Filed under: Ranger Wins | Tags: Gerald Laird, German Duran, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Josh Hamilton, Josh Hamilton is amazing, Kevin Millwood, Max Ramirez, Scott Feldman
So, how do you rebound from two dissapointing series that saw your offense and pitching staff both get kicked around like soccer balls? Well, coming back from a 5 run deficit and scoring 14 runs against the team with the lowest staff ERA in baseball is a pretty good place to start.
With observing scouts dotting the stadium, the team who just might have the most moveable talent at this years trade deadline put on quite a show, starting with Vicente Padilla. Padilla put together a decent, if not fairly impressive start despite giving up 5 runs in the third inning – which was thanks in part to Michael Young, whose key misplay on a ball that was (most generously) ruled an infield single set up the Oakland rally.
After A’s RF Ryan Sweeny started the inning with a leadoff double, Padilla got Kurt Suzuki to ground one to the right of Young, who bobbled it. For some reason the official scorer ruled it an infield single, but it was pretty clearly an error, even in the opinions of Rangers radio announcer Eric Nadel, who said he had marked the play down as such in his scorebook expecting it to be changed.
After the miscue Padilla loaded the bases by walking Jack Cust, struck out Emil Brown, allowed a bloop RBI single to Carlos Gonzalez and got Mark Ellis to foul out. But with that extra out, the A’s went walk, single, single and single before David Murphy threw out Jack Hannahan at home plate to end the inning. Down 5-0, the game was shaping up in a far too familar fashion – but the Rangers where about to conjure up some more of that pre-all star break magic.
Much like Michael Young in the bottom of the third, the A’s defense started their top of the 4th with third baseman Brooks Conrad throwing away a Marlon Byrd groundball, and that’s all the opening the Texas offense (which has been without hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo of late, as he was in Dallas having knee replacement surgery yesterday) would need. David Murphy followed the Error by jacking his 14th bomb of the season to left center to put the Rangers on the board. After Chris Davis single, Jarrod Saltalamacchia walked and Ian Kinsler hit a sac bunt, Michael Young followed witha sac fly to right. That brought up the 98-RBI man Josh Hamilton as the tying run with one out. The A’s now-beleaguered rookie starter Sean Gallagher tried to snap off a first pitch curveball, but it hung – and then hung some more as it soared out to right for Hamilton’s 99th and 100th RBI’s of the season. Josh Hamilton = unprecedented greatness.
The rally didn’t just give the Rangers chances at winning a new lease on life, it seemingly gave Vicente Padilla a huge boost in confidence too – he came back and retired 9 consecutive A’s, including 5 strikeouts over the 4th, 5th and 6th innings before being pulled at 108 pitches. The Rangers took the lead just in time to qualify him for his 12th win in the top of the 7th – Chris Davis, who would come up a triple short of the cycle at the end of the night smacked a 1-out double and Ian Kinsler brought him home with a 2 out single to right, making it 6-5 Rangers.
The bullpen also seemed recovered from it’s meltdown on Thursday, as Frankie Francisco and Eddie Guardado fired hitless 7th and 8th innings. With CJ Wilson warming in the bullpen, the Rangers had one last chance to tack on some insurance in the top of the 9th. Apparently, the Texas offense doesn’t trust CJ anymore than I do right now, because they batted around to score 8 runs off two different Oakland relievers. Chris Davis got it started by jacking his 9th Major League home run of the season, and Michael Young (RBI double), Hank Blalock (2 run single) and Marlon Byrd (RBI double) where the other prime contributors to one of the Rangers best single innings of the season. The fact that the seemingly too often-used Jamey Wright gave up a run for the 5th time in his last 6 outings in the bottom of the 9th was completely lost in the revelry of what the Rangers offense had accomplished: every single player had a hit and a run scored in the 17 hit, 8 walk attack that should go a long ways toward shaking this team out of it’s recent funk.
