A lonestar in california

Boy, it’s been awhile since Rangers fans have seen the above words up on the jumbotron. But on Friday night, the Rangers laid to rest a 7 game losing streak with a hard-fought victory over the Minnesota Twins, a 10-inning affair that came down to a dramatic walkoff single.

Things started off bleak, though, as Kevin Millwood had his struggles through the first few innings. Justin Morneau drove in Carlos Gomez with a single in the first, and then struck a big blow in the top of the third, when he smoked a grand slam to right field, to make it 5-0 Twins. It looked like the night was setting up for the Rangers 8th consecutive loss at that point (as I noted in my previous entry) but in the bottom of the third, something wonderful happened: a rally.

Rallys have been far a few between for the Rangers lately, but tonight, they managed to put together a whopper. Gerald Laird and Ben Broussard, who are usually automatic outs at the bottom of the order, singled to put runners on the corners with nobody out for the top of the order. Then it was delivery time. Ian Kinsler singled up the middle to plate Laird, which Michael Young followed him with an RBI single of his own to plate Broussard. Kinsler and Young advanced to second and third on the play when Delmon Young bobbled the ball in LF, and that set it up for Josh Hamilton, who struck the innings biggest blow with a 2-run single, reaching second on a throw home. Hank Blalock followed with the game-tying double, and then things got wierd.

Jason Botts hammered a ball into RF, over the head of Michael Cuddyer and off the wall. Hank Blalock came chugging around third, but was called out at the plate on the relay throw home by umpire Alfonso Marquez (despite the fact that he looked safe to me). That was bad enough, but as Blalock was being called out, Jason Botts, who apparently forgot to pay his brain bill before the game, suddenly jumped up after his slide into second base, and decided to try and go to third. Needless to say, he was out by a country mile on Joe Mauers toss to third, and the electricity of the huge inning was gone. Frank Catalanotto struck out looking to end the frame, but that didn’t take away the significance of what had transpired before the Botts/Blalock double play: an actual, bona-fide rally to tie the game at 5 apeice. Even with the way it was suddenly cut short, I think it’s safe to argue that that the bottom of the third Friday was the most important half-inning of baseball played by the Rangers so far this season.

The game stayed 5-5 for what seemed like an eternity, as both Kevin Millwood and Twins rookie Nick Blackburn gritted out another three innings of scoreless ball, and the respective bullpens took over after that, as Eddie Guardado, Jamey Wright and CJ Wilson each pitch a scoreless inning for Texas from the 7th to the 9th. 

The Rangers offense didn’t exactly dazzle with RISP the rest of the game, though. They got David Murphy to third base with 2 out in both the 4th and 6th innings, but left him both times, and they couldn’t do anything with Josh Hamilton’s 2 out double in the 7th, either. Perhaps the biggest dissapointment of the night though, was when Ron Washington decided to let Gerald Laird and Ben Broussard lead of the bottom of the 9th when he had both Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Milton Bradley on his bench. Laird hit a lazy fly to CF, and Broussard popped out to LF, in almost predictable fashion. Yet another nonsensical decision by Wash – why would you let your 8 an 9 hitters start a critical inning like the bottom of the 9th? It especially made little sense to let Laird hit to lead the inning off, as he has a .626 career OPS against RHP, and the Twins pitcher at the time, righty Pat Neshek, has held right-handed batters to a .523 OPS for his career. And both Saltalamacchia and Bradley are switch hitters, not vunerable to any LOOGY moves that could have been made by the Twins…

Fortunately, that display of idiocy didn’t come back to haunt the Rangers. Joaquin Benoit pitched a scoreless top of the 10th, and the 10th inning was when the Rangers finally got it done. “It” didn’t come without a cost, however.

After Josh Hamilton started the inning with a comebacker to the new Twins pitcher, Jaun Rincon, Hank Blalock doubled into the alley in left-center. But Blalock came up lame as he rounded first base, and headed to second – he apparently strained his right hamstring, an injury which is likely going to land him on the DL. Fortunately, it’s not torn, or he could be out of the lineup for an extended period, but it’s not really nescessary to say he’ll be missed – German Duran, who should take over for him in the meantime, won’t come anywhere close to equaling his offensive output.

Credit goes to Hank though, for skipping into second base with his bum leg, and setting up what would be the winning run - there’s probably more than a few “superstars” who would have just stopped right there, or headed back to first base. After German Duran replaced Blalock as a pinch-runner, Jason Botts worked a walk from Rincon to put runners on first and second. Frank Catalanotto then struck out looking for the second time on the night, making it 2 out for David Murphy. And after being stranded at third twice in the game, Murphy would be the one to deliver. He hammered the second pitch he saw from Rincon to deep LF, over the head of Delmon Young and off the wall. German Duran motored home from second to score the first run of his big-league career, the game winner, and Murphy was mobbed between first and second base. Which was kind of unfortunate in one way, because had Murphy touched second, he would have been credited with a double – but instead it went as a long single, and I’m sure David and his teammates could probably care less.

So ends the fairytale story of Friday night. After the game though, it was time for the serious discussion to continue again - the subject of that discussion being about the future of Ron Washington, who still seems to be nearing the end of his tenure in Texas.

