Filed under: Ranger Wins | Tags: Frank Francisco, Gerald "Superstar" Laird, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Matt Harrison
So… it’s been awhile. Far too long actually, since I sat down and attempted a post. I suppose some of you are wondering what happened to me – well, simply put the Rangers took an unexpected nosedive, and so did my inspiration and will to write. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t been bandwagoning (I do take a sort of masochistic pride in the fact that I’ll sit through as much of every Ranger game as I can, no matter how bad it gets) I think I just honestly needed a break from blogging. Now the challenge will be getting myself back into the rhythm of writing and posting on a regular basis - I don’t know if I’ll be able to post after every gamelike I have earlier this season, but I’ll post as regularly as I possible.
Thanks of course are in order to any and all of my readers who haven’t given up on me during my absence - next time I take a “break” I’ll make sure to at least have the decency to inform ya’ll of it (hopefully though, I won’t be doing that until at least the offseason). But enough yakking – time to get down to business.
The Rangers, for all the tough times they havesuffered through over this past month have just slapped a nice little bow on their first sweep of the 2008 season in Kansas City last night. It’s been an important turnaround series for the pitching staff, which had come into Kansas City sporting a 6.45 ERA for their last 17 games (of which the Rangers had lost 14). But Scott Feldman put together a quality start on Monday, Kevin Millwood went the distance (for his second straight start) on Tuesday night and Matt Harrisoncompleted the sweep with 6.2 innings of 2-run ball last night as he outdueled Brian Bannister for a 3-2 win.
It’s worth noting of course that the anemic Kansas City offense that they faced is second to last in the AL in runs per game (4.07) but that doesn’t change the fact that this has to be a much-needed morale boost for this team after their 3-for-17 swoon:
“This is a great sign that even though we let ourselves fall out of the race and the wild card, we know we need to play with some pride and get back to where we were three weeks ago,” reliever Jamey Wright said. “Play well and have some fun and get back to what we were doing.”
Harrison wasn’t exactly lights out last night - giving up 7 hits and 2 walks over his 6.2 frames to the Royals isn’t exactly truly shutdown baseball, but what Harrison did do was a good job of wriggling out of jams. He stranded 4 runners in scoring position, including 2 in the 4thafter the Royals had put men on second and third with nobody out. When he left in the 7th, it was with property at second and third again, but Joaquin Benoit took over and struck out David DeJesus to end the threat and preserve Harrison’s line.
Offensively it was a big night for Jarrod Saltalamacchia and the Rangers young hitters, who picked up the rest of a largely quiet Ranger lineup. Brandon Boggs, who was inserted after Josh Hamilton was a late scratch with anabcessed tooth, hit his 8th home run in the 4th inning and Saltalamacchia unleashed 2 doubles on the night, the second of which came back-to-back with a Chris Davis double in the 7th to tie the game at two.
That’s when the lightning struck – for the second consecutive night, the Royals gave the game away via error, when Brian Bannister somehow managed to drop a 2-out infield popup off the bat of Joaquin Arias. An alert Salty came rumbling around third base and scored on a head-first dive – an almost inexplicable play since #1, infield popups are dropped about once every decade, and #2 Salty is of course a catcher.
“Didn’t think it was possible,” third base coach Matt Walbeck said. “If Salty hadn’t been running hard the whole way, it never would have happened.”
Salty did have a passed ball last night and somehow lost a laser beam throw from Brandon Boggs that should’ve cut down a run in the 5th inning, but he is now hitting .362 witha .944 OPS since the all star break in his limited playing time as the backup catcher. Gerald Laird on the other hand has regressed toward his mean, hitting .242 with an abysmal .670 OPS since he was handed the full-time starters job again (which might lend further credibility to the theory that Laird only seems to really play well when his playing time is on the line).
This little stint with Laird as the starting catcher has been fun (okay, not really) but I think it’s safe to say Salty has earned himself some more of that semi-regular (platoon) playing time again. Or, let me put it this way: it’s absolutely senseless for the Rangers not to give their 23 year-old catcher more playing time now that he’s started to hit again and now that their wildcard hopes are down the drain. Whether you see him as offseason trade bait or the catcher of the future, they need to allow Salty to salvage as much of his 2008 season as he can.