In other news, it now looks as if Kevin Millwood is indeed headed to the DL with his latest groin pain – according to TR Sullivan, Millwood tried to throw a side session yesterday in Oakland and “it didn’t go well”. Instead of simply having Millwood skip a start and wait to see if he can pitch again during the Rangers next weekend, the Rangers feel it would be better to have Millwood focus on fully recovering before he rejoins the rotation -and considering how bad he has been this year, that certainly sounds like the best course of action. This will of course mean the Rangers scrapping their plan to send Scott Feldman to the bullpen, having him instead rejoin the rotation as the 5th starter so he can be skipped over and pushed back whenever possible. They’re still hoping to keep him under 150 innings for the season.
Also in injury news, German Duran has undergone surgery to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his thumb and will be out for 6-8 weeks, effectively ruining the second half of his season. He apparently suffered the injury Wednesday, in his second game after being sent down. This really stinks because it could very well be a huge setback in the development of the 24 year-old Duran, who spent most of his 2 months with the big club this year riding the bench. As a result, Duran has gotten just 176 total at-bats this year, and hit just .225/.279/.363 in 102 Major League at-bats as a followup to a .300/.352/.525 breakout campaign with AA Frisco in 2007. It’s my opinion that Duran has been horribly mismanaged and misused this year by the Rangers – although it was an oft-overlooked fact, he never should have been allowed to sit on the bench as much as he was in the first half. If that meant sending him back to AAA and putting Ryan Roberts on the roster as the utility infielder, that’s what the Rangers should have done – but unfortunately, it’s too late to do anything about it now.
Coming off the DL tomorrow will be Gerald Laird. Laird completed his rehab assignment with AAA Oklahoma last night and looks 100%, despite the fact that he went 0-12 at the plate in his four-game stint. He is apparently expected to be the “#1 catcher” when he gets back, something that I find slightly disappointing:
“When he comes back, I certainly want him out there as much as possible,” Rangers manager Ron Washington said. “I’m not going to put a number on it this time. How many days a week he’ll catch, I don’t know. But he’ll certainly do most of it.”
I had at least hoped to see a return to the platoon of Laird and either Max Ramirez or Jarrod Saltalamacchia, whichever doesn’t get sent back down. Admittedly, Salty’s season has been a massive disappointment due to underperformance, injuries and sporadic playing time, and MaxRam hasn’t exactly dazzled in what little playing time he has gotten since being brought up – but making Laird the “#1 catcher” for the rest of the season does absolutely nothing to help whichever of those two winds up stuck as Laird’s backup, or resolve the logjam the Rangers currently have with their three young catchers.
In my opinion, Laird - whose career line is still a meager .257/.308/.387 despite his performance in the first half this year - is pretty redundant in regards to our catching future seeing as how he’s the most expensive of our catchers, and a free agent in 2 years. Since we’re 10 games out of first place, even if Max and Salty suck right now, it would be much more productive for us in the long run to get them as many innings as possible in the second half (meaning one needs to be going full-time in AAA, and the other catching at least on a semi-regular basis in the majors) to allow them to continue to refine their game as much as possible heading into 2009. But sentencing one of them to catching once a week behind Laird is tantamount to what the Rangers did with German Duran this year, and that is stunt his development.
What all this seems to be leading up to however, is a trade of one of our catchers – we just don’t have room for four, and in TR Sullivan’s recent rundown of Ranger trade rumors, he mentions that the Yankees (whose catcher Jorge Posada is on the DL and will not be able to catch again this year) have asked about both Laird and Salty, and the Reds have been looking at Laird since this spring. TR says that 20 teams have asked about one of the four Rangers catchers. I believe I’ve said this before, but seeing as how I think Laird is the most redundant catcher we have, and because he’s likely at an all-time peak in his trade value, he is the one (in fact the only one) who I would prefer to see dealt.
