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: Ranger Losses | Tags: Bad Managing, CJ Wilson, Kevin Millwood, Ron Washington
Author’s note: This piece was supposed to be out Thursday morning, but for some reason it didn’t publish correctly and the site sat un-updated through the entire off day, for which you have my apologies. I hope you don’t mind reading my now-redundant post for time being - later today or tonight I hope to dig into some of the trade rumors that have been flying around lately and give you some fresher thoughts.
Going into yesterday’s game, all that was missing from the Rangers post all-star break slump was a bullpen meltdown. After already getting shutout once and blown out twice, it almost seemed as if you could hear the distant scream of the incoming trifecta that hit the Rangers like a mortar round shortly after Ron Washington called CJ Wilson out of the bullpen in the 8th inning yesterday.
Up until that inning, the Rangers had been enjoying a pretty good day at the ballpark. After being down 3-1 early, they had rallied to chase White Sox rookie Clayton Richard after just 4 innings, scoring 5 runs off of him on 7 hits. The Rangers 1-2 hitters provided most of the punch, as Ian Kinsler broke out of his post-ASB slump by going 2-5 with a 2 run double in the second, while Michael Young homered and racked up 2 RBI in the first 4 innings. They also got 4.1 innings of superb one-hit relief from Josh Rupe and Warner Madrigal after Kevin Millwood left with a reaggravated groin in the second inning. Madrigal, despite giving up a solo homer to Carlos Quentin, was especially spectacular, throwing 23 of 34 pitches for strikes and K’ing 5 in his 2 innings of work. When the Rangers headed into the bottom of the 7th, the score was 8-4 and they seemed to have the game well in hand. That of course, was when the trouble started.
Ron Washington brought in Jamey Wright, whom he recently identified as his designated 7th inning man (despite the fact that he had given up a run in 3 of his last 4 appearances), but the electrician couldn’t duplicate the success of Rupe and Madrigal, giving up a run on 2 hits and a walk before escaping the inning. With it now a 3-run ballgame, Ron Washington went to normally reliable setup man Eddie Guardado.
Guardado didn’t seem to be himself however, allowing a leadoff double and an RBI single to the first two batters.After a popup, that was followed by another double and a walk, cutting the Texas lead to 8-7. That’s when Ron Washington brought in closer CJ Wilson in an attempt to get out of the jam – and that’s when Carlos Quentin jacked Wilson’s first pitch out to left-center for a three-run homer and a 10-8 White Sox lead. I can’t even begin to tell you how deflating that moment was. According to CJ himself, the pitch (a 94 MPH fastball right down broadway) was simply a meatball:
“It was a meatball,” Wilson said. “Call it a meatball. … We have a big series against Oakland. We have to regroup and get everybody focused and get set up for that.
“I don’t make excuses. It had nothing to do with warmups. Me throwing a meatball and he hits a home run, that has to do with me throwing a meatball and a guy hitting a home run.”
Well, at least CJ wasn’t afraid to admit his mistakes this time – but personally, I have to say I’m more irritated and puzzled at why Ron didn’t bring in Frankie Francisco to get out of that inning than I am mad at CJ for making that pitch. The opposition is hitting a miniscule .129/.270/.226 (695 OPS) against Frankie with RISP and 2 out and as a result, he has bailed us out of many a jam this year, stranding 79% of baserunners. By contrast, the opposition is hitting .240 against CJ with 2 out and RISP - but with a .424 OBP and a .520 SLG% (a .944 OPS). Also, Frankie has held right-handers to a .222 average this year, almost 40 points lower than CJ (.260). It should be noted that Quentin does have a reverse split in that he’s only hitting .207 against lefties this year, but he’s still slugging .500 with an 836 OPS against them - and CJ has really struggled of late, opposing batters having lit him up to the tune of .321/.457/.536 (993 OPS) so far in July.