Getting back to the game, the Rangers also bore witness to a small milestone last night: Frankie Francisco’s first big league save. You probably already know Frankie moved into the closers role this week (something I believe I’ve suggested in the past) when the Rangers traded Eddie Guardado to the Twins for relief prospect Mark Hamburger, and last night was his debut in the role. And even though he was only facing the Royals 7-8-9 hitters you really couldn’t have asked for a better debut: he threw 9 pitches, struck out two and got a ground ball to close the game out. After the game, Frankie stated that he his new goal as closer will be to just go after them – exactly what he did his first time out:
“Since they told me, I’ve been thinking about it and I just wanted to go out there, take a breath, trust my stuff and go after the hitters,” Francisco said.
“I didn’t want to waste any pitches. The next time I want to go about it the same way. I don’t want to give them any chance to use strategy. I don’t want to joke around with the hitters
Well, he’s certainly got the right idea… let’s hope we continue to see him back it up. After CJ Wilson’s unhealthy debacles, it sure would be nice to see somebody talk about throwing strikes and then actually go out and do it in the closers role - and so far, so good for Frankie even if it was on;y the royals 7-7-9.
I’m afraid I’ve got to cut this short (my first entry back, and I’m already cutting it short) there was some stuff that I wanted to get to, but it’ll have to wait until this afternoon or tomorrow.
Today we’ve got a big game, in more ways that one – number one, it’s going to be Brandon McCarthy’s second big league start this year (after he went four effectively wild innings his first time) and it’s also going to be one of three pilot games for baseball’s new instant replay feature. I really don’t have much of an opinion on instant replay (just so long as they stick to HR and fair/foul calls I’m fine with it) and in all likelihood, all it will actually provide is a topic for the announcers to fill the air with, but games against the Angels are always exciting. Hopefully we’ll carry some of this pitching success from KC over to Anaheim as we’ll probably need it. Now if someone could just wake the offense…
Filed under: Ranger Wins | Tags: CJ Wilson, Frank Francisco, Gerald Laird, Marlon Byrd, Nelson Cruz, Scott Feldman, Taylor Teagarden
With 100 down and 62 to go in the Rangers 2008 season, I think I can say I’m very pleasantly surprised at the fact that this team sits at 52-48, four games above the .500 mark. They’ve certainly come a long way from their 7-16 start to April – not that they haven’t had their struggles along the way, but the key to the Rangers slow climb back among the ranks of the respectable teams in the AL has been an avoidance of ruts. While they have yet to sweep a series in 2008, and have only won three straight games twice since their season high 5 game winning streak on May 6-10, they also have not lost three consecutive games more than once since their 7 game-losing streak on April 18-24.
Case in point are the first four games back from the all-star break. After a horrible start to the series in Minnesota, featuring a stone-cold offense and poor pitching from Kevin Millwood and Matt Harrison, we’ve seen the Rangers pitching rebound to allow just one run in the last 2 games. Sunday it was Vicente Padilla coming off the DL to contribute 7 scoreless innings, making Taylor Tegarden’s first homer (and first career hit) enough for the Rangers first 1-0 win since September 19th, 2004. Yesterday is was Scott Feldman tossing 6 innings of 1-run ball in an emergency start to help the Rangers to a 6-1 victory.
Feldman, recalled from AA Frisco yesterday (where he had technically spent the all-star break as part of a deft roster move by the Rangers to add bullpen arms before the break) was making the start in place of Eric Hurley, who was scratched from his scheduled activation from the DL due to arm soreness and a stiff shoulder. The Rangers don’t think Hurley’s problem is serious though (despite how ominous a ”sore arm” sounds) and expect him to make his next start in Oakland, so this shouldn’t affect the plan to put Feldman in the bullpen for the remainder of the season. It did at least give him a chance to make what should be his last start of 2008 an impressive one.
Although he gave up 4 hits and 3 walks, the Rangers turned 3 double plays behind Feldman, whose only blemish came when he surrendered a solo home run to Carlos Quentin leading off the 4th inning. Otherwise, Feldmanwas able to hit his spots withhis sinker, throwing 51 of his 85 pitches for strikes as he matched up with counterpart Javier Vazquez.
Vazquez, like Feldman, only made one real mistake on the night – he steamed through the still-lukewarm Texas offense for most of his 7 innings, striking out 10 Rangers along the way. The difference was, his mistake pitch would be far more costly than Feldman’s. With after giving up a 1-out single and a 2-out walk to Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Michael Young in the top of the third, Vazquez hung a 2-0 slider to Josh Hamilton – who jacked it all the way out to the moss-covered wall behind the fence in dead center. That gave the Rangers a 3-0 lead, and they never looked back.