Speaking of trade rumors, I’m still planning to do a seperate post and run them all down sometime this weekend – I’m horribly behind as far as reporting upon trade rumors in this space goes.
Quick hits: Joaquin Benoit got roughed up in a rehab outing for AA Frisco yesterday, giving up 2 runs on 3 hits and 2 walks while not recording an out… Joselo Diaz cleared waivers and has been sent to OKC… LHP Beau Jones, the forgotten part of the return in the Mark Teixeira deal, has been promoted from Bakersfield to AA Frisco.
Today, Matt Harrison takes on Justin Duchscherer in Oakland – Harrison has given up 13 runs in 7.2 innings his last two starts, and Duchscherer is the AL’s ERA leader at 1.87. So, uh… yeah. Looks like a tough one.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Brandon Boggs, German Duran, Hank Blalock, Michael Young, Ramon Vazquez, Travis Metcalf
Apparently, the Rangers will indeed not have Hank Blalock in the lineup on Tuesday when they face the Kansas City Royals. That much I expected.
However, it appears Hank is now going to be out for 3-4 weeks as an MRI has revealed that Hank’s injured hamstring does indeed have a “small tear” in it, despite the initial diagnosis that it was only strained.
Hank had been hitting .299 with 2 HR and 7 RBI, but Ramon Vazquez and German Duran will have to now fill in for the next month or so. Travis Metcalf, who subbed along with Vazquez for Balock when he had Thoratic outlet surgery last season, is still rehabbing from spring surgery to repair a torn hamstring muscle of his own, and isn’t an option to fill in for Hank, at least not yet – so it appears that the power output from third base is about to drop to zero for the Rangers.
Brandon Boggs is tabbed as the likely get the call from AAA to take Blalock’s place on the 25-man roster for now, as he’s the only position player on the 40-man roster at this point eligible for a callup (Joaquin Arias, the only other possible option on the 40, is still recovering from arm surgery last year, and is not yet 100%).
Even though the Rangers probably won’t do this, in my opinion, now would be a fine time to let Michael Young try out third base – with his ever-decreasing range at shortstop, a move to third could be in his future (a position change of some sort most certainly is), so it might be interesting to try him there on a temporary basis now, and see how he handles it. It’s not like you can get any worse defensively at short with Vazquez or Duran, after all.
Tomorrow Jenny Jennings will take on Brett Tomko of Kansas City. I sure hope the Rangers can break out the bats again - if there was ever a game with the potential to be a slugfest, it’s tomorrows.
Filed under: Ranger Losses | Tags: Eddie Guardado, First Major League hit, Gerald "Superstar" Laird, German Duran, Jason Jennings, Joaquin Benoit, Left on Base, Salty vs. Laird, Why I hate knuckleballers
You had to know it was going to be a tough series for the Rangers in Boston, taking on the defending World Series champs. But it’s always exceedingly frustrating to see your team blow a late lead, even if it is against the Red Sox.
That’s exactly what happened on Saturday night, as setup man Joaquin Benoit had his second consecutive rough outing to blow a 3-2 Ranger lead in the 8th inning.
Jason Jennings, who got rocked in his first three starts of the season, managed to battle to his first quality start of the season, despite possessing sub-par control against the loaded Boston lineup. Jennings threw 100 pitches over 6 innings of work, but only 57 went for strikes, and he was 9-9 in groundball/fly ball outs, but he managed to shut the Sox out for 5 innings after giving up 2 runs in the first.
According to TR Sullivan’s post game write up, Jennings relied on a cut fastball to keep the Sox from pulling the ball over to the green monster.
“It was good I finally gave us a quality start and give us an opportunity to win the game,” Jennings said. “From that aspect, I was pleased. But coming away with a loss is a little frustrating.
“I felt like I was able to get the ball down in the zone and hit my spots more consistently. But I have to build on it. One game is not going to get it. I have to repeat it.”