So regardless of that reverse split, I just don’t know why you’d bring your struggling closer into the middle of a jam when you’ve got your best “clutch” pitcher fully available on one days rest in the bullpen – yeah, from a fundamental standpoint your closer is supposed to be your best reliever and therefore capable of handling that situation, but nothing about CJ is fundamental. He’s been far from the most effective pitcher in the bullpen this year, and when you start exposing him in the wrong situation at the wrong time like that you’re just begging for matters to get worse.
As for Kevin Millwood, his next start on Monday is now “up in the air” after the recurrence of his groin issue in the second inning:
“It got sore to where I couldn’t push off and I couldn’t throw any strikes when that happened,” Millwood said. “I felt it at the beginning of the second inning.”
“It’s annoying; it’s frustrating,” Millwood said.”I just want to get it taken care of and be able to pitch without worrying about it.”
“It just seems like little things all over the place. I don’t know what to do or what to say … just try to get through it.”
If Millwood can’t make his next start, Scott Feldman will likely get the call in his place – and considering Millwood’s current 5.40 ERA and 1.735 WHIP, I’ve got to admit I don’t think I would mind that at all.
Quick hits: Gerald Laird is expected back on Saturday once he finishes his rehab assignment with AAA Oklahoma - he has played 3 of the 4 games so far and is 0-9 at the plate… Brandon McCarthy made his first rehab start with Oklahoma on Tuesday and gave up 4 runs on 7 hits and a walk in 3.2 innings, but hey – at least he pitching in real games again… Eric Hurley is on trackto make his start on Sunday against the A’s, saying his arm feels better after throwing off flat ground… Milton Bradley is listed as day-to-day after being hit by a pitch in the 7th inning Wednesday… the Rangers have signed 5th round and 7th round draft picks Clark Murphy (OF) and Matt Thompson (RHP).
The Rangers head into Oakland now to take on the second-place A’s – we’re only a half-game out of behind them in the standings, so if we take 2 out of 3 we’ll also take second place in the standings. Not that it matters, mind you – both the A’s and us are 10 games behind the Angels, so moving into second shouldn’t delude the Rangers into making any rash trades to try and jump back into the race. First up is Vicente Padilla vs. Sean Gallagher – Vinny of course went 7 scoreless last time, so here’s hoping for a duplicate performance.
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 Wins | Tags: Chris Davis, CJ Wilson, Eric Hurley, Kevin Millwood, Matt Harrison, Michael Ballard, Vicente Padilla
You know something? Matt Harrison is pretty good.
Called upon to help fill in for a Rangers starting rotation currently ravaged by injuries and bad performances, the 22 year-old lefty from Durham, SC didn’t seem fazed at all by the spotlight or any of the circumstances surrounding his Major League debut last night. He just went out there and hit his spots, providing the Rangers seven strong innings of work – and making every one of the three runs the Rangers offense squeezed out of all-star pitcher Joe Saunders count as they picked him up for his first Major League win in a 3-2 Rangers triumph.
The game got off to a late start thanks to 56 minutes of rain, but neither Harrison nor his opponent Saunders would seem fazed by it, although Harrison had to overcome an initial hiccough in the first inning when the leadoff batter Chone Figgins grounded one to Michael Young, who saw it go off his glove for an error. Not exactly the way you want to start a ballgame with a rookie on the mound, but what followed may have been the key play to the entire ballgame.
When Harrison ran the count to 3-2 on Gary Matthews Jr. (the Angels #2 hitter), Mike Scoscia decided to put on the hit-and-run with the speedy Figgins at first. But Harrison struck out Matthews with a high fastball, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia gunned down Figgins at second – a textbook strike ‘em out, throw ‘em out double play. As Harrison later said, that seemed to set the tone for the rest of his outing:
“That really helped a lot. That gave me a boost of confidence to go after guys and be aggressive and get the nervousness out of my system.”
And that’s exactly what he did, running in and out with a sinking fastball that topped out at about 92 MPH, and a high 70’s change that kept the Angels guessing the entire night. The only inning he had any real trouble in was the 5th, when he surrendered the only walk and extra-base of the outing and Garret Anderson blooped a seeing-eye single back up the middle to score 2 runs.
