Filed under: Ranger Wins | Tags: CJ Wilson, Ian Kinsler, Luis Mendoza, Tommy Hunter
I’m afraid all I have time for this morning is a quick post here this morning – hopefully, I’ll be able to resume regular posting sometime sooner rather than later. But for now, I have for you a few observations from last night’s game and this weekend:
- Luis Mendoza was impressive yesterday. Yes, he gave up 3 runs in the first inning, and appeared to be off to another rough start – but he turned it around and fired 6 innings of one-run, 3-hit ball as he pitched into the 7th inning for the first time in his major league career. I still think Mendoza is destined for the bullpen, where he’ll be able to rely on his superb 2-seam fastball more than his somewhat erratic breaking pitches, but that shouldn’t take away from what turned out to be a huge start for Mendoza.
- Ian Kinsler however, has really cooled off of late. The Rangers leadoff man is hitting just .222 with a 561 OPS since the all-star break, and after enjoying a stretch where he had 5 consecutive 2-hit games (July 23-28th) he’s hitting just .130 in his last 5.
- From what I saw, CJ Wilson was not the one warming up in the bullpen to come in for the top of the 9th last night, even before Texas scored 3 in the bottom of the 8th to blow the game open. Nope, it was Eddie Guardado who was up and chucking during that half inning, and still came in to finish the game off – could it be that CJ’s abhorrent statistics (5.28 ERA, 1.587 WHIP for the season, 9.35 ERA over his last 10 outings) are finally beginning to pry the closers role from his grip?
- Tommy Hunter looked solid in his debut the Friday night, despite giving up 6 runs. Save for a a couple gopherballs that wound up in the seats, Hunter kept his composure, and didn’t seem overmatched at all, getting most of the outs he needed. Always love to see that from a young starter, even if the line wasn’t very pretty.
- Over the three game series, the Rangers managed to come back from a 6-0 deficit and a 4-0 deficit to come away with victories on Friday and Sunday. Of course, when your offense is scoring 5.61 RPG (best in the majors) and hitting .282 as a team (also best in the majors) that’s really not such a novelty. Of course, when you consider that we’ve got guys like Marlon Byrd and Ramon Vazquez in the lineup day in and day out, I have to admit, it does seem a tad bit hard to believe that we’re actually this good. I keep waiting for the overacheivers such as Vazquez and last night’s hero, Gerald Laird to fall back to earth at some point – if they don’t this season, it’ll be a safe bet they do next year.
Hopefully the Rangers Rangers won’t fall back to earth just yet however: the New York Yankees are coming to Arlington for 4 games and that always promises to be a tough series. The Yankees historically always seem to crush the Rangers when they’re in Arlington, and considering the sad state of our pitching, this could very well be a 4-game slugout. Let’s just hope we can get through the Yankee starters, which are supposed to include Joba Chamberlain today, and then Andy Pettitte, Sidney Ponson and Mike Mussina. Yeah… this could be the series that shuts everyone up about the wildcard for once and for all this year.
Filed under: Ranger Wins | Tags: CJ Wilson, Ian Kinsler, Josh Hamilton, Matt Harrison, Max Ramirez
Back on April 24th, when this Texas Rangers ballclubwas sitting at 7-16 in the standings if somebody would have told me we’d finish the first half with 50 wins by the All-Star break I probably would have told them they where insane. And really, it is insane. It’s insane how this team turned itself around on a dime, and gone from one of the worst Aprils in team history to 4 games over .500 at the break. It’s insane the contributions the Rangers have gotten from core players like Josh Hamilton, Ian Kinsler, Milton Bradley - and from the rookies like David Murphy, Eric Hurley, Chris Davis and Brandon Boggs. Yep – it’s absolutely, beautifully insane.
Some of that beautiful insanity was demonstrated yesterday against the White Sox, in another weird, wacky contest in which pitchers (bothstarter and reliever) where treated as rudely as doormats. Though I regretfully don’t have time this morning to run through all the craziness at great depth like I normally would (I also need to do a roundup of all the latest Rangers news and notes I haven’t been able to get to) I’ll just give you some of the noteable highlights of yesterday’s 12-11 slugout:
- Matt Harrison, trying to make his case for a spot in the second half rotation gave up 5 runs on 7 hits and 2 walks in 2.2 innings. Not a very good performance for Harrison – but considering how everybody else that pitched in that game pretty much got hammered as well, I’m not super concerned over this hiccough. Matty should start the second half in the rotation irregardless in my opinion.
- Ian Kinsler3-5 with 2 doubles and 3 RBI – he ends the first half leading the AL with a .337 average in a league-leading 452 PA’s. He also leads in hits (134), total bases (218), runs scored (84), doubles (34), extra base hits (52) and runs created (92). All that, plus some other cool stuff like being 5th in OBP and 7th in SLB% adds up to a .945 OPS and an AL-leading 52.4 VORP. That’s your first half MVP, not only for the Rangers but for the American League. And maybe even for all of baseball.
- Oh yeah, almost forgot: Kinsler extended his hitting streak to 25 games. This may be the one reason I am sorry the ASB is here – he doesn’t have a chance to go for 26 until Friday.
- Maximiliano Ramirez: 3-5 with 1 double and 3 RBI. He’s been getting some additional playing time since Salty tweaked his groin July 5th. The result? He’s gone 7-for-20 with a homer, 6 RBI and a .959 OPS. Overall his line has jumped from .182/.280/.318 to .250/.333/.425. Sounds like Salty better get his groin healed and show us something immediately after the ASB, or he could wind up being the one sent down when Laird comes off the DL (which is tentatively targeted to be July 25th).
- Milton Bradley: 2-5 with his 19th homer of the season yesterday. Not only does it tie his personal best in HR’s for a single season, but it was the 100th of his career.