Frank Francisco pitched another brilliant 7th inning, throwing 10 of only 13 pitches for strikes and racking up 2 K’s. Frankie now has a 1.29 ERA, a .160 BAA and 16 strikeouts to 4 walks in his last 14 outings. Say what you will about his inconsistency earlier this year - but in my humble opinion, he’s the guy who should be at least sharing the closer duties right now with stats like those. By comparison, CJ Wilson has a 6.08 ERA, a .316 BAA and 10 walks to 16 K’s in his last 14 games – and on the season, Frankie also has big edges statistically over CJ in categories such as ERA (3.40 for Frankie to 4.89 for CJ) WHIP (1.387 to 1.559) and ERA+ (122 to 85).
That’s one thing we mercifully didn’t get to see last night – a reprisal of the CJ Wilson/Ozzie Guillen feud. Hank Blalock jacked a 2-run homer to right in the 8th, and Ian Kinsler (who is 0-15 with just a walk since the all-star break) added a sac fly in the top of the 9th, making it 6-1 before CJ ever got a chance to warm up. Jamey Wright pitched the bottom of the 9th instead, and sent the White Sox to the clubhouse on just 13 pitches – a good inning for him, considering he sports an 8.10 ERA for July.
Overall, that was a pretty good game for the Rangers – 2 homers and 4 doubles out of 8 hits and 3 walks last night will do something to quiet any concerns about the offense after the Minnesota series. But it should be noted that the Rangers still struck out 13 times in that game, and Ian Kinsler, Michael Young and Milton Bradley are now a collective 3 for 45 since the break. Right now the Rangers are getting by on the legs of some timely homers, but they’re going to need those aforementioned three (especially Kinsler and Bradley) to pick it up again soon.
In other news, Taylor Teagarden was sent back to AAA as planned yesterday to keep his Olympic eligibility intact. Teagaren struck out 4 times in 6 at-bats in his two starts this weekend despite crushing the game-winning homer on Sunday, but he’s still understandably a little dissapointed at being sent back down:
“Anytime you get sent down you’re disappointed,” Teagarden said. “[Manager Ron] Washington talked about how I have a win-win situation. I get to stay here for the rest of the year or just get a once in a lifetime opportunity to be in the Olympics. I think that’s the best way to look at it. Obviously, I’d like to stay here a little longer, but I’ll go back to Triple-A for about a week or so, and go from there.”
Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Max Ramirez will continue to perform the catchers duties for now, but Gerald Laird’s rehab assignment starts today for AAA Oklahoma. Once he comes back, the Rangers will have to send either Salty or Max down – Max had been heating up going into the all-star break, but he was 0-3 in his start in Minnesota on Saturday and Salty went 2-3 with a double last night. I imagine it’ll be Max sent down when Laird rejoins the team (which is tentatively supposed to be this weekend in Oakland) so he can get full-time AB’s in OKC - he’s just not getting enough playing time in the Majors right now, even getting snubbed of a big chance in Minnesota so the Rangers could get a look at Teagarden.
If Laird returns in Oakland, he’ll have 6 games before the deadline to show everyone he’s healthy – I’m still clinging to some hope that the Rangers will trade him at the deadline so they can move forward with their young catchers, but the fact that Teagarden is likely headed to China tells me that’s unlikely.
Speaking of trade possibilities, Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports says that the Rangers are getting calls about both Marlon Byrd and Nelson Cruz. Because of Brandon Boggs’ emergence, Byrd is of no real use to us and would make a pretty decent 4thOF for a contender with his defensive abilities – teams like the Cubs and the Rays have had intrest in him in the past, so he could possibly bring back some sort of a sleeper prospect. Cruz, despite being 28 and having a career line of .231/.282/.385 in only 442 Major League at bats is drawing intrest due to his monstrous 31-home run, 82 RBI AAA campaign this year. He’s probably not even worth as much as Byrd given his age and history of failure, but he’s a minor league free agent at the end of the season so getting anything you can for him would be very advantageous.
Quick hits: Nolan Ryan says he is happy with the way the team is progressing, although he admits that he has had “very little impact on baseball operations”… Brandon McCarthy will make a rehab start tonight for AAA Oklahoma.