Even so, Jennings seemed to go deep into the count on almost every batter, and sure didn’t pitch with the efficiency of someone who was having his best start of the season so far. But perhaps last night, that worked to his advantage, as there’s no denying the results.
The Rangers lead 3-2 after scoring a single run in each of the first three frames. Josh Hamilton launched his fourth homer of the season, a green monster shot of lefty Jon Lester in the top of the first to get the scoring started. After the Red Sox answered in the bottom of the first, Adam Melhuse tied it up with an RBI single to plate David Murphy. German Duran, making his first ever start in LF, bagged his first career hit, a single to right center that put runners on the corners for Ian Kinsler, but Kinsler flew out to CF. That was the first of three consecutive innings the Rangers would leave a man standing on third base.
Jason Botts doubled in Josh Hamilton to give Texas the lead with one out in the top of the 3rd, but the Rangers would leave Hank Blalock stranded at third base when David Murphy and an Gerald Laird struck out to end the frame. They did it again in the 4th, when Michael Young’s 2 out single got Ian Kinsler to third, but Josh Hamilton grounded out to end that scoring chance for the Rangers as well. The inability to come through in those situations would later come back to haunt the Rangers, as their slim one-run lead would not hold up in the 8th inning.
After Jamey Wright got through a scoreless 7th, Joaquin Benoit came in for the 8th inning. Benoit, who struggled his last outing in Toronto, getting charged with three runs on a hit and three walks, started the inning by getting Jacoby Ellsbury to pop out. But then Dustin Pedroia doubled off the monster, and the rally was on for the Red Sox. David Ortiz was up next, prompting the Rangers to swing the infield around to the right, the standard defensive book against Big Papi. Ortiz smashed a ball right into the shift, to the right of Ian Kinsler, who was playing on the RF grass. Kinsler dove, and managed to get his glove on it, but could not stop the hot smash. It skipped into right field, and Pedroia motored home with the tying run. With Ortiz on first, Manny Ramirez was next, and the result was almost predictable. On an 0-1 count, Benoit threw a fastball at the knees, but Ramirez crushed it over the moster for the go-ahead 2-run homer, making it 5-3 Sox. Benoit retired the next two in order, but it was too little, too late.
After that, Jonathan Papelbon came on in the 9th to close the game out with a few 96 mph heaters, and the Sox comeback win was complete. To add to the deflating feeling at the end of this one, Milton Bradley even saw his 13 game hitting streak snapped, as he flew out to deep center in a lone at-bat as a pinch hitter for Gerald Laird, making the final out of the ballgame. Pretty lousy way to see a hitting streak like that come to an end.
There’s not too much you can say when your best setup guy gets clobbered by one of the best offenses in the game, but the real dissapointment of the night was the lack of offensive support. Including the aforementioned three consecutive innings in which the Rangers left a man at third, the Rangers left 13 men on base overall. Josh Hamilton and David Murphy left four men apeice, and Michael Young and Ian Kinsler three. But the biggest dissapointment of the night offensively was Gerald Laird.
In perhaps the joke of the season, Laird started the game at DH (for the first time in his career), and proceeded to go 0-4 with three strikeuts and 6 LOB, lowering his season average to .218. Never mind what horrible decision it is for a manager to have his offensively-challenged catcher DHing, but this, people, is why this offense needs Jarrod Saltalamacchia in it. Aside from striking out with a runner on second and one out in the 2nd inning, Gerald’s other three outs where all inning-enders, in the 3rd, the 5th, and perhaps most critically in the 8th, when he blew the Rangers last chance to score before Benoits meltdown, and struck out with runners on first and second. There’s no denying that this game might have been a lot different if you had had Salty up at the plate instead of Laird, but it’s not about just this one game. This is just a fine example of how bad Laird has been at the plate so far this year.