Nolan Ryan, Jon Daniels, and Tom Hicks all met for lunch Friday afternoon to discuss the Rangers current plight. After which, Evan Grant had these notes up, and stated what stood out to him was “any affirmation that Washington’s job is NOT in jeopardy”. Later, after the win, he put up another entry, saying that after this win, he didn’t think there would be a decision on Wash until Monday, which as he notes, is an off day, and would “[make] for a more natural transition if there is one to be made”, despite the fact that Tuesday in Ron’s birthday.

MLB.com’s Ken Daley also chipped in on the subject, with some more quotes from Jon Daniels in his postgame writeup:

“Tom [Hicks] has been an owner for a long time now” — since June 1998 — “and he has been through a lot of ups and downs with different sports,” Daniels said. “I think he understands the ebbs and flows of a season. That’s not to say we’re going to sit back and say, ‘Ho Hum, we’re in a bad stretch.’ No, we’ve got to address it and we’ve got to get better. And I think that’s something that everyone wearing a ‘T’ on their chest needs to cope with right now.”

But not inviting the manager to Friday’s meeting indicates more than the team’s future is up in the air. When a reporter pointed out that Daniels has not denied Washington’s job is in jeopardy, he said, “I haven’t said it is, either.”

“I don’t get a nightly call from Tom saying, ‘Here’s the status of your job situation.’ That’s not how it works,” Daniels said. “I think that’s a question that’s going to be asked of anybody in a leadership position when the team is struggling.

“He is our manager. I think everybody in our organization can do something to help us pull out of this — he included, me included. He understands he’s going to have to answer those questions, just like I’ve answered them myself.”

When asked what, specifically, Washington can do to reverse the team’s sagging fortunes, Daniels said, “That’s a tough question to answer. I think everybody has got different ways of motivating guys. He’s been trying. But [a start like this] gets old, because it happened last year.

“Some things you have to have patience with, and some things you have to address. I’m sure that Ron will continue to address things that are within his power. When a team struggles, I think, typically we look to the leadership of the team — on and off the field — to turn this thing around. That’s on me; that’s on Ron; that’s on the leadership of the team on the field and in the clubhouse. It’s on all of us.”

That, right there, sounds pretty damning for Ron Washington to me. It sounds like while the Rangers are willing to wait a couple more games to see what happens, they may have already come to the conclusion that Ron Washington is not the manager for them anymore.

And as such, I don’t see the reason to wait any longer to make a move. We may have scratched out a win, but the game still featured the trademark errors, gaffes, and a bonehead managing move (the lack of pinch-hitters in the bottom of the 9th). If the Rangers execx have reached the conclusion that they are 90% sure that they are going to part ways with Washington, they should have done it tonight. Even after such an emotional win, I think it still would have played well for the organization to show some fortitude and make a decision about their future. It would have been a fine time to say “this game is the first game of the rest of 2008″ and make the changes that need to be made. In my opinion, that’s better than dragging the indecision out over the weekend, and setting Washington up for a kick in the balls by firing him the day before his birthday. Ron doesn’t deserve to be jerked around like that, and neither do the players in the clubhouse, or the fans - just release the poor guy, so we can move on with out season, and he can move on with his baseball career, whatever that may entail.

Moving on to some more notes on Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s callup now, it appears the Rangers have the right idea about what to do with Salty once they do start playing him: they’ve stated he’s not going to be playing any first base, an encouraging sign, and it appears he will take over most of the full-time catching duties, as JD says ”he’s not going to come up here and sit like a veteran backup would” although they haven’t figured out exactly how they’ll divide the playing time between Salty and Laird.

You’d think it should be at least 75/25% Salty, and I think it should be even more than that, but the Rangers probably will still want to get Laird AB’s, as he has admittedly been hitting better of late (average up to .260 – props to Gerry for this little hot streak, BTW). They still failed to provide a valid excuse for not having Salty starting on Friday night though:

Laird was in the starting lineup Friday, perhaps only because Daniels and Rangers manager Ron Washington had yet to meet with the two catchers to explain the team’s plans. They planned to speak shortly before Friday’s series opener with the Twins.

That’s still not an excuse for not playing Salty tonight, IMO – he needed to be playing, as he’s now sat for 4 straight days. If Salty starts his latest trip to the Majors off on a massive slump, I think we’ll know why.

Adam Melhuse, whose broken hand opened up this opportunity for Salty, has been outright released, per his request. He’s going to be out 2-5 weeks, and the Rangers informed him there would be no roster spot awaiting him when he returned. Best wishes to Adam, wherever he winds up – which will most likely be as a backup on someones minor league squad, once he recovers.

Looking at the clock in my bedroom right now, I need to wrap this up now, so I’ll reduce the rest of the entry to a couple quick hits: Brandon McCarthy’s “setback” is going to keep him from even throwing again for another 6 weeks… like I said in the previous entry, if he needs surgery, he might as well do it now… Sidney Ponson is going to indeed debut tomorrow… and finally, make sure you check out Jamey Newberg’s latest peice over at the Newberg Report – I think right now, as fans, every single one of us could take a lession from that.

Ponson/Scott Baker tomorrow. Hopefully, this team got something started with this win – I’ve had it with this lethargic spirit. GO RANGERS!