Tonight, Luis Mendoza takes on Mark Buehrle in Chicago. Mendoza was brilliant his last start before the break, striking out 8 in 6 innings of 1 run ball against the White Sox - but he was horrible in his two starts previous to that, so I really have no idea what to expect from him. You’d probably best keep your flack jacket and steel pot handy when you sit down to watch this one just in case. Also, Buerhle is a lefty (the one who no-hit us last year at US Cellular, no less) so be advised of the possibility of a cold front moving in over the offense again.
Filed under: Ranger Wins | Tags: all-star voting, Bad Umpires, CJ Wilson, Eddie Guardado, Frank Francisco, Ron Washington, Scott Feldman
Maybe the pitching staff is finally starting to shape up for the Rangers. Scott Feldman, the rotation’s hard-luck pitcher has watched more than one win slip away in the hands of the Texas bullpen this year. But that all changed, at least for one night at Yankee Stadium, as not only did the bullpen bail Feldman out of a jam, it also completely shut down the mighty Yankee offense over the last 3 innings, allowing the Rangers pull off a narrow 2-1 victory.
Engineering his best start since going 6 scoreless innings against Oakland on May 9th, Feldman battled around some early control problems (he walked 3 in the first two innings) to shut down the Yankees, allowing one run on 4 hits in 5.2 innings. The only run he allowed came when he hung a curveball to Alex Rodriguez in the 4th inning.
The Rangers offense meanwhile, had to deal with the “strike zone” home plate umpire Dan Iassogona was calling for Mike Mussina and the Yankees all night. Of course, it’s really nothing new or even surprising to see and umpire favoring the home team at Yankee Stadium – but Iassogona wasn’t calling a strike zone for the Yanks, he was calling a drop zone that you could have landed the entire 101st Airborne division inside. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an umpire so blatantly favor one team, at least not in recent memory - we’ve had some umps put the screws to us a couple times this year, but this was by far and away the worst occasion so far.
Edit: I’d like to apologize for mistakenly referring to Dan Iassogona as Dan Lassogona in this post (I misread the name in the MLB boxscore). I’ll freely admit I’m not much of a grammatical/spelling whiz, but I do pride myself on at least getting the names of the people I write about correct. Not sure if anybody noticed this error, but I still wanted to clear things up just in case.
The Iassogona-aided Mussina would strike out 8 Rangers – 5 looking – but the Rangers made what hits they where able to get off of him count. Of the 5 hits Mussina surrendered, 3 where doubles – two of which lead directly to the 2 runs the Rangers put on the board. First Ian Kinsler knocked a 1-out double in the third, andwas subsequently singled home by Josh Hamilton to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead. Then, with David Murphy on second after a walk and a groundout in the fourth, Chris Davis smashed an RBI double up the alley in right-center. Those would be the only runs the Rangers got (they couldn’t cash in on a runner-at-third, 0 out situation in the 8th) but thanks to the Ranger pitchers those where the only runs they would need.
The Yankees did come close to tying the game with 2 out in the 6th – Jason Giambi smoked one out to the wall in right center, and turned it into his first triple since 2002 (no joke!) when Josh Hamilton couldn’t make a running shoestring grab, and saw it go off his glove instead. With the tying run 90 feet away, Ron Washington decided to go to Frankie Francisco, who seems to thrive in tight situations (his 6.8 percentage of inherited runners scored last year was the lowest in the Majors).
“When I get in those situations, I just turn it on,” Francisco said. “I like being in those situations. It lets me pitch to my strength, the fastball.”
Indeed it does, because Francisco came in and struck out Jorge Posada on six pitches, throwing him a high 96 MPH heater to finish him off. Then he proceeded to pitch the bottom of the 7th, retiring the side with 2 groundouts and another K. All total, Francisco threw 18 pitches over an inning and a third last night – 11 of them for strikes. Francisco has now allowed just one hit and zero runs in his last 6.1 innings, while striking out 8 and walking one. If he can keep this up, we may have ourselves a new 8th inning man.
We might need one too, because of what happened to Eddie Guardado last night – while making his final warmup pitches as he prepared to pitch the 8th inning, Eddie apparently felt a “twinge” in his shoulder:
“He felt a twinge in his shoulder and didn’t want to take any chances,” manager Ron Washington said. “He’s day-to-day, and we’ll see how it goes. We don’t think it’s too bad. He’s had this before. Sometimes it’s one day, sometimes it’s a couple of days. We’ll see tomorrow.”