- CJWilson: gave up 3 runs on 5 hits after being brought into the game with a 12-8 lead in the top of the 9th inning. That’s bad. Again. He also said that he didn’t get pumped up enough to start getting outs until he heard Ozzie Guillen taunting him from the White Sox dugout, and that…
“I don’t really worry about my ERA too much,” Wilson said. “I just worry if I get my saves, because that’s the only thing I can control.”
Forgive me if the next few sentences sound like a rant, but… that’s just a horrible attitude for a closer to have. Maybe I’m reading to far into this, but if taken literally, he’s basically saying he doesn’t care how many runs or baserunners he allows just so long as he doesn’t give up that tying run. Being an adrenaline junky is one thing, but as a closer, your job is to go out there and get outs as quickly and efficiently as possible. You have to go out there and want mow down every single batter with your very best stuff, and from the sound of it, CJ doesn’t seem to have the drive to do that unless the tying run is actually standing at third. And when you’ve got a 5.01 ERA, a 1.573 WHIP, and 23 BB’s already, the law of averages would seem to dictate that sooner or later, that guy on third is gonna start scoring.
We don’t have too many options to replace CJ in the 9th inning with at this point – but I’ve had enough of the antics of watching our 3-4 run leads evaporate to one in a matter of minutes after CJ takes the mound. Not to repeat what I’ve said before, but I really think it would be a good thing if the Rangers told CJ he was splitting time in the 9thinning with Frankie Francisco, who has at leas the pure stuff to pitch there (though he too could use a lesson in being more aggressive with it at times). Under that scenario, we’d get a look at what Frankie can do, see if he can handle the role and at the same time hopefully light a fire under CJ’s ass to get some 1-2-3 innings as well.
Anyway… this kind of turned out to be an impromptu rant about CJ Wilson, so my apologies for that. Hopefully I’ll be able to do a more proper post, and round up all the latest Ranger news later.
Tonight… tonight is gonna be special. We have Josh Hamilton in the home run derby (which is on at 7:00 central on ESPN if you’re wondering). In a really cool gesture, Hamilton has chosen to bring his high school coach, 71 year-old Clay Council to the derby to throw him the cheese. I’ve been a little concerned that the derby will mess up Josh’s swing for the second half, but at this point there’s really nothing to do but shut up and cheer him on – and based on what we hear about his BP sessions, this should be a piece of cake for Josh as far as launching balls goes… if you’re a betting man… he’s even the odds-on favorite. Who can argue with that?
It seems the Texas Rangers are never completely out of a ballgame these days. Held to 2 runs over the first 7 innings by former prospect John Danks, they again came roaring back out of nowhere in the late innings to take a shot at the ballgame. And despite the fact that they ultimately couldn’t climb out of the hole that Kevin Millwood and the Ranger bullpen had dug, losing a game like this 9-7 instead of 8-2 is a direct reflection of the swagger this increasingly-younger team is sporting heading into the All-Star break – not only do they have the highest scoring offense in the Majors (averaging 5.54 RPG) but they seem to know it, too.
That’s the positive spin on last night’s contest – the negative is of course that the Rangers pitching staff still cannot find even a smattering of consistency as they let their offense down again. If the Rangers offense is swaggering into the All-Star break, then their pitchers are staggering. Kevin Millwood, who hasn’t gone beyond 6 innings in his last 4 starts now, gave up 5 runs on a whopping 10 hits and 4 walks in 5.1 IP. And the damage actually could have actually been worse had the White Sox not stranded 14 runners on the night - although as Ron Washington pointed out, Millwood is dealing with a nagging groin problem that might have had something to do with his weak performance:
“People out there don’t realize he’s fighting injuries and fighting the hurt,” Texas skipper Ron Washington said. “But he’s a professional and won’t use anything as an excuse. He wasn’t as sharp as we’d like to have him, but he hung in there and was able to fight his way into the sixth. When he left the game, we still had a chance. He fought like the warrior he is.”
Only thing is though, that last statement isn’t really true – when Millwood left the game, he was in the midst of a meltdown. Tied at 2 going into the 6th inning, Alexi Ramirez layed down a perfect bunt single, which was followed by a walk to Orlando Cabrera and a sac bunt by Tobey Hall. Frank Francisco was warming and nearly ready in the bullpen, but Ron Washington chose to let Millwood pitch to Carlos Quentin, who is tied for second in the AL in RBI’s. The result was a 2-run single, and another single by Jermaine Dye before Millwood was finally given the hook.
But the Rangers bullpen couldn’t hold the Sox in check either - Francisco allowed an RBI double and loaded the bases before getting out of the 6th, and Kameron Loe, in his second inning of work in the 8th, gave up back-to-back bombs to Jim Thome and Paul Konerko to make it 8-2 Sox.
The Rangers rally started in the bottom of the 8th, with Ian Kinsler and Josh Hamilton chasing John Danks from the game - with an RBI double, Kinsler extended his hitting streak to 24 games - just 4 behind Gabe Kapler’s all-time Rangers record of 28. After Joselo Diaz gave up an unearned run in the top of the 9th, the Rangers took one last shot at it with a last minute parade of extra-base hits against Chicago lefties Boone Logan and Matt Thornton.
Brandon Boggs lead off with a double, and Chris Davis knocked him in by smoking his first career triple into the gap in right. That prompted Ozzie Guillen to bring in Thornton, who was promptly greeted with a jam-shot double down the right-field line by Jarrod Saltalamacchia, his second of the game. But then German Duran struck out looking, and after an RBI single by Ian Kinsler, Michael Young flew out to center.
