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I’m getting ready to go out to tonight’s Ranger game, so I don’t have much time to write, but I do have a few memories from watching the game last night.
Home Run Derby! Cripes – for the second time this season against Helling, and I don’t know how many times, AND the second time in two nights, the leadoff guy for the other team had a home run. Juan had two, including one towering drive that looked from the camera angle that it was going out of the ballpark (of course, that wasn’t going to really happen). Juan hit his other into the Indians bullpen, which is where Lee Stevens hit one, too. The fourth was Rusty Greer who had his first of the season. The Indians also had four, including two by Roberto Alomar (the others by Lofton & Sexon).
Our pitching was a mixed bag. Helling was just “OK”, and Zimmerman continued to sparkle. Man, does this kid look good. However, we’re not seeing all that many of the other right handers now, so I start to wonder about burnout. Wetteland got another save, and is tied for the AL lead.
Royce Clayton had to come out of the game – he was scheduled for an MRI this morning (don’t know what happened), and the Dallas Morning News this morning said that he’s probably going on the DL. They also said that the Rangers don’t trust Shave to play the position for extended periods (we’re 1-3 with him starting SS this year), and were talking about making a roster move to bring up someone else. Hmm.. Could have used Bournigal. :)
The Indians have such an impressive team, they seem to match up against us very well. If I wasn’t a Ranger fan, I’d probably be a fan of this team – they have a lot going for them.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
The Rangers used 4 home runs – including a multi-homer game by Juan Gonzalez – and fantastic relief pitching to defeat the Cleveland Indians Friday.
Gonzalez, who prior to Friday had just one round-tripper, drove in 3 runs. Rusty Greer hit his first homer and Lee Stevens hit his 8th. The Rangers banged out 13 hits.
Rick Helling again pitched poorly. For the fourth time this month against Rangers’ pitching – the lead-off hitter hit a home run. This is the second time it’s happened to Helling. He was behind in the count on just about every hitter as he labored through this game, throwing an incredible 119 pitches in just over 5 innings of work. He gave up 4 homers, the 5th time this year he’s given more than one homer in a start.
Jeff Zimmerman continues to be the Most Valuable Player of this team. Coming out of the bullpen in the 6th inning, he stopped the Indians cold, allowing just one hit in his 2.2 innings of work and lowering his already microscopic ERA to 0.55. There are no words that can be used to describe just how well Zimmerman has pitched this year.
John Wetteland allowed 2 baserunners in the 9th but preserved the victory for Helling, who surely did not deserve the win.

Well, we went back to our usual result againt the Yankees – A loss. We lost two out of three in this series with the Yankees (making us 1 for 5 so far this season against the World Champs). However, I liked the way we played. We didn’t just roll over and die, although you’d think we did with the season series results. The Yankees are the yardstick. We still don’t measure up against them, and that’s still because of our pitching. These guys can pitch circles around everyone, but it was nice to see us not just wilt. Of coure the Tigers spanked the Yanks a week ago, what’s that say about them? :)
I had that same kind of bad omen I got on opening day. My wife and I are big fans of the NBC Thursday night TV lineup, so we watched mostly that while flipping to the Ranger game during commercials. Oh man, an inside the park Home Run by Mr. Twinkie, Chuck Knoblauch. Ugh.. Well, we stayed with them for awhile, and then when I got done watching Frasier, I flipped back, and it was 5-0. I thought we were done for, but we did manage to hold them to no more runs after they got to 5. We did battle back, but it wasn’t enough against Yankee pitching.
Old Man Morgan (I don’t like the nickname “The Mo Man” – sounds dippy) pitched well, but some defensive blunders gave him the loss. He only got charged with one earned run, the rest were unearned. The inside the parker was a blunder by Tom Goodwin, and Todd Zeile made a bad throw that Stevens couldn’t dig out which led to a few Yankee runs. Mike ended up leaving the game after being hit on the shin by a batted ball. He looked OK, but Johnny took him out anyway. Given the score, I think it was more to get him out before more damage was done. I wasn’t watching the game completely, but from what I saw, he didn’t seem like he was pitching that bad – just caught a few bad breaks. Mike Venafro looked good from what I saw in the line score (only saw him pitch to two batters) and from what Jim said below. I like sidearm pitchers, they just seem “cooler” to me. :)
I agree with Jim below, it’s a game we should have won, but didn’t. Still, I liked that we didn’t look like total crap against the Yankees. On another note, I wish Don Zimmer well, this is the last time the Rangers should see him, and he seems like a nice guy from what I can tell. I know you’ll never see this Zim, but one Ranger fan wishes you well!