For the sake of the bullpen, as well as any trade value Guardado might possess, lets hope this isn’t serious – his ERA+ of 128 currently leads all our regular relievers.
Jamey Wright – who actually has a 0.93 ERA in his last 10 appearances – pitched the 8th inning for the Rangers instead, and he retired the side in order, leaving it in the hands of CJ Wilson for the 9th inning. I don’t think anyone needs reminding of CJ’s struggles this year - suffice it to say that up until the last two days, he just has not looked like the 2007 version of CJ Wilson that posted a 3.03 season ERA. When he worked the 9th on Sunday however, he turned in his first 1-2-3 inning since June 2nd, while also striking out 2 – arguably the best inning of work he has turned in all season. He built on that last night, as he set down the heart of the Yankees order - A-Rod, Jason Giambi and Jorge Posada – to pick up his 18th save of the season. Of course, two sterling outings does not make a recovery from his struggles – but for the first time this season, CJ appears like he might be headed toward the right path.
This victory puts the Rangers 2 games over .500 for the first time since 2006 – and it took them until they’re 6th attempt this year to win consecutive games after reaching the .500 mark. As I’m sure you already know, Eric Hurley bagged his first Major League win against the Phillies to help us along on Sunday (a belated big congrats to Hurley on that by the way – and my apologies for not making the time to properly blog it), in a game that Max Ramirez caught, and Chris Davis homered in - the young rookies have really played a huge part in this drive to 2 games over, and there’s nothing more exciting to see than the young players who have a chance to be part of this teams future out there contributing and growing. It’s a great time to be a Ranger fan.
Speaking of those young guys, TR Sullivan had a piece up yesterday about the way the Rangers have been doling out playing time to the youngsters… Ron of course, still thinks the Rangers can contend, and says he’s focused on putting his best lineup out there:
“I’ve got to put the best lineup out there,” Washington said. “We’re only 7 1/2 games out. We’ve still got a chance.”
That, right there, is one of my biggest gripes with Wash: even if we have a chance at somehow backing our way into the playoffs this year (which, realistically, we really don’t) it shouldn’t matter, because we should still be focused on putting the building blocks of a future dominant team together. He shouldn’t be worried about putting his “best” lineup together, he should be focused on getting the youngsters like Max Ramirez and Brandon Boggs their share of AB’s out of reserve roles, instead of handing them to the spares on the bench like Marlon Byrd and Frank Catalanotto. Hopefully, this is a problem that will be fixed at the trade deadline, if we can find takers for Byrd and Catalanotto – but the point is, I still don’t think Ron Washington is on the same page that this organization needs him to be on at this juncture.
Guess what today is, folks? It’s the last day second to last day of All-Star voting. Now, Josh Hamilton is safely second in the OF voting, as is Michael Young at SS – but according to the latest stats, Ian Kinsler(who has moved up to second in the entire American League in VORP recently) is still 183,686 votes behind Dustin Pedroia. One last day Ranger fans - you all can do it, you just need to get cracking. Here is the ballot, and if you’re out of e-mail addresses, you can use dodgit.com to create disposable e-mails - for example, just type in something like lonestarincalifornia@dodgit.com in the e-mail box on the ballot, and you’re good to go – and you can create as many variations as you need/want. So lets give it one last push, folks - Kinsler deserves to start that game waaay more than Pedroia does.
Quick hits: Dustin Nippert tossed a 7-inning no-hitter for Oklahoma Sunday… Kason Gabbard had an MRI today on his inflamed elbow, which revealed that there was no structural damage… Gabbard was given a cortisone shot to treat it… and Josh Hamilton is really excited to be playing in Yankee Stadium.
Today it’s Kevin Millwood vs. the Yankees top young pitcher Joba Chaimberlain. Unlike Mike Mussina, Joba isn’t going to need an overly-biased strike zone to hold the Rangers to 2 runs – considering Millwood got lit up his last start, this might be a pretty tough game. Joba has been known to be wild at times though, so if we can stay patient, maybe we’ll get to him.
Filed under: Ranger Wins | Tags: David Murphy, Frank Francisco, Jamey Wright, Marlon Byrd, Milton Bradley, Ramon Vazquez, Walkoff win
Wow. That’s really about all my brain can register regarding last night’s series opener against the Mariners. Just… wow. They fell behind. They came back. They coughed up the lead. Took it back. Gave it up again. And then… Ramon Vazquez. And a 13-12 win.
