kreuter. On the flip side, Royal pitcher Jeff Suppan was masterful, allowing only two hits through 7 and 2/3 innings. Unfortunately, the third and final hit he gave up was costly (to him), as it was a smash from Goodwin that hit him in the shin, forcing him to leave. I felt bad for the kid, as he pitched a spectacular game, and it was a shame he had to leave like that. He was relieved for the rest of that inning by Matt Whisenant, who kept it a shutout. One of the two hits was a double by Pudge which extended his hitting streak to 19 games – tying his career high.
And then the ninth… The Royals brought in their closer Jeff Montgomery, and I figured that was it. A three hit shutout. If you’re gonna get shutout, it might as well be one of these types, where you’re totally shut down. Well, it started off that way when Gonzo struck out, and then Raffy walked. He was forced out at second when Pudge grounded out, but he himself was safe at first – there almost was a double play to end it. Todd Zeile singled, and then Lee Stevens came up. I had just said to my wife, “A home run here would be really nice to tie the game”. Well, we got one. A line home run that bounced off the wall in front of the Ranger bullpen and into the pen. Man, did that place go friggin nuts! Due to where I was sitting (more on that in a minute), I couldn’t see the scoreboard or anything, but I could see virtually everywhere in the ballpark at once. It was rockful! What a rush!
Tim Crabtree, who continues to be one of our best pitchers this year pitched 1 1/3 innings of perfect ball in relief including the 10th. In the bottom of the tenth, Tom Goodwin got onbase with an infield single. I saw #24 standing at first, and I figured that was it. A decent hit, and he’d just fly around the bases. Mac sacrifiiced him to second with just one out, and it was looking even better. Rusty Greer was walked intentionally (I figured to force a double play), and then Juan came up and smacked a single to short left field. With Goodwin’s speed, it was more than enough to score from second, and we won the game quite dramatically. It was great – the game was dead even down to two outs in the bottom of the ninth – and it all came alive there. The only thing better is to win the game with two outs, a 3-2 count, and someone hit a grand slam in the bottom of the 9th to win. *THAT* is the most exciting way to win a ballgame in the 9th. However, this was DAMN close. This was two games in a row I went to (I was also at Sunday’s game), and two games in a row were dramatically won by one run. Totally exciting baseball.
This was one of the cooler games I’ve ever been to. My wife were at the game yesterday, and we didn’t have anything planned for Memorial Day, so we said why not grab tickets for Monday’s game? There’s a few places in the stadium that I’d never sat in, and so we decided to try somewhere else. I intentionally went for what’s called “the worst seat in the house”, which was Section 345 (see seating chart). These tickets are $5 for an adult, and you know what? They’re not all that bad. Now, I’d be lying if I said they were was a good as the seats I had a few weeks back in section 32 on April 11th, or even my regular season tickets in Section 39, but for the bad rap these seats got, they weren’t so bad. I actually had the first row in this section, the last two seats to the right. I was sitting in Sec 345, Row 1, Seat 9, which is the last seat in the first row of this section. My wife felt weird sitting there, and I kept feeling like I was going to drop everything off the ledge, so we moved up two rows (hell, there’s very few seats actually used up here), and we felt much more comfortable. The foul pole is right in front of you, but it doesn’t actually block any of the bases, and you can see through it, so it’s not that bad. You can’t see the Jumbotron, but you can see all the other scoreboards. The big one out in center field is viewable from these seats (but I suspect if you went up too many rows, you wouldn’t be able to see it), as is the out of town scoreboard, and all the small scoreboards around the park. This may sound stupid, but I’ve been to many games here, and whenever I sit in a new section, I love looking around checking out all the other vantage points these new seats offer, and seeing what new things I can see. We even got beer, peanut, & Lemon Chill vendors up here, which surprised me. When we walked in to our seats, we looked off the ledge that overhangs the small triangle section in left field. It’s quite a ways down from there. What’s funny is if you walk up to the last row in Section 345, you’re actually higher than the walkway and the Jumbotron. I took a picture pointing straight down from there, it’s quite a view – so long as you don’t get Vertigo from these things. :) I took a few pictures from this section, but I used a conventional camera, so I won’t have those online for a few days, as I get them developed.
There were also a few cool pre-game things. The first I figured would happen as it was Memorial Day. They honored two gentelmen who had served in the Korean War and were given the congressional medal of honor by President Eisenhower. There were also some folks representing each branch of the military on the field for the national anthem, and there was a 21 gun salute after a moment of silence for the holiday’s real purpose. That’s the first time in awhile I teared up at the national anthem. The pregame ceremony was quite moving. There also was a fairly cool parachute thing which I didn’t know was going to happen. There something like 4-6 parachuters that jumped into the stadium. I hadn’t seen that live since I was a kid – it was quite cool. I grew up in Philadelphia, and the Phillies used to have something similar they called “Kiteman”, and they’d also have a parachuter drop the first pitch into the park from above the stadium. This whole thing was quite moving and brought me many memories of my childhood.
All that, plus a totally great baseball game, and the usual awesome Rangers fireworks show afterwards.. One thing that was really cool about the fireworks show.. In the 20 minutes or so after the game before the fireworks, my wife and I spotted a few players on the field with their kids in front of the dugout. Lee Stevens and Tim Crabtree were out there with their children, and there were a bunch of other kids as well as some wives we could see too. From where we were sitting, we couldn’t see in the dugout to see if any Ranger players were there or not, but it was quite nice to see the baseball players out there with their kids sitting on the ground watching the fireworks. Tim Crabtree looked really cute with his infant daughter between his legs playing pattycake. Quite cool.
It was an awesome night, and both my wife and I got in the door for $10. If you count the $8 it cost for parking (grumble, grumble), how can you beat a night like this for $18? I’ve been to many many baseball games, and this one ranked up there as one of my all time favourites, and I was sitting in the cheap seats. I loved it. I know these commentaries of mine don’t get read all that often, but if you’re a real fan of the game, and ever just want to go to a game, these $5 aren’t all that bad. It’s a great value, and I saw many families with small kids up here.
Go Rangers!
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Not available. I haven’t heard from Jim in a few days. Jim, if you see this, drop me a line – you OK?