That gave the Angels a very short-lived 2-1 edge, but Chris Davis responded for Texas by jacking a no-doubt homer to right in the bottom of the frame, his 5th in just 37 at-bats since being called up from the minors, and his fourth in 4 starts at the RBiA this year. While his average may be dipping right now (.111 through his last 5 games) you can’t say the raw tower-to-tower power has gone anyplace.
The Rangers took the lead back for good in the bottom of the 6th when Ian Kinsler led off with his 31st double of the season (extending his hitting streak to 20 games) and Josh Hamilton singled him home for his 87th RBI. Matt Harrison breezed through the 6th and 7th innings, getting up to 97 pitches before ending his night with a line of 7 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 1 BB and 1 K. I don’t think you’ll find very many Major League debuts with lines like that one – as Ron Washington put it, that’s just an outstanding debut.
“It’s everything I ever worked for in my life and coming up through the Minor Leagues,” Harrison said. “I can’t explain how happy I am to be here. I talked to a few of the pitchers before the game and they just said, ‘Be aggressive and throw strikes.’
And that’s exactly what he did – he kept his cool, threw strikes and stuck to his gameplan. Which is a lot more than can be said for quite a few other Rangers pitchers this season (that’s right, I’m looking at you, Luis Mendoza). If that performance doesn’t warrant at least one more start this weekend, I don’t know what does.
The game wasn’t over of course – the Rangers still had to survive another CJ Wilson near-meltdown en route to the save. Just when we thought CJ was getting his act together after ticking off four consecutive perfect outings between June 29th to July 5th, CJ allowed 2 home runs in Baltimore on Sunday. And last night, after Eddie Guardado tossed yet another seemingly effortless 1-2-3 8th inning, it was time to break out the Tums and charge up the defibrillators again for the 9th inning.
After an easy groundout to start the inning, Vlad Guerrero smashed a ball through the overshift and into LF for a single. Then CJ walked Torri Hunter in 5 pitches, before getting a comebacker to the mound off the bat of Howie Kendrick that should have been a game-ending double play. But not only did CJ double-clutch before throwing to second, he made a girly throw too – it was low, and nearly had to be dug out of the dirt by Ian Kinsler. Kendrick reached at first, and the game continued. After Kendrick took second base on what was ruled defensive indifference, the decision was made to walk Garrett Anderson and face pinch-hitter Juan Rivera with the bases loaded. Fortunately, CJ was able to get Rivera to ground one sharply to Ian Kinsler to end the ballgame, and escape the abyss of the blown save once again – but I must admit, I’m tiring of CJ’s little routine of putting the tying run in scoring position every time before he closes out a ballgame. I know, I know – I should probably just be happy he’s not blowing saves, but… this isn’t the way a closer pitches. Considering Frank Francisco has been pitching like his old 2004 self lately I think it may be high time to tell CJ that he’s going to start splitting save opportunities with Frankie, at least for a little while. If nothing else, it might motivate CJ to just go out and mow people down instead of trying to be Jamie Moyer in the 9th inning.
In other news, it has been announced that the merry-go-round that has become the Rangers starting rotation will make another turn tomorrow, as Frisco left-hander Michael Ballard will be called up to take Vicente Padilla’s place in the rotation. Padilla is still nursing a sore seck that has apparently hampered him his last two starts, and Eric Hurley was already placed on the DL yesterday to make room for Harrison, so the Rangers didn’t have any other choice than to bring up a green arm from the minors – and with all the options in OKC tapped out, they apparently felt Ballard, their former 14th round pick in the 2006 draft was the best option, likely because he is 5-0 with a 2.17 ERA his last 7 starts (although he is 8-3 with a 3.97 ERA overall).
If you’re wondering exactly what Ballard’s repertoire is, Mike Hindman has an excellent scouting report up on him over at the DMN blog, from which the following is an excerpt:
Ballard is a soft-tosser, who often pitches backwards, and his stuff is by no means overwhelming. He keeps hitters off-balance with his assortment of a high-80’s fastball, a mid-70’s change and high-60’s 12-6 yakker
When he’s going good, he works with quickly and with confidence, throwing any pitch in any count for strikes. He’s shown an ability to miss bats (6.52 K/9), but he’s by no means a strikeout pitcher.