The Rangers last hope was Josh Hamilton, who could tie things with a homer – but he swung at the first pitch (as he so often does) from Thornton and grounded one up the middle instead. Unfortunately for Hamilton and the Rangers, Alexi Ramirez was there to rob him with a webgem backhand and throw him out (just barely) at first to end the game. Kind of a deflating end to the rally for the Rangers, but you can’t fault the offense – they did everything they could against what has been one of the best bullpens in baseball this year, they just couldn’t overcome the grave that Millwood and Kameron Loe had dug them. In other words: this game was Rangers baseball in a microcosm, folks.
Today it’s Matt Harrison vs. Jose Conteras – a 22 year-old vs. a 36 year old in the last game before the All-Star break. This is a huge start for Harrison because he can lock down a spot in the Rangers second half rotation with a good outing today. But he’ll have a true challenge facing the high-powered White Sox offense - this should be a pretty good litmus test as to whether or not Harrison is the real deal.
Filed under: Ranger Losses | Tags: Bad Managing, Chris Davis vs. Hank Blalock, Ian Kinsler, Luis Mendoza
Ahh baseball. One night you’re on top of the world, and the next you’re watching one bloop single turn another epic comeback into an 11-10 loss. That’s just the way it goes I guess – but it’s still pretty tough to see your team hammer out 20 hits off some of the league’s elite pitchers and loose like that.
Of course, the real reason for last night’s loss wasn’t the bloop single, and it wasn’t really even a moronic bunt called by bench coach (and acting manager) Arte Howe in the 11th inning. No, much like Monday’s game, in which Luis Mendoza got lit up for 8 runs in 1.1 innings, the reason for this loss was a (hopefully) cameo appearance by the 2007 version of Scott Feldman.
He may have lasted a bit longer than Luis Mendoza did (3.2 innings) the amount of damage he allowed was the same – 8 Angel runs, 5 of which came in the 4th inning. The most staggering thing about Feldman’s line however, was the walks – 5 of them, issued to an Angels team that is second-to-last in the AL in BB’s with258 (only the Kansas City Royals, with 227 have fewer). Only 40 of Feldman’s 86 pitches where strikes - and when he wasn’t walking people, he was busy giving up 6 hits, including 2 doubles a triple (albeit a cheap one) and a home run. Simply unacceptable, especially a day after the Rangers had to pitch a 9 inning game out of the bullpen.
Given the fact that this is only the second start this season in which he has given up more than 5 runs, Scotty gets some leeway here – everyone has their bad days, after all. But when you have a day this bad you’ve got to take the heat for it, and there’s really no excuse for the fact that Feldman’s 8-run implosion (which negated 2-0 and a 5-4 Ranger leads in the early innings) proved too much for the Rangers to overcome, even on one of their best offensive nights of the season.
The Rangers currently lead the American League with 5.51 runs scored per game, and even if they didn’t win, they certainly showed why last night. Down 10-4 after Wes Littleton surrendered a home run to Howie Kendrick, the Rangers (who hammered 15 hits off Angels ace John Lackey – a career high for him) chipped away with a home run by Marlon Byrd and an RBI single by Michael Young (who went 4-7 on the night) in the 5th and 6th. Then in the bottom of the 7th, the Ranger offense – namely a trio of the Rangers young rookies - exploded against the veteran relievers Darren Oliver and Scot Shields.
It started when Chris Davis (who went 3-6 with two doubles) poked a 1-out line drive shot out to right center that apparently hit off the top of the wall for an RBI double. Ron Washington, who rarely meets an umpire he doesn’t like, got himself ejected arguing that Davis’ ball had in fact cleared the wall – but as it turned out it didn’t matter. Once play resumed, the Angels inserted Scot Shields in place of Oliver, turning Brandon Boggs around to bat from his weaker side (left-handed). But Boggs(who went 2-5 witha BB) singled Davis home after an 8-pitch battle with Shields, bringing Max Ramirez to the plate as the tying run. Ramirez didn’t have to wait as long as Boggs for a pitch he could hit – he just stepped up a clubbed the first 93 MPH Shields offering over the left-field wall, much to the amazement of Josh Lewin, and the chagrin of Mike Scoscia. All of a sudden, the game had gone from an Angel blowout to a 10-10 tie.
Things would stay knotted at 10 all the way until the 11th inning, but not for a lack of chances for either club - CJ Wilson nearly gave it away in the top of the 9th. After two consecutive one-out walks, Juan Rivera singled to left, bringing Torri Hunter chugging around from second. But Brandon Boggs made one of the best defensive plays you’ll see this year in LF, charging the ball and firing a beautiful one hop strike to Max Ramirez, who survived his second bone-jarring collision at home plate in four days to record the out.
The Rangers didn’t exactly do any better though. They put a man on second in the 8th, 9th, and 10th innings, but failed to score each time – and in the 11th, the Angels where the ones that broke through when pinch-hitter Maicer Izturis floated a 2-out blooper into center field that scored Garret Anderson from second base, and gave them the lead.
Francisco Rodriguez came on to try and shake off the effects of the previous night’s blown save, but he sure didn’t look like he had shaken it off – in fact, to be fair, he didn’t look very good in any of his three appearances in the series. He walked Brandon Boggs to lead off the inning, and then committed an error when Max Ramirez popped a bunt attempt straight up in front of the plate. First he missed the catch, and once he picked the ball up, he threw it wildy into center field, giving the Rangers another shot with a man on second.
That’s when Arte Howe, managing the game in the abscence of the ejected Ron Washington, blew it.
At the plate was Ian Kinsler, who over the last 28 days (25 games) is hitting .394/.479/.692. That’s a 1.172 OPS. So what does Howe do? He rips the bat out of Kinsler hands, and has him attempt to bunt the runners over. Kinsler, trying to accomplish his bidding, bunts a bad pitch, and pops it up. This time K-Rod didn’t drop it, and an all-important out was completely wasted.