There where no delusions about what this game was going to be from the very start. Vicente Padilla gave up 5 runs in an ugly first inning, that featured 2 errors and a balk, as well as a jet-stream assisted home run by Raul Ibanez. Before the Rangers even came to bat, the game appeared to be in the control of the Mariners and Erik Bedard.
But Bedard didn’t have his A-game last night anymore than Padilla did, as it would turn out. The Rangers started immediately chipping away, with Michael Young doubling in Ian Kinsler to make it 5-1. German Duran hit a sac fly in the second, and then in the bottom of the third, Texas exploded. Josh Hamilton and Milton Bradley started the inning with back-to-back jacks, Hamilton’s being a a 447-foot monster shot to right center. After a walk by Brandon Boggs, and a double by Gerald Laird, Chris Shelton (who would have a breakout day at the plate, going 2-3 with 2 walks and a sacrifice) brought both home with a single to give Texas the lead. That was it for Bedard, but things where just getting started at the Ballpark in Arlington.
Vicente Padilla, who just like Sindey Ponson on Sunday, rebounded from a tough first inning to toss four shutout frames, got into trouble in the 6th when he allowed a leadoff double to Jeff Clement. That prompted his removal in favor of Frank Francisco, who allowed an infield single before giving up a game-tying double to Yuniesky Betancourt.
The game stayed tied at 6 until the bottom of the 7th, when Seattle reliever Ryan Rowland-Smith set up the rally for Texas. Gerald Laird reached on a bunt single to start the inning, and in a strange decision, was bunted over by Chris Shelton. Rowland-Smith then walked German Duran, and threw a wild pitch, but did strike out Ramon Vazquez for the second out of the inning. That was when Seattle Manager John Mclaren decided to bring in Mark Lowe, and not long after that move, all hell was loosed on the Mariners.
Lowe walked Ian Kinsler to load the bases, and that brought up Michael Young. Young swung at the first pitch, and grounded it to second – but Jose Lopez bobbled it, the go-ahead run scored, and the inning continued. The next batter was Josh Hamilton, and he whacked an 0-2 pitch past the shortstop Betancourt for a 2-run single, and Frank Catalanotto followed with an RBI single of his own. That made it 10-6 after 7.
In the top of the 8th, Joaquin Benoit gave up a 2-run homer to Wladimir Balentien, but the Rangers would tack on a couple more with bases-loaded walks in the bottom of the frame. Heading to the top of the 9th, Texas lead 12-8, with CJ Wilson coming on. That’s when disaster struck.
Wilson, who has really struggled of late to throw strikes and get consistent outs, proceeded to squander the entire 4-run lead, surrendering an RBI double to Ibanez, and then a 3-run homer to Kenji Johjima. Jamey Wright had to come in and finish the inning, and after the Rangers stuck out in order against Brandon Morrow in the bottom of the 9th, the game headed into extras.
Doug Mathis, just up from AAA was called upon to make his Major League debut in a helluva pressure spot, the top of the 10th inning, and he delivered. He got Yuniesky Betancourt to ground to second, retired Ichiro on a liner to second, and then got Jose Vidro to fly out – the first 1-2-3 inning for Ranger pitching since the top of the 7th, when Frank Francisco set down the side in order.
Then it was time for the bottom of the 10th. David Murphy struck out to start the frame, the fourth consecutive K for Brandon Morrow but then… on a 1-0 count… Ramon Vazquez got ahold of a 94 MPH Morrow fastball, and blasted it into the right field seats. Game. Over.
As Ramon would later explain, he was simply up there sitting dead red, and Morrow didn’t disappoint:
“He was coming right at people,” Vazquez said. “I got a good pitch to hit, the pitch I was looking for. I was looking for a fastball down. I was just hoping to lay off the breaking ball. He’s a guy you don’t want to hit his breaking ball. I wanted to get a fastball and get the head off the bat on it.”
…
“That’s a great feeling,” Vazquez said. “That’s all the power I had.”
Doug Mathis would wind up a winner after his very first inning in The Show, calling it ”the coolest thing I’ve ever experienced”, and the Rangers now lead this three game vendetta series against Seattle 1-0. It may not have been a pretty win, but the momentum from this latest rollercoaster ride was much needed after the A’s let a little air out of the Rangers balloon on Sunday.