I was at this game, and driving out to the ballpark, I feared rain again. The weather was bad in the 40 minute drive I have to the ballpark, and it spitted rain a few times on the way out. Fortunately, as my wife and I pulled up to the park, everything cleared up. It was a nice blue sky with great puffy clouds. A bright afternoon – and oh man, did we get a great game.
A few commentaries ago, I said I wasn’t all that thrilled with Mark Clark pitching, as he has been a great disappointment so far this year. However, today, he pitched his masterpiece of the year so far. He went seven innings, allowing four hits, and only two runs. It was by far the best game he’s pitched as a Ranger, and he seems to finally be headed in the right direction. Zim came in and pitched a perfect eighth inning, and Wetteland came in and secured the save, even if he made it a bit interesting by allowing runners to get to first and third. :) Of the six hits the Ranger pitching allowed, two were by Wetteland in the 9th – this was by far our best pitched game that I can recall.
We were shut down on offense too – the Twin rookie pitcher was matching Mark Clark all along the way. That kid lookd really good – in fact, I didn’t think our offense looked alive at all until Tom Kelly started playing bullpen musical chairs. And even then it wasn’t that great – we pulled out a 3-2 win, which seemed like it should have been swapped with the Dallas Stars’ score – the Stars were playing cross town, and lost 7-5, in what seemed like a baseball score.
Our current injury situation seems weird. Rusty Greer was still out of the starting lineup, but did make an appearance in the eigth as a pinch runner for Raffy – he eventually scored. Royce Clayton was still out, and probably won’t be back until the Arizona series on Friday. Mike Morgan was also down for the count, but on the radio pre-game show, Johnny Oates said that he probably could pitch out of the bullpen in an emergency.
This win gives us two consecutive sweeps in a row for a season high six game winning streak. THat’s also tied for the current high winning streak in the majors (with the Diamondbucks, who also have 6 in a row). Furthermore, this gives us a record of 29-20 for the season, also a season high 9 games over .500. An interesting note, this gives us virtually the same record as the New York Yankees, who are 29-19. :)
I’m hoping things are back to speed come Friday when we don’t have the DH to rely upon – Raffy probably will be relegated to pinch hitter status only. Also, Mike Simms is about ready to come off the DL, which poses a roster problem – who to move to AAA to make room for Simms?
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Not available. I haven’t heard from Jim in a few days. Jim, if you see this, drop me a line – you OK?

Only our second extra inning game so far this season started and ended very wildly. :)
At the start, we found out we had some injury problems. Rusty Greer apparently hurt his shoulder in the slide into second last night, and was out for today (not expected to be serious). Projected starter Mike Morgan had to go to the hospital with swelling in his right shin – so John Burkett made an emergency start. Finally, Royce Clayton was out due to the stumble he took over first base in the fifth – he’s expected to be out for several days.
So, a very different lineup took the field for the Rangers, and had a very interesting game. John Burkett pitched four decent innings, but fell apart in the fifth. He was relived by Mike Venafro who pitched three scoreless innings, followed by Mike Munoz, Tim Crabtree, & John Wetteland, who all pitched scoreless relief. Was another really great night for the bullpen. John Wetteland was brought in to pitch the 10th, and got the win, as he was the pitcher of record when the Rangers won the game in the bottom of the 10th.
Pudge has an 18 game hitting streak going now – he’ll probably get a day off tomorrow, as it’s a day game after an extra inning night game. This wasn’t a very big offensive game, and it’s nice to see us win games without having to clobber people to death. Todd Zeile did have a home run in the second with no one on, but that was the only longball of the night.
The game ended in the bottom of the tenth when Pudge doubled to start the inning. After that Mike Trombley threw a wild pitch, and Pudge went to third. At this point I figured that was more than enough, as all we needed was a fly ball. I was not expecting the next pitch, which was another wild pitch allowing Pudge to score. Was quite a bizarre win – but a win is a win – I’ll take it!
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Not available. I haven’t heard from Jim in a few days. Jim, if you see this, drop me a line – you OK?