Yes, I know what the intent was… the intent was to move the runners 90 feet, put the tying run a sac fly away, and the winning run a single away. But when you’ve got one of the hottest hitters in all of baseball at the plate, it is not time to play smallball. That’s like buying a Lamborghini, and never taking it out of first gear – you’re just not utilizing the situation to it’s full potential. I don’t know whether Arte Howe was taking his cue from Ron Washington last night, or if perhaps maybe it’s the other way around – but as a manager, you should never, ever be willing to give away outs, not against a teams closer. After all… even if Kinsler had gotten the bunt down, the punchout and groundout that Ramon Vazquez and Michael Young followed with would not have gotten the run home.
Even with such a frustrating conclusion to the series, I’ve still gotta say I’m really proud of the way the Rangers played this four game set with the Angels. This team is playing much harder, much better than it has in a couple seasons – and I think you can accredit most of it to the youth of this team. For the first time in a long time, the Texas Rangers really have something to prove – and I’ve got a feeling that the more quality young talent is infused over the next year or so, the stronger and hungrier they’re going to get.
Of course, it would help if those young players actually got to play… and the latest things coming out of Ron Washington’s mouth regarding that aren’t exactly encouraging. Apparently, Hank Blalock is actually getting close to a return - he’s scheduled to go on a rehab assignment over the All-Star break, and join the team in Minnesota next Friday. And Ron Washington says he wants Hank to play over Chris Davis:
“If Hank is ready, I want Hank,” Washington said. “When the time is right, we will sit down and make a decision and see where we go.”
Ugh. Ron Washington needs to get himself a shirt that says “I (heart) players who mean nothing to this team in the longrun”. Let’s just hope he doesn’t speak for JD here regarding Davis’ fate.
Gerald Laird meanwhile, has headed out to Arizona to continue his rehab, and expects to be ready to come back by July 25th - whereupon Grant says he “might get the lion’s share of playing time” behind the plate. Hopefully, this is all just a part of a plan to get the trade value of those two ramped up for the deadline - but if that’s actually the way the Rangers intend to play out the rest of the season at first base and catcher, all that has happened with Davis, Ramirez, and Salty in the past couple weeks will have been nothing but one step forward, two steps back for the youth movement.
Tonight, Luis Mendoza will start on short rest for the Rangers – considering of course he only threw 50-some pitches his last time out however, it should be no big deal. No, the big deal is going to be how Mendoza performs after Monday’s debacle.
There should at least be some concern mounting about whether or not Luis Mendoza can cut it as a Major League starter – because in 8 big-league starts so far, Mendoza has a 7.24 ERA, and has given up 41 hits and 33 runs in 27 innings. He also has yet to go past 5 innings in any of his big-league starts, and has walked 15 batters opposed to 8 K’s. In a sharp contrast, over 6 career appearances as a reliever, Mendoza has a 0.79 ERA, has allowed just 7 hits in 11 innings, and has 9 strikeouts to zero walks. That may be a pretty small sample size, but I think there’s enough to say that’s pretty solid trend already formed there – that trend being that Mendoza seems much better suited for bullpen work than a starters spot. This will be a huge start for him if he’s to refute that trend at all.
It’s also going to be a huge start for him, because the Rangers bullpen is basically shot – he needs to provide the Rangers with 6 innings if for no other reason than there is no one to pick up the slack if he implodes again. Dustin Nippert might be available, but he likely would not be ready for use in more than one or two innings – but ideally, everyone in the Rangers bullpen could use a day of rest today. Obviously, that’s not likely to happen, but it makes me wonder if the Rangers might be forced to make another roster move, and bring up someone like Kazuo Fukumori, who can be knocked off the roster once his services are no longer required.
Opposing the Rangers tonight will be Gavin Floyd and the White Sox. This could be an ever tougher series than the one with the Angels, because not only are the White Sox second in the AL in runs allowed per game at 3.87 (only Oakland is allowing fewer runs) but they are also 4th in the AL with 4.82 runs scored per game. In other words, they pretty much have the whole gambit going for them this year – their starting pitching and bullpen has been great in the first half, and the offense has been good too – this should be a real challenge to end our first half with.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Ian Kinsler, Josh Hamilton, Michael Young, Milton Bradley
The results are in, and the aforementioned four have made it into the 2008 All-Star game. Hamilton will be our lone voted-in starter, but Milton Bradley has been chosento DH in the stead of an injured David Ortiz, so that’s actually two starters for us. As expected, Ian Kinsler got snubbed from getting the start by that little dwarf from Boston – Kinsler lost to him by 34,000 votes, which, in ASG voting terms, is pretty close. So at least we gave Boston a run for their money on that. Michael Young got in as well, as he and Kinsler are both on the bench.
Here are the All-Star rosters - I’ve got to run right now, but I’ll write some more on this later, I promise (really, I do). For now, I just wanted to convey a giant fistpump and a send congrats out to Josh, Milton, Ian and Mike – they all deserved to start, really.
Filed under: Ranger Wins | Tags: Eddie Guardado, Ian Kinsler, Ron Washington, Scott Feldman, Tom Hicks
After hovering around .500 for the better part of a month, it looks like the Rangers may have finally hit that hot streak they’ve been waiting for – the one that would push them over the .500 mark, and maybe keep them there for awhile. Since Eric Hurley secured his first Major League win on Sunday, the Rangers have blown into Yankee stadium, taking the first two of three games behind some exceptional pitching from their starters and bullpen to go. Last night it was Kevin Millwood turning in the strong mound performance while Ian Kinsler beat them on the basepaths, as the Rangers rose to three games over .500 with a 3-2 victory.
Once again, just as in the previous two games, it would be the Rangers young players that played a big part in the victory - first and foremost of which would be Ian Kinsler. Kinsler- who is hitting .552 with a 1.537 OPS in his last 7 games - went 2-3 with 2 walks last night, and also stole a season high 3 bases as he eventually wound up scoring the winning run. His season line is now .324/.380/.536, and his 42.1 VORP now leads all American League position players (Milton Bradley is second at 38.5).