There was one small chink in the celebration of this one, though: Milton Bradley apparently hurt himself taking a practice swing in the 7th (which is why Frank Catalanotto hit for him instead). He is currently listed as day-to-day, and will not be in the lineup tomorrow. Sigh. MB = china doll.
Elsewhere, TR Sullivan has a piece up on Jamey Wright, and how important he has been to the bullpen this season – very true, you gotta love the job “The Electrician” has done in 2008. But more interesting to me is this line at the end on Frankie Francisco from Ron Washington:
“Frankie is starting to turn the corner as far as his fastball and he’s starting to get his secondary pitches over,” Washington said. “If he can continue to do that, you never know what will happen. He used to be a stud. His confidence is starting to go up.”
I still hesitate to say that the Frankie of old is back just yet, but he’s been back up to 96-97 on the gun on a regular basis lately, and has flashed some wicked stuff – if he keeps it up, I would say it won’t be long before Francisco starts to get some consideration to perhaps pitch a few times in the 8th, maybe even 9th innings, considering the recent struggles of Joaquin Benoit and CJ Wilson.
TR also has some notes on David Murphy’s recent slump, and Marlon Byrd’s status - Murphy, who got the night off Monday, was hitting just .167 in his last 13 games. Much of that slump can be attributed to his being only 1 for his last 20 against left-handed pitchers, a rash of which the Rangers have faced lately. With Marlon Byrd about ready to come back, the Rangers may soon be able to suppress that issue, but it’s also mentioned there that Byrd still might be left down in OKC for a couple more games. However, with Milton Bradley hurting himself last night, I’m betting Byrd is going to be up tomorrow – and I’m also betting that sooner or later, Byrd is going to platoon with Murphy against LHP, whether Washington calls it an official platoon or not.
Today it’s Kason Gabbard making his first start since being attacked by Sexson- he will reprise his matchup with Felix Hernandez once again. This time Richie Sexson isn’t in the lineup to try and kill Gabbard, so hopefully we can get him though at least the the 6th inning. The less innings the bullpen has to pitch right now, the better.
Filed under: Ranger Losses | Tags: Bold predictions, Errors, Frank Francisco, Roster moves
It’s only 21 games into the 2008 season, and already Rangers fans have had to endure two 5-game losing streaks. And with this latest one, they have dropped to a new low at 7-14, and they now alone hold the distinguished title of worst record in the AL. Ladies and gentlemen, your 2008 Texas Rangers: we’re below the cellar.
It wasn’t much a game yesterday, and as such, there’s not much worth saying about it. Some highlights: Frank Catalanotto hit a home run in the top of the 2nd, that gave the Rangers a short lived lead. But the very next half inning Ben Broussard booted an Edgar Renteria ground ball hit straight at him at first base, which went as a double, and wound up allowing two runs to score. The play should have been scored as an error, according to both Victor Rojas and Eric Nadel, the KLRD announcers, but instead both runs where earned, and the play (or lack thereof) may have rattled the exciteable Vicente Padilla, as he promptly gave up three homers and 5 runs the next inning. Josh Rupe replaced Padilla in the 4th, did turn in 4 strong innings of relief, but got charged with three runs when he ran out of gas in the 8th, and loaded the bases with nobody out for his replacement Wes Littleton, who promptly allowed all three runs to score by walking three batters. The Texas offense meanwhile, left another 10 men on base (including 4 men in the first two innings), the only other run coming on a Josh Hamilton sac fly.
Overall, it was just another horrible game, that is not even worth anymore space or words of this blog entry. Blech. Lets move on.
The Rangers announced some interesting developments concerning the pitching staff yesterday, the first of which was the placement of Dustin Nippert on the 15-day DL. After Monday’s horrid outing in which he gave up 8 runs in 2.1 innings, you had to know something like this was coming – Nippert clearly needs some time in the minors to polish his game, and since he has no options, stashing him on the DL, and sending him on a “rehab” assignment is the only way to do it.
Frank Francisco replaces him – a logical choice, as Frankie Frank was mowing through the AAA hitters in OKC, as he had not allowed a run in 8 appearances and 9 innings, accumulated 5 saves, and had struck out 16 to just three walks. That’s some absolutely filthy stuff from the 6′3″ right-hander, as his infamous splitter (which was so good in 2004, before he had to undergo TJ surgery), a pitch the Rangers wanted him to work on after it failed to fully materialize during spring training, seems to have returned.