Ballard is an extremely intelligent pitcher who has proven that he does a better job of adjusting to a league’s hitters than they do adjusting to him, but realize this …
Don’t expect too much out of him tomorrow. Ballard’s pattern suggests that he may eventually carve out a niche for himself as a crafty, soft-tossing lefty in the mold of Jamey Moyer.
How the Rangers will get Ballard on the 25-man roster is currently still a mystery – he easy option would be to just send Harrison back down - but with Hurley on the DL you’ll need another starter this weekend, so that might be pretty stupid considering the game Harrison just threw. I think myself that Warner Madrigal or Luis Mendoza are more likely candidates to go down – or perhaps the Rangers could put Vicente Padilla on the DL, since he just doesn’t seem to be getting over this neck thing, and according to TR Sullivan “nobody is sure” when he’ll pitch again.
We’ll see what happens, but the Rangers definitely need Ballard to make this start, because there’s still more uncertainty with Kevin Millwood, who is currently dealing with a mildy strained groin (which landed him on he DL earlier this year, BTW). While he says he feels confident he’ll still make his next start, it may have to be pushed back until Saturday, which would necessitate the use of a bullpen arm like Josh Rupe in a spot start on Friday. As Millwood himself put it:
“I don’t think we have a rotation, it’s more a smorgasbord of pitchers,” Millwood said. “We throw someone out there where we can and get to the All-Star break.”
Truer words have never been said.
Quick hits: Brandon McCarthy is scheduled to throw a simulated game today in Suprise… Thomas Diamond is not going to undergo surgery on his foot after all - he’s had a cortisone shot in his ankle, and will attempt to finish the season after resting for 2-3 weeks.
Michael Ballard and the Rangers will take on Jered Weaver tonight in Arlington – and I hate to say this, but if I had a hundred bucks to blow, I’d go bet it on the Angels for this game. Weaver is 2-1 with a 2.36 ERA in his career against the Rangers, and he has a 1.89 ERA at the RBiA – oh, and there’s probably a 90% chance that Michael Ballard is going to get hit pretty hard, seeing as how he’s never pitched above AA and his stuff really isn’t all that great. So… yeah. My advice is to brace for the worst, or go see a movie or something (hey, somebody had to say it).
Filed under: Ranger Losses | Tags: Chris Davis vs. Hank Blalock, CJ Wilson, Eric Hurley, Kevin Millwood, Max Ramirez, Neftali Feliz, Vicente Padilla
It was not a very good 4th of July for the Texas Rangers. First of all, they wound up on the wrong end of the fireworks show for the second consecutive game, as Vicente Padilla got lit up in a 10-4 loss to Baltimore - the second time in two games the Rangers have given up double digits in runs. As if that wasn’t bad enough Padilla and Eric Hurley have both come up with some minor strains, all of a sudden creating some turmoil in the starting rotation.
There’s not a whole lot to say about yesterday’s game – I frankly don’t see the need to go dwelling upon it too much this morning. Padilla lasted just 2.2 innings, and gave up 8 runs on 9 hits and 2 walks, which doomed the game early. The Rangers did manage to rally to within 4 by scoring 3 runs in the 7th but the O’s put it away with 2 runs in the 8th, allowing them to cruise to a series-opening victory. There where however, some positives among the carnage you can take away from this one – so why don’t we focus on those real quick:
- Warner Madgrigal tossed 2.1 perfect innings after relieving Padilla in the third, retiring all 7 batters he faced rather handily. That’ll go a long ways toward offsetting his disastrous ML debut – very encouraging to see.
- Ian Kinsler, Milton Bradley and Jarrod Saltalamacchia all had 2-hit games – Kinsler is maintaining a 16-game hitting streak, Bradley knocked in 3 of the 4 Texas runs, while Saltalamacchia had his first 2 hit game in nearly a month, and is now hitting .300 for his last 5 games.