As a side note, after ER last night, my wife and I watched Field of Dreams. It’s a spectacular movie if you’ve never seen it. A bit on the weird side for me, but still very well done. That and Bull Durham. :) Also, what was with the AL West yesterday? 22 runs by the Mariners? 17 by the Angels? Cripes!
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Two Rangers defensive blunders cost them a ball game Thursday night.
The game’s first batter, second baseman Chuck Knoblauch, hit a liner to center fielder Tom Goodwin, who dove, missed the ball and let it skip by him all the way to the wall. Knoblauch scored on what should have been a single and a three base error but the official scorer deemed a home run.
A bad throw by third baseman Todd Zeile couldn’t be handled by first baseman Lee Stevens in the third inning and the Yankees scored 4 unearned runs in the inning. The Yankees only scored 5 runs total and all 5 should have been unearned.
This marks the first game the Rangers have lost this year due to lousy defense. The Rangers have actually played above-average defensively all year.
Mike Morgan didn’t pitch badly but was charged with the loss.
Mike Venafro pitched 4 perfect innings in relief and probably earned himself a permanent stay with the big club. He’s pitched extremely well since his call-up. Danny Patterson is likely the odd man out when John Burkett returns.
Rafael Palmeiro stroked a 2-run homer in the 8th, but it was too little and too late.
This was a game they could’ve and should’ve won. Let’s hope the Rangers don’t lose the division by one game.

A win against the Yankees! That’s always a good way to end a game. I didn’t get to see it unfortunately. Fox Sports Southwest in my area screwed up again. The game was nationally televised on ESPN, and that was blacked out, and FSS was supposed to be showing it. Well, the showed the damn Astros game again. Methinks it’s time to write to someone about it. :( I was flipping back and forth between the radio and television, as my wife and I were watching a movie, as well as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
About the Rangers game.. :) We did it primarily with the big inning again. Those are always fun to see, but I prefer a more even win. A win is a win, but for me they seem better when you don’t get all your runs at once. The Yankees started it off again with a home run (we seem to give up a lot of them to these guys), but Todd Zeile evened it up again with a solo home run. Jorge Posada put the Yanks up again with another home run in the 5th, and then we got a couple right back with a Lee Stevens double and a sac fly by Goodwin. Lee Stevens continues to look really good, which might make things difficult for Johnny Oates when Raffy is ready for the field again.
We got into the 7th, and when the Yankees are leading after 6, they’re virtually unbeatable. Then we had another 5 run explosion. It was capped off (IMHO) by Juan Gonzalez’ two run single with the bases loaded – finally delivering in the clutch (they had walked Greer to get to Juan). Zeile (who I really really like this year) then doubled and scored two more. All this put the Rangers ahead for good.
Munoz pitched very well, earning a win (Clark continues to be somewhat unreliable to ineffective, which doesn’t seem like the promise when he came here), and John Wetteland got right back on the horse after last night. He did give up a solo home run to Tino Martinez, but that was about it, earning his MLB leading 7th save.
All in all a good win, but I would have preferred the win be more even, not with a 5 run inning again.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
It wasn’t pretty, but the Rangers hocus-pocused their way to victory Wednesday over the Yankees.
Coming from behind, the Rangers made the most of their hits in the later innings – especially key were hits from Lee Stevens (who continues to hit left handed pitching well) and Juan Gonzalez, who’s power is MIA but still has 16 RBI (about half of what league leader Manny Ramirez has) and is on pace to drive in over 120 for the year.
The Rangers – like the Yankees yesterday – clawed their way out of a hole. The 7th inning was pivotal as they leveled what is usually the Yankees dead-pan bullpen. They battered lefty Mike Stanton, then took on Jeff Nelson. When the inning was over, they had plated 5 runners on 5 hits.
The rubber game of the series is Thursday..

In the middle of the first inning, I was thinking – Where was this in October? Then at the end of the game, I was thinking Nevermind, had the same result as October.