How bad has Laird been? Well, in 55 AB’s this year, he has 12 hits, which as I mentioned above, is a .218 average. That’s bad enough. But if you take out his mirage performance on April 6th against the Angels, when he went 4-5 with 2 HR and 6 RBI, he has 8 hits in 50 AB’s, which is a .160 average, and only 2 RBI. In fact, out of all AL starting catchers, only Kenji Johjima of Seattle has a worse average (.212).
With numbers that bad, it really makes you wonder exactly how much longer the Rangers can let Saltalamacchia sit in AAA. Laird’s throwing may be an asset, but his overall defensive game, such as his wandering glove, and average range at the catchers position, is really nothing that can make up for an almost total lack of offensive value. According to Jon Daniels preseason plan, Laird was supposed to be building up his trade value by playing full-time, while Salty honed his defensive skills, at OKC. Well, thanks to his crappy play, Laird’s trade value is going in the wrong direction right now, as he’s picked up right where he left off offensively last season. And Salty is tearing it up in AAA, impressing those who actually watch him play every day.
So how long is it gonna be before Daniels wakes up, and realizes this little love affair with Gerald Laird is getting the Rangers nowhere? When you’re rebuilding, the idea is supposed to be remaining ready to play your young, promising players when they are ready - and Salty looks to be Major-League ready, both offensively, and now defensively. I don’t think it can be denied much longer: Gerald Laird’s time as the Rangers starting catcher is coming to a close. The only question before the Rangers is whether to drag it out, and subject us to more craptastic displays of offensive inability, or get started with the future. What’s it gonna be, JD?
In other Ranger notes, Eddie Guardado is not coming off the DL on Sunday, as I reported yesterday, after all. Guardado says his sore shoulder is still “weak” and he doesn’t want to rush himself back into action. He” throw a bullpen session on Monday, and the Rangers will go from there. Hopefully, it won’t be too much longer till Guadardo is back - right now, with the way Joaquin Benoit has performed his last two times out, it certainly would be nice to have that extra late-inning option in the bullpen.
Tomorrow, Kevin Millwood goes for the Rangers against knuckleballer Tim Wakefield. I’m dreading this game, because I really hate it whenever I have to watch/listen to a game in which Wakefield is on the mound – wild pitches, passed balls, 3-2 counts – watching him pitch always seems to be a real drag. He makes a 2 1/2 hour game seem like a 4 1/2 hour game even more efficently than anyone else in baseball. Hopefully the Rangers can square up a few of those knuckleballs, and at least provide us with some moonshot home runs for entertainment, eh? We’ll see.
Filed under: Ranger Wins | Tags: German Duran, Jamey Wright, Marlon Byrd, Poor Braves fans, Salty watch, Vicente Padilla
Perhaps Wednesday’s 14 inning victory in Toronto really did energize the Rangers. Because on Thursday night, the Rangers turned in perhaps the most fundamentally well-played game they have had all season, as they beat Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay to sweep their two game set north of the border.
The star of the game for the Rangers was undoubtedly Vicente Padilla, who more than matched up with Halladay, going 7 innings of one run ball, giving up 7 hits and three walks, while striking out 2. The only run came with 2 out in the 7th, his last inning, when David Eckstein, with Greg Zaun at third, hit a ball deep to the hole to at SS that Ramon Vazquez could not gun over to first in time for the out. Despite the low strikeout total, Padilla was perhaps the most effective he has been all season, as he got 13 ground ball outs, and the Rangers turned two double plays behind him.
The Rangers offense also seemed to tackle Roy Halladay a lot better than when they faced him the first time this season, when he held them to just one run on 6 hits in a complete game win. Halladay went all 9 innings once again, to spare the Blue Jays overworked bullpen, but this time the Rangers tagged him for 11 hits and 4 runs. David Murphy got the scoring started in the second, when he doubled in Milton Bradley with one out. That would be the first of three doubles in the contest for Murphy, who now leads all AL rookies with six 2-baggers so far this year. Frank Catalanotto tacked on another run with an RBI single in the second, and the Rangers got another in the top of the 7th, when Gerald Laird had a shattered bat blooper fall to score Murphy. Laird later had a bona-fide RBI single in the top of the 9th, but got thrown out trying to go to second on the throw to home plate when he over-slid the second base bag.
