A lonestar in california

Welp, make that 7 straight losses. Boy, we all knew this would be a tough road trip, but I don’t think even the most pessimistic of Ranger fans would have predicted that we’d lose 7 straight to the Red Sox an Tigers, and wind up with the franchise’s worst start since 1982.

After sitting through the heartless slaughter that was Wednesday nights game, I wasn’t able to get too upset about today’s loss, however. Probably because I fully expected the Rangers to get beat anyway. I think the real shock would have been if we had somehow managed to avoid the sweep with Jason Jennings (or Scott Feldman, for that matter) on the mound.

Jennings wound up making his scheduled start, despite the fact that the Rangers had previously reported that Scott Feldman would make a spot start, and allow Jennings to get two extra days rest before starting again. Instead, they held Feldman out to be used in long relief if needed, and sent down Wes Littleton, who had thrown 82 pitches appearing in 3 of the last 4 games for the Rangers, and called up Kazuo Fukumori (as I predicted yesterday – check it out, I finally nailed a prediction! Wheee!!!). They have yet to place Luis Mendoza on the DL yet though, and are still keeping their options open on whether to start Feldman against the Twins Saturday, or call up AJ Murray or Sidney Ponson.

Anyway, Jennings (or Jenny, as I think I’m going to start calling him) was his typical self Thursday, lobbing meatballs up to the plate when he did hit the zone, and only actually hitting the zone about 50 percent of the time, as only 44 of his 81 pitches through 5 innings where strikes. He gave up three home runs, one to Curtis Granderson, and two to Magglio Ordonez, which accounted for all 5 of the runs that he surrendered, and walked 5 on the day before he was lifted for Kaz Fukumori, who promptly gave up back-to-back jacks in his first inning of work to Brandon Inge and Ryan Raburn.

Raburn’s homer, which was to RF, was a bit of a controversial one, as it hit the yellow line atop the wall, and bounced back onto the field of play. I couldn’t tell you if it was a homer or not from the replays I’ve seen, but the umpires did call it a big fly however, after a quick huddle to discuss it – something that only brought marginal protest from Ron Washington. This is one of my biggest problems with Wash: that’s a call that most major league managers would, and probably should get ejected over. Especially when your team is on a 6 game (now 7) losing streak. Not that it would have probably made eny difference in the outcome of game, but Ron had the perfect opportunity to show some fire, and send the message to his players that he actually cares about this team, and is willing to fight for it, but no, Ron just strolled out, briefly conversed with the ump, and strolled back to the dugout as if he’d just gone out to get the address of the nearest fried chicken joint.

Small wonder why players like Frank Catalanotto have been complaining lately about the stagnant atmosphere in the clubhouse:

“It’s getting a little monotonous, every single day seeing the same thing. “You come out, you play lethargically and nothing changes. I wish I had the words to say what it is. We need to pitch better. We need to hit better in the clutch. It seems like right now everything’s going wrong for us.”

I think the above-chronicled events are a perfect example as to why that feeling is so prevalent in the Rangers clubhouse.

Getting back to the game for a moment, the Rangers offense continues to disappoint: they left another 11 men on-base, stuck out 19 times, and failed to take advantage of the fact that Detroit starter Jeremy Bonderman walked 7 and threw only 56 strikes of 110 pitches during his 4.2 innings of work. The only two Ranger runs of the game came on Michael Young’s solo home run in the first, and a bases loaded walk of David Murphy by Bonderman in the 5th, as the Rangers mustered just 4 hits to go along with the 8 overall walks they took on the day. They are now hitting .194 with RISP – that is one ugly stat.

Other notable news: both Ian Kinsler and Milton Bradley had the day off with sore hamstrings. According to the Rangers, it’s nothing to be alarmed about – Kinsler asked for the day off to take a breather, and Ron Washington held Bradley out as a precaution, despite originally planning to play him. Hopefully, this won’t affect Milton’s play, but Ron’s statement about whether or not this is part of his knee problems is kind of cryptic, though:

“His hamstrings have been sore for the last week or so,” Washington said. “But as a designated hitter, he can manage it. His [right] knee is fine. There is no problem with his knee. But this could be a part of that. I don’t want him pushing it.”

 Just for fun, I’m going to tag this entry with “Ron Washington channels Joe Morgan” again.

Salty watch: Hopefully, this will be the last Salty watch I do this year. There’s not anything official that I can find on Salty’s callup as of 1 AM PT here tonight, so the official word won’t come down until the morning, but based on everything I’ve heard, this is it. I can only hope his stay will be permanent, and that he will immediately take over the full-time catching duties from 5 tools Laird – it really doesn’t make sense to call him up and just send him back down, so I’m hoping that will be exactly the case.

In my realistic estimation however, he’ll probably get only 4-5 days behind the plate though, as the Rangers continue to try and “inflate” Laird’s trade value – hopefully, Milton Bradley’s legs are OK, and he can play the field a little more so Jarrod can DH when he’s not catching. The last thing we need to have happen is Salty being run out there at first base again. Hopefully the Rangers will have figured out that’s not a good idea by now.

Tomorrow (or today, depending upon how you look at it), it’s Kevin Millwood vs. Twins rookie right-hander Nick Blackburn. Hopefully the Rangers can get something going against him, although he has pitched well to start his freshman season in the bigs. Interesting stat: Kevin Millwood has never beaten the Twins in his career, and has a 5.64 ERA against them.

Hopefully, Salty will make his 2008 debut tomorrow, and maybe provide the offense with some spark – we sure could use it.