I went to this game last night, and one the way to the game I mentioned to my wife that I was expecting a loss, but I thought it’d be a good game. I got both. The Rangers lost, but damn, this was a great game, if you’re a fan of baseball. It had a bit of evertyhing. Big bang inning, several comebacks, a couple of long balls, some small ball, it was a great damn game. The place was packed – an attendance of 42,600. I’ve been to larger crowds, but never for a weekday night game. Those usually are in the low 30’s. This was also Tuesday night which meant Tom Thumb half price ticket night, and I’m sure the Yankee fans were in attendance. It really seemed like there were a lot more Yankee fans out last night than there were at the playoff game last October (which I also went to – and sat through the whole 3.5 hr rain delay all the way to the end of the game).
Now, as a Ranger fan, this game both sucked and was great. Boy did Roger Clemens get booed when they announced his name in the lineup, and when he took the field. What was interesting is that the Yankee fans were also cheering him, of course. Was an interesting reaction, but the boos were bigger. The Rangers jumped all over the Rocket in the first inning. We batted around, scored 5 runs, and generally made Clemens seem like oh, I don’t know Bobby Witt did last year. :) Clemens settled down in the second inning, but that was it for him. He came out after the second, which seemed like a surprise at the park – later on I found out it was a hamstring thing. He was replaced by Hidecki Irabu, who dominated the Rangers. Several of his innings were 1-2-3. In fact, the only thing we managed to break through against him with was a wild pitch that we scored on. That’s it. :( The rest of the Yankee pitchers also closed us down, so the Rangers got a big first inning, one small gift, but it wasn’t enough.
Ranger pitching was fair. I thought Aaron Sele was crusining along well, until the 5th when Sele gave up a couple. Still, he didn’t look that bad, and then in the 6th, it fell apart. Jeff Zimmerman came in (to a big ovation from the crowd), and one run scored on him but that was charged to Sele. But he gave up his own first run, a solo shot to Paul O’Neill. Still, I thought Zimmerman pitched pretty great. Wetteland came in and blew his first save opportunity – he looked really weak from the first pitch. Never got it going, and gave up two runs.
Overall, even though we lost, I can say that I enjoyed the game. The Yankee fans were rather well behaved as Yankee fans go. This is now my fifth game at the Ballpark this season, and they added something new since the last game I attended. The large scoreboard over the left field wall, which used to show the current player’s batting average now shows the pitcher’s pitch count – total as well as balls/strikes. It’s a great help for people who score at the park. The info that used to be here has been displaced to the large Coke scoreboard out in center field. This pitch count scoreboard is in addition to the new scoreboard they added at the start of this season that shows ball speed and type. These things are a great addition for scorers, and if anyone at the Rangers reads this (yeah, right) and has something to do with these changes – way to go! I like them!
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
No wonder Roger Clemens chose the Yankees in the off-season over the Rangers.
Clemens was battered in the first inning Tuesday, pulled his hamstring and left the game after just two innings, trailing 5-0 to the Rangers.
As I listened to the game, I had this odd feeling – even as the Rangers were up 5-0, that they would somehow manage to lose the game. My feelings didn’t lie.
The Almighty Yankees pecked their way back into the game. Aaron Sele, held the 5-run cushion for 5.1 innings and Jeff Zimmerman pitched 2.2 and only surrendered a solo homer. By the time the 9th inning came around it was 6-5.
The surest thing the Rangers have is John Wetteland. And as any manager would have done, Manager Johnny Oates sent the dominating right hander to the mound to nail down the victory for Sele in the 9th – and finally put Clemens’ 18 game win streak – and the Yankees – to rest.
It wasn’t to be. Wetteland’s ex-mates scored twice in the frame.
He began the inning ominously with a walk. Two batters and 2 singles later, the game was tied 6 to 6. Two batters later, the Yankees went ahead, 7-6.
The Rangers went quietly in the bottom of the ninth and the Yankees gleefully recorded yet another victory over the Rangers – who just can’t seem to beat the Yankees.

