A lonestar in california

I guess keeping Sidney Ponson on regular rest turned out to be a good idea after all. After giving up 12 hits and 3 walks in 5 innings his last start, the maddeningly inconsistent Ponson rebounded once again, pitching 7 strong innings to help the Rangers finally break the .500 mark again with an 8-4 win.

The Rangers didn’t waste any time getting on the board in this one – Michael Young had a bloop triple in the bottom of the first (to extend his current hitting streak to 16 games) and Josh Hamilton plated him with an RBI groundout off Joe Blanton, who just couldn’t keep his pitches down over the first couple frames- something Brandon Boggs (who now has 7 RBI in his last 15 AB’s) and Ian Kinsler took advantage of with RBI singles in the second to make it 3-0.

Meanwhile, Ponson was busy cutting though the Oakland lineup at breakneck speed – through the first 4 innings, he had faced the minimum 16 batters. He would wind up going 7 innings while giving up 4 runs on 9 hits and walking nobody. 70 of his 101 pitches went for strikes, something that Joey Matschulat correlates to being a key to his effectiveness last night. Apparently, in the 5 starts like this one, when Ponson has thrown at least 65% of his pitches for strikes, he has a 2.50 ERA and a 1.14 WHIP. In his other three starts when he has not thrown 65% of his pitches for strikes, he has a whopping 6.89 ERA/2.23 WHIP – quite the dramatic split. And seeing as how Sidney still gave up 9 hits last night, pinpoint control was clearly the wizard behind the curtain regarding his effectiveness.

5 of those 9 hits Ponson give up came in the 5th inning, which was by far his worst. The A’s touched him for four consecutive singles to open the frame and cut the lead to 3-2, and Jack Hannahan would tie it with a sac fly before Ponson finally struck out Bobby Crosby to stop the bleeding. Fortunately for Sidney, the red-hot top of the order was due up next for Texas.

Ian Kinsler lead things off in the bottom of the 5th witha double to left, and Michael Young quickly knocked him in with a single to right. That brought up Josh Hamilton, who promptly sent a Blanton fastball back behind the Rangers bullpen to make the A’s 3-run gain disappear even faster than Oakland had managed to put it together, and the Rangers would lead from there on out.

Ponson did give up an RBI double to Hannahan in the top of the 7th, but that was the last run the A’s would put on the board all night, and the Rangers broke it open in the 8th. Frank Catalanotto RBI hit an double and Ian Kinsler added his second RBI single of the night to make it 8-4, leaving it to Jamey Wright to come in and retire the A’s in order in the 9th to cap off the win, and put the Rangers above .500 again for the first time since April 10th when they swept that doubleheader against the Orioles.

Some impressive numbers to throw at you from this game, too – Michael Young and Ian Kinsler, who’s 16 and 15 game hitting streaks are currently the longest active ones in the AL, combined to go 6-9 with 3 RBI and a double and a triple last night. The Rangers also did not have a single batter strike out in the game – which is slightly astonishing, considering they lead the AL in strikeouts at 406. Pitching wise, the Rangers did not issue a walk for the second consecutive game (while playing the team that leads the AL in BB’s with 217, no less), and 90 of the 126 pitches thrown by the quintet of Ponson/Guardado/Benoit/Wright in the game went for strikes. Impressive stuff.

As far as the month of May goes, the Rangers set a franchise record for wins in May with 19 victories – that’s also the first time since June 1983 that the Rangers have won 19 games in a month. They are also 22 for the 34 since they ended their 7-game losing streak back in April, and sit just a half-game back of Oakland for second place – a sweep today will propel them past the A’s.

The other big news yesterday was the announcement that Jason Jennings has undergone another surgery on his right elbow ligament – apparently, the ligament was not completely healed from last season’s ligament surgery after all, and had started to deteriorate again. Of course, this leaves him done for the season – in 20/20 hindsight, I guess he wasn’t that great a signing after all. Of course, considering how well JD’s other offseason signings, such as Milton Bradley, Eddie Guardado, and yes, even Ponson have done, I think I can live with Jennings turning out ot be a bust – that, and considering it only cost us 4 million bucks.

Actually, looking at things the way they currently stand, I’m rather relieved that Jason Jennings won’t be rejoining the rotation this year - I didn’t want to see both him and Sidney Ponson clogging up the rotation in the second half, not with the way Scott Feldman has pitched, and not when we’ve got younger guys like Eric Hurley and Matt Harrison to showcase later this year. And unlike Ponson, Jennings wasn’t effective at all this season.

If you’re bummed out over Jennings though, here’s something to cheer you up again: MLB.com’s Shawn Shroyer has a nice article up on the Rangers site about catching prospect Max Ramirez, who is terrorizing the AA Texas League to an otherworldly tune of .377/.455/.683, with 13 HR’s and 40 RBI - that’s a 1.138 OPS. Since his bat obviously isn’t in question, the article focuses mainly on Max’s defensive questions. His defense behind the plate has always been sub-par (he’s a converted 3rd baseman)  horrible, and AA Frisco Manager Scot Little says that Max needs more work on “receiving, throwing, blocking and game-calling” – basically meaning that he’s not going to break into the majors as a full-time catcher. His bat however, should have him in Arlington later this season – I wouldn’t be surprised to see him skip AAA altogether if a spot opens up for him on the roster, myself. His future is probably going to be as a DH, but if you’re the Rangers you have to be careful not to pidgeonhole him into that role too soon, as they did with Jason Botts.

In other minor league news, shortstop prodigy Elvis Andrus is going to be out for three weeks with a broken right finger. Apparently, he’s already resumed taking ground balls, but it’s going to be awhile before he can swing the bat again… he had been hitting .268/.322/.316 for Frisco. I always hate to see a prospect like Elvis get injured – it makes me nervous (see also: Joaquin Arias). This probably nixes any dreams people might have of Andrus being ready to play SS on opening day ‘09, although that wasn’t really feasible anyway.

And finally… the Rangers say that Travis Metcalf will likely get a lotof playing time in the coming days, because the Rangers are about to face a gauntlet of left-handed starters again, 4 in the next 5 days. The first one will be Greg Smith tomorrow – Scott Feldman will oppose. If you’re having deja-vu looking at that pitching matchup, it’s because this is going to be the third time already this season that Feldman and Smith will have faced off – the rubber match, if you will, because Smith beat Feldman the first time, and Feldman won the second.

Ahhh, yes… the sweet smell of the air above .500… lets keep it that way, shall we guys?