- Frank Francisco (I’m not really sure why he was used in a spot where it was an 8-1 ballgame, but this is still pretty good) tossed another perfect inning, and has now not allowed a hit or a walk in his last 5 appearances (5.2 innings). New setup man, anyone?
The big news of the day however, was the condition of Eric Hurley and Vicente Padilla. Padilla took a liner off his thumb in the third inning, was pulled and sent for x-rays on the thumb. Fortunately, the thumb is fine, but Ron Washington said Padilla came out for a different reason: a neck strain. Apparently, his neck is something that was bothering him his last start against Philadelphia, when he gave up 7 runs in 6 innings. It isn’t clear yet whether he will make his next start Wednesday against the Angels – irregardless however, Padilla’s not blaming his poor performance on his neck:
“I’m not sure how [the neck] will be for the next time; we’ll have to see,” Padilla said through a translator. “But the neck is no excuse. I left everything over the middle of the plate.”
Hurley meanwhile has been scratched from his next start after his left hamstring “tightened up” while he was doing windsprints:
“I was doing some sprints in the outfield and had to pull up,” Hurley said. “The leg has been tight but on the off-day yesterday, it felt good, and today it felt good. I’m not sure why it tightened up but I don’t want to take any chances.”
Add that to Kevin Millwood, who got smacked in the shin by a liner and had to leave early in his last start, and the Rangers now have 3/5 of their rotation nursing minor injuries. Millwood at least expects to make his next start on Sunday however - but right now the Rangers aren’t completely sure about Hurley and Padilla. Hurley should be back by Tuesday, while Scott Feldman, who was supposed to get some extra rest by having his start pushed back a few days, will just swap starts with Hurley, and go on normal rest today. But there appears to be a little more doubt about Padilla’s condition:
“This thing is bothering me,” Padilla said, pointing to his neck. “So I’m not sure if I will be done with that and be able to pitch on five days’ rest. I have to wait. I have to see.”
If you’re wondering who would get that start if Padilla is unable to go, Dustin Nippert was pulled from AAA Oklahoma’s game today, and would seem to be the likely callup should anything go wrong.
Meanwhile, Ron Washington reiterated yesterday that Hank Blalock would play first base when he came back from the DL:
“Once Hank made the decision to move to first, he said he didn’t want to be yo-yoed back and forth,” Washington said. “I want to do my best to respect that. Let’s just let this play out. I don’t want to speculate. Let’s wait until Hank is ready. Chris is playing well so I don’t want to create any problems.”
Doesn’t sound too good for Chris Davis, even though Ron does a nice job of backpedaling there at the end. The mighty CD went 0-4 yesterday, if you’re wondering - but I guess it doesn’t matter. Either way it seems that the Rangers are indeed that stupid, to let a guy who has absolutely no chance to stick around here next year as a first baseman upstage their #1 positional prospect. Ugh.
Speaking of shorting the younger players playing time, it appears that getting Max Ramirez at-bats isn’t very high on Baseball Man’s priority list either – he’s decided he wants to play Catalanotto as much as possible now:
“Cat’s swinging the bat well,” Washington said. “It looked like [Wednesday] he was swinging with determination. He was aggressive and we want to see if we can keep him going. I want to find ways to play him. Every opportunity I get, I’m going to get him in there.”
If this is gonna be the way it is, I would like to see Max sent down to AAA, where he can play DH/1B and catch a couple times a week. It might not be the consistent time behind the plate which he could probably use to work on his defense further, but Max at least needs consistent at-bats – it really doesn’t sit well with me that he’s spending so much time riding the pine. Either play him or send him to AAA and bring up Kevin Richardson to back up Salty, or go get a cheap veteran like Damian Miller for the job. But he’s too good a natural hitter to be fermenting on the bench.
CJ Wilson apparently had some pretty interesting stuff to say yesterday during an interview with Bob Sturm of the sports radio station KTCK- much of it having to do with how he feels that the subtraction of certain players from the Ranger clubhouse has really improved the atmosphere this season.
“I can’t even begin to tell you how much better it is now than it was two years ago,” Wilson told KTCK’s Bob Sturm. “And the most obvious thing I can say is, you look at the roster, the guys that we have now versus the guys that we had then.”
