A lonestar in california

Boy, I wish all returns from the DL could go a smoothly as Kevin Millwood’s did on Friday. Making his first start since suffering a groin strain back on May 10th, Millwood sure didn’t seem any worse for the wear, as he fired 6 innings of one-run ball to stymie the Oakland A’s, and lead the Rangers to a 3-1 victory.

Dueling with Oakland starter Justin Duchscherer, Millwood worked around a pair of early doubles to to hold the A’s scoreless for the first four innings. Mark Ellis doubled with 2 out in the second, and Carlos Gonzalez (making his Major League debut) doubled to lead off the third, but Millwood would strand them both, allowing the Rangers offense to bid their time – and wait for Brandon Boggs to come to bat.

Boggs, who originally wasn’t supposed to be in the lineup, was a late addition after Milton Bradley was scratched due to light-headedness. Considering how phenomenal Bradley has been this year for the Rangers, you would have thought that would turn out to be a big minus, but Boggs was about to have one of those games.

After striking out looking in his first AB, Boggs came up in the fourth with 2 on and 2 out. He lofted a ball into short center, where Gonzalez, the A’s CF, dove and missed it. Michael Young motored around to score, and Boggs wound up on second with a bloop double. The A’s would quickly come back in the top of the 5th though, as Mark Ellis and Carlos Gomez this time combined a pair of doubles off Millwood to tie the game at one.

The score stayed knotted until the 6th, when Josh Hamilton lead off with a double, and David Murphy beat out an infield single. Gerald Laird hit a fly ball high and deep to left to move Hamilton to third, and then it was Boggs again, lofting one high into left-center for a sac fly to make it 2-1. That was just in time to make Kevin Millwood the pitcher of record, as he was pulled after the 6th due to an 85 pitch limit, imposed due to this being his first game back. Eddie Guardado and Joaquin Benoit pitched scoreless 7th and 8th innings to keep the score frozen, and Boggs tacked on an insurance run in the bottom of the 8th with a double down the RF line. That left it up to CJ Wilson, and despite allowing a leadoff single to start the 9th, CJ struck out Emil Brown and got Mark Ellis to ground into a double play to end the game.

After the Rangers pitching staff walked a whopping 21 batters in Tampa Bay, the thing that really stood out to me was the zero walks allowed by the Rangers pitchers in this one. This is why Kason Gabbard was sent down to AAA before the game (more on that momentarily) – walks have been killing Texas lately, and the Rangers know they need to see less of them. Getting Millwood back, and sending the struggling Gabbard to work out his control problems elsewhere should be a good first step toward that goal.

Now, speaking of roster moves, the Rangers have made lots of ‘em lately – so buckle up, lets run ‘em down.

- As expected, Kameron Loe and German Duran where sent back to OKC (okay, that actually happened on Thursday, I was just too lazy to make an extra post an announce it sooner) to make room for Millwood and Travis Metcalf. Metcalf didn’t start Friday’s game, so apparently he’s not going to be taking over as the full-time intierm 3B just yet – which makes sense, as Ramon Vazquez has hit extremely well of late, although he was 0-3 yesterday.

- The Rangers sent Kason Gabbard to AAA, and called up Robinson Tejeda. For now, this means that Doug Mathis will stay in the rotation, and Tejeda will go back to the bullpen, where the Rangers converted him to at the end of spring training (although he has been starting in OKC for the last few weeks). As highlighted in the article, and as explained by Evan Grant, this move actually makes sense, because the Rangers are basically swapping Tejeda for Kameron Loe here as the swiss army knife in the bullpen. Tejeda is younger, has more stuff, and is therefore more versatile than Loe, and can be used in a wider variety of situations, and according to Jon Daniels, possibly even as a starter. 

“At some point we haven’t ruled it out,” general manager Jon Daniels said. “But right now we’re looking at him helping out in the bullpen.”

So Tejeda not only gets his last shot, he actually gets a chance to make the most of it. With his power arsenal, he’ll no doubt be used for both long and mid relief, and if Mathis struggles, he’ll even get a chance at some starts. All in all, I think this is a lot better than having a struggling Kason Gabbard on the roster – Kason may not have gotten that last chance to recover from his struggles but, we instead have a kind of rebuilding two-for-one.

- The Rangers slid Dustin Nippert through waivers, and outrighted him to AAA, which cleared off the spot on the 40 man roster for Tejeda. Also, Franklyn German refused his assignment to the minors, and has become a free agent. Maybe he can catch on with the Miami Dolphins or something.

So, to conclude: Duran has been replaced by Metcalf. Millwood is back in the rotation, Gabbard is out, Mathis remains in, and Tejeda’s in the bullpen for now. And Nippert is still in the organization, though we probably won’t see him again for awhile.

Now that we’ve injumbled the roster puzzle, it’s time for the bad news. Hank Blalock has undergone surgery to relieve his carpal tunnel syndrome, and is out another 3-4 weeks, according to JD:

“Right now, the sense is it will be 10 days before the incision is healed,” Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said. “Shortly after that he’ll begin baseball activities and it sounds like it will be three to four weeks until he can get out there again.”

Absolutely capital. Say hi to Brandon McCarthy for us while you’re out there in the mythical land of perpetually injured Rangers, will ya Hank?

Sidney Ponson will start today against Joe Blanton. Originally, it was supposed to be Scott Feldman, but Ron Washington decided that a “clash of the fatties” was just too good a marketing opportunity to pass up. Or at least that would sound better than his real reason, which was some incoherent babbling about wanting to keep Ponson on schedule because he has performed well of late. Apparently, Ron missed Sidney’s last start in Tampa Bay.

One more chance for the Rangers to climb above .500, folks – since it’s the A’s, I’ve got a feeling we just might have chance this time if Ponson doesn’t implode.