After never having accomplished the feat in the first 26 years of the team’s existance, the Rangers pulled it off for the third time in less than a year, having done the back-to-back-to-back home run thing. :) This time it was Juan, Raffy, & Pudge. Only earlier in the week, it was three other guys, one of which being Pudge, and last year when it was done for the first time, Pudge was also involved (with Juan & Will Clark).

We started this game with a 5 run first inning (similar to the game against the Yankees with Roger Clemens). It was enough to hold on for the win – we didn’t need any more, but we did get one more later on in the game in the 7th inning.

Aaron Sele pitched well, but spectacurly. He lasted into the 7th inning, giving up four runs. Was OK, but he is improving – it seems that our entire staff is coming around. Which is nice. With the kids coming up doing a great job, it’s nice to see our established pitching getting it together. I’d love to put some distance between us and the rest of the division as we approach the 50th game of the season.

Kinda tired – not going to write much about this one. :)

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After never having accomplished the feat in the first 26 years of the team’s existance, the Rangers pulled it off for the third time in less than a year, having done the back-to-back-to-back home run thing. :) This time it was Juan, Raffy, & Pudge. Only earlier in the week, it was three other guys, one of which being Pudge, and last year when it was done for the first time, Pudge was also involved (with Juan & Will Clark).
We started this game with a 5 run first inning (similar to the game against the Yankees with Roger Clemens). It was enough to hold on for the win – we didn’t need any more, but we did get one more later on in the game in the 7th inning.
Aaron Sele pitched well, but spectacurly. He lasted into the 7th inning, giving up four runs. Was OK, but he is improving – it seems that our entire staff is coming around. Which is nice. With the kids coming up doing a great job, it’s nice to see our established pitching getting it together. I’d love to put some distance between us and the rest of the division as we approach the 50th game of the season.
Kinda tired – not going to write much about this one. :)
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Not available. I haven’t heard from Jim in a few days. Jim, if you see this, drop me a line – you OK?

We got a sweep of the Devil Rays last night with an 8-6 win. Helling was pitching pretty decent until he gave up a 2 run home run late, and then was pulled. He still got the win, but didn’t seem totally dominating. Still, a win’s a win.
I’m not going to write about last night’s game, as I’m pretty brain dead from only getting a few hours sleep last night. I will say that it’s not good to see a pitcher go down like Tony Saunders did last night. That was just horrible. I was listening on the radio when it happened, but I got to see it on Sportscenter later on ESPN. Man, that looks like about the worst thing that can happen to a pitcher. His arm just snaps while pitching. I can’t imagine anything hurting more on the field – even getting hit on the head with a batted ball.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Not available. I haven’t heard from Jim in a few days. Jim, if you see this, drop me a line – you OK?

We got a very good pitching outing from three rookies – Glynn (starter), Venafro, & Zimmerman. Today’s DMN said that the game was the first that Johnny Oates had managed that had three rookie pitchers in it. Not sure about the history of the club, but it was impressive to see. Was much better than last year’s rookie pitching experiments of Todd Van Poppel & Matt Perisho. Speaking of pitchers, the cameramen and Bill Jones pointed out that Roger Pavlik was in the stands – he was sitting in the first row behind the bullpen chatting with the Ranger pitchers. I wonder if he’s going to attempt a comeback next spring training?
Still, I thought Ryan Glynn pitched well, but probably started to show nerves towards the end of his outing. He went 4.1 innings, not enough for the win, but certainly good enough to keep his slot in the rotation. Mike Venafro came in and pitched really well for his first major league win (3.2 innings), and then Jeff Zimmerman came in for the ninth. Zim initially looked shaky, but ended up getting a shutout inning (that will help my fantasy team ).
Royce Clayton probably had his best offensive night of the season, getting three hits in 3 AB, scoring a run, and getting an RBI. Nice night for him – this is why we signed him for four years. :) On the flip side, Raffy went 0 for 3, lowering his average to .385 (from .392). Mark McLemore was back after coming out last night. That’s good to see. I’m really pulling for Mac to have a stellar year – I’d like him to stay around (provided he can play).
No home runs though, which is the first game in like 10 or 12 games or something like that where we didn’t have any home runs at all. I was kind of hoping we’d get 10 runs, as that would have been three games in a row where we were involved in a 10+ run game.
Was a really nice night for the rookies – I hope these guys are not flashes, and they stick. We need the help;.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Not available. I haven’t heard from Jim in a few days. Jim, if you see this, drop me a line – you OK?

