A lonestar in california

Well, I guess all good things must come to an end – which is what happened Sunday to the Texas Rangers four-game winning streak. But did it really have to come to an end the way that it did? I’m sure that’s a question that both Scott Feldman and his teammates where asking themselves after the end of this one.

Making his second spot-start of the season, Feldman delivered a beauty, firing scoreless ball over his first six frames, while locked in a pitchers duel with A’s rookie left-hander Greg Smith. Smith himself was brilliant, going six innings and giving up just three hits and two walks, while striking out ten Rangers. But he still left the game trailing 1-0, as one of those three hits he allowed was German Duran’s first major league home run in the third inning. But that was the only offense the Rangers could muster for the entire game, as he 3-4-5 hitters, Josh Hamilton, Milton Bradley, and David Murphy struck out a combined ten times. And as it turned out, that solo homer would not be enough to support Feldman’s outing, as he couldn’t keep the A’s off the scoreboard forever.

The 7th inning started with Feldman inducing a high pop fly from Frank Thomas, but Josh Hamilton, who may have had his worst game ever as a Rangers (0-4, 3 K’s) lost the ball in the sun, and Thomas wound up on second when the ball dropped. Thomas was credited with a double, and after the obligatory pinch-runner was brought in, Jack Cust stepped up, and promptly mashed the second pitch he saw from Feldman to left-center for a 2-run homer. The Rangers never recovered, as the A’s tacked on a third run when Frank Francisco came in after a Bobby Crosby double chased Feldman, and gave up an RBI single to Ryan Sweeny to make it 3-1 A’s.

Texas did have the tying run at the plate in the 9th against Oakland closer Huston Street, after Brandon Boggs doubled with 2 out, but Ron Washington let Gerald Laird bat instead of pinch hitting someone like Ian Kinsler or Jarrrod Saltalamacchia (who where both on the bench) and Laird grounded out weakly to second to end the game. Not that it’s that highly probable that the Rangers would have won if Kinsler or Salty would have hit, but it still kind of irks me that Ron Washington kind of mailed in the game by letting Laird bat. Your bench is there for a reason, and that’s to try for for those once-in-a-million pinch-hit home runs, just like a Hail Mary in football - it’s true, the chances of it actually working are microscopic, but ”Baseball Man” could have at least given it a shot.

But still, two out of three in Oakland isn’t bad – as Michael Young pointed out after the game, the team is still playing good baseball going into Seattle, and you can’t really ask for a whole lot more than that.

Perhaps the biggest downside of the game was the fact that Ian Kinsler was out of the linuep for a second straight game though, with continued hamstring soreness – the Rangers insist this is just precautionary, and Kinsler says he’ll be ready to go Monday though:

“It’s just that I need a couple of days,” Kinsler said. “My legs are pretty sore, pretty tender. I want to make sure I don’t end up like Hank. They have been bothering me for a while, and [Saturday] I woke up and they were pretty sore. I feel like I’ll be ready to go [Monday].”

I certainly hope so – with him unavaible, it sure throws a kink into infield and bench flexibility.

That reminds me though, now is a perfect time to elaborate on a couple things from my last entry that I promised to expand on.

First up: Josh Hamilton is your American League player of the month for April. In 28 games in March/April, Josh hit posted a .330/.379/.591 line in terms of average, OBP, and slugging %, and posted a 970 OPS. He had a major-league leading 32 RBI for the month, and slugged 6 HR, 10 2B’s and 1 3B – all that along with some excellent OF defense, whether he was playing in CF or RF, makes for one awesome month. And as a reward for that awesomeness, he becomes the first Ranger to be named AL player of the month since Mark Teixeira waay back in July ‘04 – and he also will be getting a 52-inch Sharp Aquos TV, although he says he’d accept a simple plaque. 

52 inch TV: about $4,000 with debit mastercard. Being named AL Player of the month: Priceless.

Another retread link from yesterday: Ron Washington has decided to platoon his catchers two days at a time now, supposedly to get them “back-to-back at-bats” – which makes a certain amount of sense untill you realize that now in between playing, each one gets to sit on the bench for two straight days - which actually might serve to screw them up even more than letting them alternate days. Or, if you want to put it another way, a dumb situation just got dumber.

That alternating could see some variation however, as Kevin Millwood apparently wants to have Laird as his personal catcher, and the Rangers want to keep pairing Salty with Sidney Ponson, so there could be adjustments to allow for that. The bottom line is though, that the catching situation is one screwed-up mess – the Rangers won’t commit to Salty because are still trying to generate trade interest for Superstar – who the Reds, Yankees and Brewers have apparently all passed on of late. Granted, Laird has been hitting well of late though, as he currently has an 8-game hitting streak, in which he is hitting .355 for those games, so I suppose you have to play him while he’s actually pumping up his trade value. But even I am starting to regret Salty’s callup – he still needs the consistent AB’s, and he’d at least still be getting that in AAA. Although, on the other hand it did seemingly take Salty’s presence to mysteriously start Laird’s hot streak, so…

Getting back to Sunday’s news, TR Sullivan notes that Kason Gabbard is about about ready to rejoin the rotation, and should start Thursday. He threw 65 pitches in a successful rehab start for Frisco on Saturday, and will throw a bullpen on Monday, after which the Rangers will decide whether or not they will officially clear him for Thursday’s start against the Mariners. If Gabbard does start, that will leave the organization the pleasant problem of having to decide between Scott Feldman or AJ Murray for Friday’s start. Both where excellent this weekend, and since it’s going to be the A’s left-handed lineup again, the Rangers might lean toward the lefty Murray.

Finally, TR Sullivan notes that Ramon Vazquez has taken rookie German Duran under his wing. It seems the Rangers are currently taking special care to publicly promote Vazquez as the gritty veteran, who literally wills his team to wins right now – Evan Grant recently got it started, and it looks like TR’s hopped on the bandwagon as well. Vazquez is a fairly average, versatile backup player, and a good commodidty to have, but the reality is, he’s no super-sub like Mark DeRosa. So I’m really not exactly sure why Vazquez is all of a sudden being hailed as the Rangers own version of Scott Brosius. And, apparently, neither is Scott Lucas.

Monday, it’s Kevin Millwood vs. Jarrod Washburn in Seattle – Millwood is trying to snap a 9 game losing streak on the road, and Washburn is 0-3 with a 5.91 ERA in his last 4 starts. But we’ll have to see if Ramon Vazquez can grit us to another win – he didn’t quite get it done on Sunday.