As I put this page together on Monday morning, I’ve had only 5 hours sleep in the last two days – my recall of the game is next to nothing. We’ll have to rely on Jim’s commentary today. :)
I can say this. The Rangers pitching (in particular Danny Patterson) let the Twins get much closer than they should have been in the 9th inning. This was a very well pitched game until the 9th.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
The Rangers coasted Sunday and swept the Minnesota Twins 9-5, behind the pitching of Rick Helling and from solid support from the bottom of the batting order.
Helling, who gave up just 2 earned runs in 7 innings, was very sharp again and looks to be back to form, after his terrible start of the season.
Helling found all the help he needed from the six, seven and eight batters in the lineup. Todd Zeile, Lee Stevens and Gregg Zahn – who was filling in so that Ivan Rodriguez could get a needed two-day rest, combined to go 6-14, with a double, 3 homers and 7 runs batted in. Zeile had a homer in the second to give Helling a lead he would never relinquish, while Stevens added 2 solo shots, the first being a tremendous blow.
The Rangers have now finished their longest road trip in team history in terms of mileage and I’m sure they’ll be smiling on their way back to the Metroplex. The team sandwiched two lousy series with two series sweeps; sweeping the Mariners at the Kingdome and now the Twinkies at the Baggiedome.

As I put this page together on Monday morning, I’ve had only 5 hours sleep in the last two days – my recall of the game is next to nothing. We’ll have to rely on Jim’s commentary today. :)
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Is it possible the Rangers’ pitching staff has turned it around?
Since last Sunday (April 18th), the Rangers ERA sits at a very lovely 3.00. The addition of Mike Venafro and the subtraction of John Burkett to the staff should only make things better.
In his last outing, Joe coined Mike Morgan, “the steal of the off-season”. I don’t think it could be put any more eloquently. Morgan pitched 7 innings on Saturday and held the Twins to 2 earned runs. Venafro and – here’s that name again – Jeff Zimmerman – each pitched a scoreless inning and the Rangers won 7-2.
Morgan, along with Aaron Sele and Zimmerman, have been the saviors of the Rangers. If not for them, this team likely would be in the cellar, Remember how poorly Rick Helling, Mark Clark and John Burkett pitched their first 2 outings and 3 outings, respectively? As ineffective as they were, Morgan has been supreme.
Saturday, Morgan got help from Juan Gonzalez, who collected 3 more RBI’s and 3 hits. The Rangers scored 7 runs on 10 hits, making the most of each hit. Raffy Palmeiro belted a homer (his 4th) and drove in 2.
It is interesting to note that for the second time in a span of 4 days, Tom Goodwin stole a run in the first inning. Against Roger Clemens on Wednesday, he walked, stole two bases and came home on a catcher’s error and Saturday the exact same thing happened. If Goodwin could only get on base more, he would be such an intimidating factor…
Even though the Rangers lost both games in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday, they finished the week at 4 wins and 2 losses. This long road trip began April 13th and the Rangers are 7-4 so far on the road, which is nothing short of outstanding.

Great pitched game from every Ranger involved, especially starter Mark Clark.. John Wetteland got his MLB leading 6th save.. Juan Gonzalez finally got his first home run – a three run blast, and Pudge didn’t seem to be bothered by the collision last night, also popping a home run. Also, if you were watching the Rangers on TV, the home run by Juan was one of those ones that you knew was a monster blast the second it hit the bat – it was really awesome!
A great game for the Rangers! Surprisingly the Twins are playing really good baseball these last two games. I expected to come in here and crush them, and they’re sticking up for themselves, which is nice to see.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
The Rangers road Mark Clark’s first good outing and a Juan Gonzalez 3-run homer Friday to beat Minnesota 4-2.
Clark, who has horribly in every start prior to Fridays’, pitched pretty well Friday. Despite giving up 3 doubles the first 5 innings, he held the Twins scoreless. This was by far his best outing and it’s at least a sign of hope.
Call me a dreamer but I say Clark winds up with at least 15 victories this year.
It was nice to see Gonzalez homer for the first time this year. His home runs come in bunches usually, so the rest of this weekend might be fun. Ivan Rodriguez, who was at first diagnosed with a concussion on Thursday after a collision at the plate – then upgraded to a bone bruise to his cheek, was back in the lineup on Friday and drove himself in with an insurance run as he homered in the 9th inning.
Flawless John Wetteland, who was somewhat of a question mark coming into the season because of his ankle, picked up his 6th save already and is on a record pace for saves.