Jamey Wright, who seems to be instituting himself further and further as a key member of the Rangers bullpen with his power-sinker, pitched a scoreless 8th inning to set it up for CJ Wilson, who set down the side on 18 pitches to pick up his 5th save of the season. After pitching on three straight days though, it should be a pretty good bet that he won’t be available in today’s contest against the Red Sox.
Another notable from todays game: German Duran made his Major League debut Thursday, playing third base in place of Hank Blalock, who was still on the bench with the back stiffness that sidelined him Wednesday. The 23-year old Duran went 0-3 with three strikeouts, but hey, there’s not really any shame in doing that when you’re facing Roy Halladay. Congrats to German on his debut - I can’t wait until he bags his first Major League hit - perhaps he can do it tomorrow, although if he’s in the lineup again, he’ll be facing Daisuke Matsuzaka, who’s almost as good as Halladay - but why not start off with the best?
To make Duran’s callup possible, the Rangers had to place Marlon Byrd on the 15-day DL to clear a spot on the 25-man roster, and also had to recall Thomas Diamond and place him on the 60-day DL to make room on the 40-man roster. This means that Diamond is technically on the Major League club, and will make a Major League salary, as well as burn Major League service time during his time on the DL. A small complication, relatively insignificant right now, and probably insignificant in the long run, but still worth taking note of for future reference concerning Diamond’s service time.
Jarrod Saltalamacchia watch: Jarrod was 1-3 with a 2-run double and 2 walks as the Redhawks absolutely destroyed Round Rock, 19-3. As they say on the internet, that is what is known as complete and total ”pwnage”. The real hitting stars for OKC included Joaquin Arias, who was 4-5 with 4 RBI, Nelson Cruz, who had a 3-run homer to help him to 4 RBI, and Jason Ellison, who hit a grand slam – every player in the Redhawks lineup also scored at least one run.
Randomness: Atlanta Braves fans are now looking for 20 million or more votes to persuade Mark Teixeira to stay in Atlanta. I feel sorry for the Braves fans, though I emphasize with their cause - but unless each voter is willing to actually help pay Mark’s salary, there’s no way he’s going to stay in Atlanta, because I seriously doubt the Braves can afford to pay Tex what Scott Boras is going to ask for him (the exact figures of which I’m not sure, but I know it’s gonna be a lot). I admit, I don’t know a lot about the Brave’s payroll, and how deep the pockets of their ownership is, but the Braves would be stupid to give Teixeira the kind of money he wants anyway – there’s really not much sense in tying up your payroll like that, even if it is Mark Teixeira. My bet is, Tex winds up a Yankee in 2009, as the Yankees have the pocketbook to afford him and Scott Boras, and just coincidentally, have an opening at first base.
Last up: so you thought that that 14 inning game on Wedensday was long? That ain’t nothin’. How about the Rockies/Padres last night, going 22 innings?? It took 6 hours, 16 minutes to complete, and both teams used a combined 15 pitchers to throw 658 pitches in the longest game since 1993. After that, both those teams should get a rescheduled off day. Seriously.
Today, the Rangers are in Boston (as I may have mentioned) to take on Dice-K and the Red Sox. Luis Mendoza, who lost his first start to the Blue Jays, toes the rubber for the second time this season for Texas. Playing in Fenway park will be a sort of homecoming for not only Luis, but also Kason Gabbard (who starts on Monday) and David Murphy, as all are products of the Red Sox organization. Michael Young is expected to return to the lineup after sitting out Thursday’s game with a sore right calf muscle, and he’ll be needed, since the likelihood that Mendoza shuts off the heavy-hitting Red Sox offense is pretty low.