As much as Kinsler got on base (and got into scoring position) though, he only scored that one all-important run – the Ranger offense didn’t exactly take full advantage of their 9 hits and 7 walks, stranding 12 men overall, and leaving 6 of them in scoring positon. The only runs they scored in the first 8 innings came in the second on back-to-back RBI singles by Chris Davis and Jarrod Saltalamacchia that gave them the early lead.
Kevin Millwood rebounded nicely from his disastrous start in Houston a week ago by allowing just 1 run in 5 innings, while striking out 6 – and his outing was cut short thanks to a bruised shin he sustained in the second inning on a Robinson Cano comebacker.
“It’s frustrating,” Millwood said. “I felt like I was actually pitching. I felt like I had good stuff. My leg just got stiff and sore. I didn’t feel I could give us a real good chance, so I let them know it was bothering me.”
Josh Rupe came on for the 6th inning, and proceeded to give up the tying run on 3 consecutive 2-out singles – but he settled down to pitch a scoreless 7th, and Frank Francisco tossed a shutdown 8th.
With the game tied 2-2 going into the top of the 9thinning, the Yankees went to closer Mariano Rivera, who sported a 0.74 ERA coming into the night. Facing Rivera was the top of the Rangers order starting with the red-hot Kinsler, who drew upon the memory of some previous at-bats against Rivera.
“In my mind, I know he remembered how he got me last year,” Kinsler said. “That’s part of what makes him so good. So, I think he figured I’d made an adjustment on his cutter, and he was going to come in with the sinker. I was looking in the right place when he threw it.”
Kinsler turned on Rivera’s third offering and blasted it into the LF corner for a leadoff double, with the 2, 3 and 4 hitters coming up next for the Rangers. But Kinsler wasn’t planning to sit out there and wait to be driven in, he wanted to make things happen. Having already stolen 2 bags in the game, Kinsler made up his mind to steal third when first base coach Gary Pettis informed him of Rivera’s slow (1.6 second) delivery to home plate.
“[1.6 seconds is] more than enough time for me to steal the base, and I didn’t want to lose this game,” Kinsler said. “So I was going.”
Kinsler went on Rivera’s 1-1 delivery to Michael Young, and the throw to third from Jorge Posada(who has been nursing a sore shoulder all season) was on the outside of the bag. Withnobody out, the Yankees had to bring their infield up to try and cut off the run, but instead it played right into the hands of Michael Young, who chopped one up the middle for the go-ahead single. The Rangers did proceed to put runners on first and third with one out, but Rivera retired David Murphy and Brandon Boggs to end the threat and leave CJWilson with a 1-run lead to protect in the bottom of the 9th.
Wilson, who has looked like a whole new pitcher his last two times out, started the bottom of the 9th by walking Wilson Betimit on 4 pitches. But he quickly bore down and fired 6 consective strikes to induce a double play ball from MelkyCabrera, and a Johnny Damon chopper to end the game.
At 3 games over .500 now, with another well-played baseball game in the books, things certainly seem to be looking up for the Texas Rangers and their young players – even Tom Hicks says he’s excited about the Rangers young players. But I’m also starting to wonder that if this sudden pre-trade deadline winning streak continues, might actually turn out to be a bad thing. Why? Because Hicks also offered this fairly disturbing quote about the Rangers chances to contend this year:
“Who’s to say?” Hicks said. “[Manager] Ron Washington thinks so, and I’m not going to argue with Ron. It’s all about pitching. We’ve got to get good starting pitching and good bullpen pitching. We’ve had both, but we’ve got to make sure we have them at the same time.”
That is the absolute last thing we need, our overzealous owner deferring to our moron manager about our playoff chances and then possibly shifting this teams focus at the deadline this year from selling to buying.
That would be the classic cycle the Rangers organization has kept going though (especially since Hicks has taken over as owner): develop just enough of the young talent to start seeing some marginal success, and then go dealing half of it away to acquire one or two players to try make a premature push for the playoffs that we’re not ready for. No, we need to deal the guys like Vicente Padilla and Milton Bradley for some key pieces who can also be a part of the long term picture, and we need to let the various positional battles, such as the one at catcher sort itself out among the young talent we have there. We also need to let our premiere prospects in the lower levels of the minors, like Neftali Feliz and Michael Main continue to develop, and see where they are in a year or two. I think Jon Daniels at least understands that, and hopefully so does Nolan Ryan – but Hicks is the exact kind of owner who could get worked up about a 7 game winning streak or something right before the trade deadline here, and instruct his GM to make some more potentially disastrous shortsighted moves. But we’ll see what happens - I can only hope the Rangers keep their senses here at the deadline.
In other news, Eddie Guardado’s shoulder tweak isn’t serious, and he should be back by Friday in Baltimore. Also, Scott Feldman’s next start is being pushed back a day, just to make sure he’s handling the rigors of his first full season as a starting pitcher.
“We just want to give him a break,” pitching coach Mark Connor said. “He’s pitching more innings than he ever has in his career. We’ve talked about this off and on. He still gets two more starts before the All-Star break.”
Quick hits: Brandon McCarthy threw a 45 pitch bullpen session yesterday, and looks good – his next challenge will be to face live hitters again… Ron Washington says Frank Catalanotto will start at DH today, while Max Ramirez will start at catcher… Mike Hindman (who recently moved his excellent minor league ruminations over to the DMN Rangers blog) reports that Tommy Hunter, the Rangers 5th round pick from last years draft, has been promoted to AAA Oklahoma… Josh Hamilton will be awarded the Best Comeback Award at the 2008 ESPY’s.
Luis Mendoza will take on disgraced Ranger Sidney Ponson tonight in New York – for me, this is a must win game, because I do not want to lose to Ponson. Only problem is, Ponson tossed 6 scoreless in his Yankee debut, and the Rangers offense has scored just 5 runs in the first two games of the series… but we’ll see.