“Pretty much everything is better,” said Francisco, who had a 5.63 ERA in Spring Training. “I’ve been throwing my [split-fingered fastball] for strikes, my curveball for strikes and my location is way better on my fastball. I’m getting ahead in the counts with my fastball and my splits and late in the counts I’m throwing my offspeed pitches, not necessarily for strikes, but where I want them.
Eddie Guardado is also scheduled to come off the DL today (Wendensday), so the bullpen should look a lot better this week, with both him and Francisco in there. A roster spot will have to be made for him, of course though, which means somebody goes to OKC. Josh Rupe and Wes Littleton both have options, and are therefore the prime targets to go down, while Franklyn German is the weakest link in the bullpen - he just doesn’t have any options.
Rupe is probably the most likely candidate, since his ERA sits at 6.00, but without him, the Rangers lack a long-reliever – Jamey Wright is the only other pitcher in the Texas bullpen that can really go past 3 innings if needbe, and he’s been moved to more of a late-relief role lately, thanks to the great effectiveness of his power-sinker this year.
Wes Littleton has been used for multiple innings in three of his four outings this season though (getting up to 2.2 innings against Toronto April 16th), so my guess is, Rupe gets the the demotion, and the Rangers just wing it with Littelton/Wright as the guys they’ll use for multiple innings if needed. What I would like to see is Franklyn German put on waivers, but the Rangers still seem to be in love with his radar gun readings, and since he hasn’t truly melted down yet, I doubt they’ll put him on waivers. Of course, I’ve been incorrect in my predictions of who would go up or down every time this year, so I suppose you never know – I could get my wish.
Speaking of up and down, Kason Gabbard’s back problem now appears more serious than the Rangers first admitted – the rotation’s lone southpaw is now termed “in question” for his next start. They’re now saying the Gabbard has a strained muscle, rather than the back spasms they initially diagnosed him with, and while they’re not making any decisions until Kason has his scheduled bullpen session today, TR Sullivan lists Sidney Ponson and AJ Murray as the favorites to take his place. He also mentions Doug Mathis, who is 4-0 with a 3.12 ERA for OKC, but leaves out Scott Feldman, who has already been called up to make a spot start earlier this month.
Ponson is probably the guy the Rangers would like to have make the start, because they seem to enjoy throwing worthless “veterans” out there on the big club, and where convinced Ponson had something when they signed him in the spring, but he’s not on the 40-man roster – neither is Mathis, who I would personally like to see make the start (although that isn’t likely). Murray is on the 40 however, which seems to make him the frontrunner, despite the fact that he has a 5.16 ERA so far in OKC.
If however, the Rangers did decide to go with Ponson, there could be a huge upside to it. A massive one. About the only guy whop can be knocked off the 40-man is Adam Melhuse – and if you knock him off, you necessitate the callup of – guess who – yep, Salty. So despite the fact that we’d have to watch Ponson pitch for the duration of Kason Gabbard’s DL stint (which probalby wouldn’t be more than two or three starts at the most), I’m rooting for Sir Sidney. He could very well be Salty’s ticket to Arlington.
Speaking of Salty, he had the day off today (they didn’t want to start him in a day game after a night game). The Redhawks wound up losing, 5-1, as Iowa’s Sean Gallagher (whom you may remember was one of the pitchers Jon Daniels was pushing the Cubs for when trying to trade them Marlon Byrd this winter/spring) held them to just 3 hits over 7.2 innings.
Tomorrow, the Rangers send Luis Mendoza out to the hill to try and stop this latest 5-game slide – the Tigers are sending a familiar face in Kenny Rogers to the hill. It’s noted in the game notes that Marlon Byrd had his MRI, and has been diagnosed with a bone bruise, for which they gave him a cortisone shot. I guess this means will see him as soon as his 15 days on the DL are up – I’m trying to decide whether that’s a good thing or not. Good I guess, for the OF defense at least.
I’ll close out this morning’s post with a bold prediction: if the Rangers lose the next two games, I’m betting Ron Washington will be fired when we get back to Arlington on Friday. I don’t want to see the Rangers lose the next to games of course, but I think you all know what I think of Ron. If nothing else, that’s just what I’m telling myself right now to avoid getting too depressed over the teams play of late.