In starting to write the commentary for this game, it occured to me just how many games we’ve had this season that have had at least ten runs by one side or the other. Looking back at 1999 so far, we’ve had 14 games that have had ten runs by one side or the other, and this is only game 44. That’s 32% of the games played. That’s a lot of runs. A breakdown:
April: We won two, and lost four
May: We won four and lost four
That makes us 6-8 in runs where one side scores 10 or more runs. That’s not all that good. With the Rangers offense, we should be expected to do that, but this stat can be translated down to one thing. Our pitching stinks (overall).
However, last night, that wasn’t true. We got the first really good outing from Mark Clark all season. He went 6.1 innings, throwing 125 pitches (I think that’s what the TV guys said), giving up 8 hits, and 3 earned runs. Not the most dominating performance, but for Clark, and for our staff, it was a great outing. Mike Munoz & Tim Crabtree, who have both been pitching extremely well of late finished up the game, giving up just one hit for no runs between the two of them. Our bullpen is doing great (hell, even Burkett pitched well (for him) out of the pen the other night).
Our hitting was in a groove, too. Juan Gonzalez had a great game, hitting two home runs, for a total of 5 RBI’s for the night (2 run HR & 3 run HR). Pudge also had a home run in the ninth inning, which extended his hitting streak to 14 games. Mark McLemore continues his hot hitting streak of 99, going 3 for 4. I don’t know where he’s been hiding all of this, but I like it! All the Ranger starters had at least one hit, except Clayton.
There were also some injuries last night. I didn’t see the first one, because I was watching the series finale of “Mad About You” with my wife, but apparently Mark McLemore left the game in the sixth with a tight left hamstring. I hope that’s not a real problem, as this is the second time in a week he left the game early with a hamstring tightness problem. Also, on Juan Gonzalez’s second home run, Quinton McCracken got really hurt. He went to jump to try and catch the ball, but his jump was mistimed. He hit the wall hard on the way up, not at the peak of the jump like it’s normally done. He hit his shoulder hard, and came straight down crumpled, and his knee appeared to hit very hard on the warning track. He didn’t get up at all, and after awhile he was stetchered off the field.
No matter what the player, no matter how much I dislike them professionally, I hate to see this happen to anyone. Don’t get me wrong – I like McCracken, but I just hate to see anyone injured like this at all. Looks like he’s going on the DL because of this. I know you’ll never see this, but Quinten – this Rangers fan hopes you get well soon!
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Not available.

This is the last of the Sunday night ESPN games this season for the Rangers. Our last Sunday appearance was our worst. However, I won’t have to listen to the uneducated oafes in the ESPN booth misprounounce the Ranger players’ names anymore. My god – can they get ANYTHING right? Cripes. The one thing I like about ESPN’s coverage is that they always show some really nice shots of the surrounding city the game is being played in – at least before the sun goes down anyway.
On to the game.. Oh man, I was lucky I had something else to do – I was sorting through some baseball cards, and was only peripherally paying attention to the game. The way the score was after the first, you would have thought John Burkett was starting. In fact, Burkett came in after .2 of the first inning, and pitched for six innings, not giving up a whole hell of a lot (by his own standards), and actually pitched the best game of the season for him.
One silly thing – before Morgan left the game, he did manage to get himself in the record books as the first pitcher to hit the same guy twice in one inning. We now have the highest starting rotation ERA thanks to last night – it’s over seven!! We did have a few late inning solo home runs (Mac, Juan, Raffy), but that was really it for us.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Not available.

I was out and about doing some shopping and visiting baseball card shops (I just started collecting cards again this year for the first time in about 20 years). I didn’t hear very much of the game at all, but I did manage to hear the top of the ninth while sitting in the parking lot in front of the Barnes & Noble in Dallas at the Northpark mall.
Was very cool to hear the call on the home run by Gonzalez. Was nice to see them pull out a late inning win – they hardly ever do that. Zimmerman didn’t pitch will, but shit.. It was his first bad outing. Perhaps the Ranger starting pitching disease is spreading. Hope not.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
I only got to hear the 8th and 9th innings of today’s game (on RealAudio) as I had just gotten off work at that time.
What I heard was the Rangers pulling out a victory when trailing after 8 innings for only the 2nd time in 20 tries.
Juan Gonzalez belted a 3-run shot in the 9th inning to put the Rangers up for good.
Jeff Zimmerman had a rare, poor outing.