Last call: today, not yesterday is the last day of all-star voting. Yeah, I know it’s likely a futile cause, but go vote for Ian Kinsler some more anyway.
Filed under: Ranger Wins | Tags: Gerald "Superstar" Laird, Ian Kinsler, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Max Ramirez, Milton Bradley
Sorry I missed my usual game recap for Sunday’s game against the Nationals – I wasn’t able to catch the game thanks to some issues with MLB.com’s media player that I still haven’t been able to resolve (I don’t think my computer likes MLB.com very much). So as you might imagine, I really didn’t have a whole lot to say about that game anyway. But there where a few notable highlights that I’ll start you off with here, as we run down Sunday and Monday’s Ranger notes real quick:
The Rangers won 5-3, thanks to a Frank Catalanotto pinch-hit RBI single that broke a 3-3 tie in the 8th – as Evan Grant notes, Cat is now the best active pinch-hitter in Major League baseball, sporting a .292 average and a .382 OBP as a pinch-hitter in his career. Not sure if that actually means anything for his trade value, but I’d like to think it does.
Max Ramirez went 0-3 with 2 strikeouts in his Major League debut – in fact, he was the one Catalanotto pinch-hit for in the 8th. Ouch. I’m not worried though - he’s supposed to be a great natural hitter, so he should be able to adjust to the big leagues before too long.
I do wonder though, that if maybe the Rangers have called him up a little prematurely – with Milton Bradley’s health apparently limiting him to DH again (more on that later) I’m not sure that Max will be able to get enough consistent AB’s in the Majors to make a very seamless transition. Now that the initial euphoria of having Frisco’s resident Beasticon called up has passed, I really kinda wish the Rangers had just brought up Kevin Richardson (the backup at AAA Oklahoma) or signed a cheap veteran (a la Adam Melhuse) to be a scrub backup for awhile, instead of throwing Max into a role where his playing time might all of a sudden become a premium. After all, Ron Washington kinda has a history of not liking young “unproven” players, unless they’re providing some kind of immediate production. Of course, Max has played all of one game, but he apparently didn’t look to good, and it appears he’s going to have to compete with Milton Bradley and eventually Hank Blalock (two proven veterans) for most of his playing time. And that sounds like a losing battle to me, unless Max comes out tomorrow in Houston and goes 3-4 or something (which is of course, quite possible).
Another highlight of the game was Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s laser beam throw in the 6th inning to gun down Christian Guzman, the Nationals leadoff man, trying to steal second - according to Joey Matschulat, it was “one of the best pure throws by a Rangers catcher all season.”
Salty meanwhile, who is 2-3 in throwing out runners since Laird went on the DL, credited Vicente Padilla for getting the ball to the plate quickly, and allowing him to make a good strong throw:
“I knew I had enough time to step to the base and make a good throw,” Saltalamacchia said. “[Padilla] did a great job of getting the ball home quickly so I had a chance at the runner.”
Lets hope this continues.
As for Milton Bradley, he was out of the lineup for a 5th consecutive game on Sunday, and will now be limited to pinch-hitting for the remaining three interleague road games in Houston – although Ron Washington said he could play in a “tight situation”, whatever that means. Once the Rangers return home to face the Phillies, Bradley will once again be the primary DH, and will get infrequent starts in the outfield as he proves ready for them. As I said above, this, and the eventual return of Hank Blalock to play first base is going to be what puts a crimp in Max Ramirez’s playing time.
But when Hank will be getting back seems to be a pretty big question right now. Blalock has had – stop me if you’ve heard all this before – another setback in his recovery. Apparently, he bruised his right wrist diving for a ball in Sundays game in OKC, and was scratched from Monday’s start. Instead of being activated from the DL today, he will be reevaluated instead. Sigh.
One more injury note: Gerald Laird’s MRI results confirmed he is suffering a pulled hamstring – but not torn like Blalock’s was earlier this year. Dr. Keith Meister has given Laird’s recovery a window of 4-6 weeks, however – in other words he might not be back in time for the trade deadline after all. And that might not bode well if you’re like me, and really don’t want to see that stupid catching platoon start back up again anytime soon.
Now for something a little more on the bright side - Josh Hamilton has almost locked up the starting CF spot in the All-Star game. He’s remains second in the AL OF voting, with 1,791,623 votes. And that’s not all: Ian Kinsler has closed to within 166,523 votes of Boston’s Dustin Pedroia in the AL second baseman category, and could conceivably pass him – and of course, whoever’s #1 at the end of voting will get to start the All-Star game.
If you look at the numbers, it’s kind of amazing that Pedroia is in front period – his line of .282/.328/.408 just doesn’t compare to Kinsler’s line of .302/.362/.502. Kinsler also has clear edges in OPS (864 to 736) and OPS+ (131 to 94). Oh, and then there’s my favorite number, the VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) where Kinsler’s 31.1 VORP absolutely owns Pedroia’s 12.6 VORP.
So lets get it done folks: Ian Kinsler for AL starting second baseman 2008! The VORP pretty much tells the whole story.
I’m afraid I’ve got to hurry the rest of this along again, so it’s quick hits time: Evan Grant’s game story focuses on CJ Wilson and Vicente Padilla finding success with their fastballs… MLB.com’s Shawn Shroyer has had a couple nice pieces out on Rangers prospects Tommy Hunter and Elvis Andrus that are worth checking out… Richard Durrett has a piece up on Nolan Ryan and his ties to the Houston Astros… the Rangers have tossed their hat into the ring on the bidding for 16 year-old Dominican pitching prospect Michael Inoa, a 6′7″ 210 pound RHP who is considered to be the “crown jewel” of this years crop of Latin American players.
Today it’s Eric Hurley vs. Houston right-hander Brian Moehler. This will be yet another challenge for Hurley, having to pitch to the Astros high-powered lineup and do a little hitting as well – if he has to give up long fly balls, lets hope they head out into the cavernous center field that Minute Maid Park features, and not down the lines.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Ian Kinsler, Josh Hamilton, Michael Young, Milton Bradley, Sidney Ponson, Tom Grieve
Yes, the announcement of Eric Hurley’s callup was of course the big story yesterday, but there was some other stuff worth mentioning that didn’t make it into my afternoon update, so I thought I’d knock it out real quick this morning. So without further adeu, some random left-overs from Monday:
Milton Bradley has scored co-player of the week honors for his explosion at the plate last week. He shares the award with Joe Crede, who hit .524/.600/1.333 with 5 homers, 2 doubles and 12 RBI the last 7 days, good for a 1.933 OPS. Bradley hit .550/.690/1.450 (11 for 29) last week with 5 homers, 3 doubles, 9 RBI – a 2.140 OPS. Nice to have some recognition for Milton, who has really been carrying the team while Josh Hamilton has slumped a bit at the plate lately (perhaps due to his viral infection).
Speaking of Hamilton, even though he’s gotten a little cold of late, he’s still going strong in the all-star voting- he’s a sold second in the AL outfield voting, 257,664 votes behind Manny Ramirez. He has pulled away from third place Ichiro Suzuki, as he now holds a 226,044 vote advantage over third.
And it’s not just Hamilton who’s now getting recognition for Texas now – the Rangers as a whole are surging in the All-star voting. Ian Kinsler and Michael Young have moved up to second in their respective second base and shortstop races, and Milton Bradley (who is just now starting to really get votes, thanks to his insane performance of late) is up to 14th in the OF voting. In an even bigger surprise, Frank Catalanotto is somehow up to 5th in the DH voting – of course, he’s 1,073,257 votes behind David Ortiz, but that’s still impressive. Keep on voting, Ranger fans - it looks like you’re making a pretty sizeable impact.
Along with Eric Hurley’s callup seems to have come a renewed interest in the Sidney Ponson DFA’ing, and the situations surrounding it. Joey Matschulat notes notes that Mike Rhyner of DFW sports radio KTIC 1310 AM The Ticket recently claimed of knowledge that Ponson had unleashed a racial slur toward a “Rangers official” during one of his angry rants before his release, and that this “official” was presumably Ron Washington. Rhyner also went on to claim that Michael Young had also been involved in a “dust-up” with Ponson, which would lend credibility to the recent rumor that Young’s finger was not fractured in a weight-room accident as claimed, but instead in a fight with Ponson.
Of course, sports talk radio is not the greatest source for credible information, but if these claims are true, then you can certainly understand even more why the Rangers where so quick to release Sir Sidney, despite the fact that he had been a fairly productive member of the pitching staff. The recent pieces from Evan Grant and Kevin Sherrington on the subject would seem to contradict these rumors – Sherrington even goes so far as to specifically say that Ponson’s problems “did not include a fight with Michael Young, rumors to the contrary” – emphasis his.
I myself really have no problem believing the rumor of Ponson unleashing a racial slur – that would fit right into Sidney’s modus operandi as a profane douche with a problem with authority. I do however, doubt the rumor about he and Michael Young mixing it up, if for no other reason than I seriously doubt Michael would have lowered himself to that level.
But true or not, these rumors are pretty much moot, in my view – Ponson’s past indicates that he is not a good teammate, or a responsible athlete- and we do know that in one form or another, Sidney had been sliding back into his old ways with the incident in the bar in Tampa. As Evan Grant says, he was basically challenging the team to release him with his attitude toward the team and his teammates – and the Rangers didn’t let him get away with it. I don’t really care to what lengths his antics went to, simple logic tells me that a pitching-starved team like the Rangers (who specifically went after him him midway through spring training) would not have released him had they not felt it absolutely necessary. And for that reason, I trust the Rangers judgement on their decision.
Hell, it’s not like Ponson was Roger Clemens or anything on the mound anyway.
And finally, best wishes go out to broadcaster Tom Grieve, whose surgery for prostate cancer was supposed to be Monday. I haven’t seen word yet on how everything went, but I hope it was successful, and I pray for his swift return to the booth – Ranger broadcasts just aren’t going to be the same while he’s gone.
Millwood vs. Meche later tonight – go Rangers.
About a month ago (well, a little less, actually) the Rangers had the worst record in the American League, and where tied for the worst record in baseball. As I wrote back on April 23rd: we where below the cellar in the AL West. At that point, the Rangers where in the midst of a 2-8 road trip, and Ranger fans where calling for the head of Ron Washington, among other people.
Since the end of that horrid road trip however (after which the Rangers had tied the worst 23-game record in club history), the Rangers have gone 15-6, taken third place in the AL West from the floundering Mariners, won 7 straight series, and now climbed back to the .500 mark with a 6-2 victory Saturday against the Houston Astro’s.
The game got started with the Astro’s striking right away, as Miguel Tejeda singled in a run in the top of the first after a walk and a stolen base by Kaz Matsui. Vicente Padilla didn’t seem to have his best control last night, particularly at the beginning of the game, as the Astros would put runners on second and third after another walk and a wild pitch, but Padilla escaped the inning by getting Darin Erstad to ground out, and would proceed to pitch a solid ballgame, while the Rangers offense came out swinging to jump on Roy Oswalt.
First, Milton Bradley mashed a 2-run homer to right in the bottom of the same frame to give the Rangers the lead. Then Marlon Byrd, making his first OF start since his return from the DL, started what would turn out to be a 3-4 day for himself with another 2 run homer to right in the second.
Padilla would allow a solo homer to Lance Berkman in the fourth, but that was all the Astros could muster against Vinny, as he would wind up going 7 strong innings, giving up 2 runs on 5 hits and 3 walks, striking out 6. A great start for a guy who didn’t even appear to have his best stuff or command early, especially against the potent (and recently red-hot) Astro offense.
Texas got a couple insurance runs in the 7th on RBI singles by David Murphy and Gerald Laird, and that was all they’d need, as Joaquin Benoit and Eddie Guardado pitched a couple shutdown innings in the 8th and 9th to send the crowd at the Ballpark in Arlington home happy. While the Rangers did leave 8 men on base, it was a nice crisp, clean victory after the slugfest on Friday – but more importantly, it puts them back at .500, and just 2.5 games out of first place in the AL West. Leave it to Michael Young, “the face of the franchise” to sum things up:
“It’s significant because it happened so early,” shortstop Michael Young said. “It’s not a surprise because we expect to play well, but to get back to .500 in the middle of May after our start is pretty good.”
While this amazing streak of winning baseball has saved the jobs of Ron Washington and perhaps others like Mark Connor, I don’t really think you can chalk up this turnaround to anyone on the coaching staff. No, this winning streak has been all about the players as a whole, and about separating the deadbeets (like Ben Broussard and Jason Jennings) from the promising youngsters. I really don’t think it’s a coincedence the team has taken off now that the performances of guys like Josh Hamilton, Ian Kinsler and Milton Braldey have been combined with those of young guys like Brandon Boggs and Scott Feldman.
In short, the Rangers cleaned some house, and while it has mostly been a rash of injuries that lead to the callups of guys like Boggs, and not actual decisions by the Ranger management, the results seem to have taken the Rangers a few more steps down the rebuilding path. And that, my friends, is the most encouraging thing about this streak the Rangers are riding.
Moving on to Saturday’s notes, Josh Hamilton was pulled from the game after singling in the 5th inning, momentarily stopping the hearts of Ranger fans everywhere. Apparently, Josh is just a bit banged up after making a diving catch in the first inning of Friday night’s game, and he doesn’t consider it serious, but he’s feeling it enough to ask to play RF instead of CF last night, and then ask to be taken out in the 5th. He’s also likely not going to start today’s game
“It’s about being smart and I’ve finally kind of realized that,” said Hamilton, who was 2-for-3 on Saturday after going 5-for-5 with two homers and five RBIs on Friday. “It’s about what I think is the best move for the team and what the best move is for my body. I’d like to play as many games as I possibly can.”
Smart move by Josh and the Rangers – keeping him and Milton Bradley healthy are two of the biggest priorities for the Rangers this year.
Todd Wills of MLB.com has an interesting piece up on the Rangers website about Ian Kinsler’s baserunning abilites, which certainly seem to be coming into play more this year in the leadoff role. Ian has a slightly amazing 88.5% career success rate on the basepaths (a franchise record for a player with more than 40 stolen base attempts) and currently has a streak of 19 consecutive successful steals. This is exactly why I’ve maintained throughout the offseason and spring training that Kinsler should be our leadoff man right now: he may not go out there and run an absolute ton, or possess outright blinding speed, but he has excellent instincts, picks his spots very well on the basepaths, and is currently putting up a good enough OBP for the job. Nice to see him getting some credit for it – it looks like he’s gonna be our designated leadoff guy for awhile, at least until somebody who’s more of a pure OBP/leadoff type comes along.
Evan Grant says in his latest collumn that teams signing young players to long-term contracts is a smart thing to do, and is probably intimating that the Rangers should start doing this at some point or another… to which I would probably agree on, for certain players. Granted, deals like the ones Grant refers to sometimes require a leap of faith from ballclubs, signing players with little to no track record. But it also makes sense, if for no other reason than to throw a wrench at the standard business workings of power agents like Scott Boras, who like to take their clients to free agent market after their initial service period is up, and then rape teams in the bidding war.
Now here’s something from Friday, which I’ve been meaning to put up here for awhile now: Jeff Wilson of the Star-Telegram’s recent articleon Nolan Ryan and the Texas managment. Along with the old “he’s-more-than-a-figurehead,-he’s-for-real” routine, Wilson seems to credit Ryan as the one who saved Ron Washington’s job last month, and says Ryan gives Jon Daniels a “perspective he didn’t have before”. There’s also this odd quote from Tom Hicks regarding JD:
“Some of the mistakes J.D. made in trades we wouldn’t have made had Nolan been at the table. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that again.”
Hmn. Wilson goes on to say that Ryan’s presence has allowed Hicks to step back and take care of other matters (such as his glorified Liverpool FC soccer team), and says Hicks has allowed Ryan to become “the public face of the ballclub”.
If what Wilson says is true, it seems that Nolan Ryan has taken a bigger part in this organizations workings, or at least accomplished it faster than anyone really expected. It also might suggest that Hicks doesn’t have as much confidence in JD to get the job done as it has previously seemed – you can’t really draw any conclusions from this, but it certainly makes you wonder if Nolan is setting himself up to play a very, very big role in this teams future.
Other notes: Luis Mendoza has developed another blister on his pitching hand, that will prevent him from making a minor league rehab start this week… if you recall, that was the problem that had Mendoza on the DL to start the season… Hank Blalock is going to continue his rehab in Arizona in extended spring training… Friday seems to be a tentative target for his return… and Kevin Millwood says he’ll throw from a mound today, as he recovers from his groin strain.
Today, it’s Kason Gabbard vs. Brandon Backe. Again, Rangers looking for their first sweep of 2008. They have 7 straight series wins, but have yet to sweep a three game or more series this year. Not that it matters though, I’m perfectly happy to see them take 2 out of every three lately - although it would have been nice to have swept the Mariners this week. And it would be nice to close out the homestand with a win, before the Rangers head off on a 10-game road trip.