CJ had some praise for Milton Bradley and Eddie Guardado, and their clubhouse presences this year, while saying that a “dark cloud” was lifted from the clubhouse last July, obviously referring to the Mark Teixeira trade.
He also made reference to a ”big” and a “medium sized” cloud disappearing from the clubhouse after the 2006 season – and apparently intimated that one of those “clouds” had been Gary Matthews Jr. If I had to guess, I’d bet the other one was probably Buck Showalter.
“They weren’t interested in being part of a team,” Wilson said of the unnamed players. “They were just interested in bank accounts.”
Very interesting indeed.
Big minor league promotion being announced this morning: Evan Grant has just confirmed the speculation that the Rangers #1 pitching prospect Neftali Feliz has finally been promoted from low-A Clinton, where he has been dominating this year – the 20 year-old righty had been 6-3 with a 2.52 ERA and a 1.01 WHIP in 17 starts. The surprise, however was that he has not been promoted to high-A Bakersfield, the traditional next stop in the minor league chain – he’s being sent straight to AA Frisco, and will make his first start on Monday. Pretty aggressive promotion, but I guess they figure Feliz, who had 106 strikeouts to 28 walks in 82 innings in Clinton this year can handle it. Feliz is still working on building his secondary arsenal around a pure heater that sits in the upper 90’s (usually around 97) - but he’s made strides on his changeup and curveball this year in Clinton and apparently, the Rangers see fit to challenge him here. Needless to say, I’m really excited about this promotion – Feliz is a guy I really think could be #1 starter material, and I’ve been waiting for them to promote him from Clinton for awhile now. The thing is, I thought he’d spend some time in Bakersfield, where I might be able to actually go see him pitch – but promoting him straight to Frisco is way more exciting to ponder. It seems like the Rangers are promoting with daring right now – we’ll see how it goes with Neftali Monday, but I think a challenge could be good for some of these young guys. After all, learning how to make adjustments and compete at a higher level it what it’s all about.
Quick hits: Joey Matschulat has an article you should check out up on BTiA breaking down Ian Kinsler’s defense – very informative and eye-opening… Brandon McCarthy threw a 55 pitch bullpen yesterday, and will throw a simulated game on Tuesday, as he seems to be edging closer to a comeback… Chris Shelton has accepted his assignment to AAA Oklahoma… and Michael Young was back in the lineup yesterday, his groin apparently fully recovered, and Eddie Guardado’s shoulder has apparently recovered as well.
Scott Feldman vs. Brian Burres tonight – Burres is a lefty, but he’s got reverse splits, with LHB’s hitting .349 against him and RHB’s .277, so maybe he won’t hinder the Rangers as much as other lefties have this season. One things for sure, I’d be happy to see our pitchers hold the opposition to 5 runs or less after the last 2 games. Go Rangers.
As predicted, Cliff Lee presented a huge obstacle for the Ranger offense yesterday. And despite their best efforts in working the count and drawing walks, they couldn’t beat him, as one critical mistake by Scott Feldman turned out to be the difference in a 5-2 loss.
Early on, it looked as if the Rangers would have a chance against the red-hot Cleveland lefty, who came into the game with a 6-1 W/L mark, and an AL-leading 1.37 ERA. David Murphy came up with a 2-out RBI single in the top of the first to put the Rangers up 1-0, and Ian Kinsler knocked in a second run in the second with a broken bat roller up the middle.
That 2-0 advantage was short-lived, however, as Scott Feldman was victimized by some shoddy defense (which has been a recurring theme in the games in which he has started) in the bottom of the second. After a leadoff double by Ben Francisco, Indians first baseman grounded one toward the left of Ian Kinsler – and Kinsler flat out missed the play, the ball going under his glove. That allowed Francisco to score, but Marlon Byrd, the right fielder made a second error on the same play, airmailing the throw home to allow Aubry to advance to second. Byrd would atone for his mistake the next chance he got, however, as he gunned down Aubry trying to score on a Jhonny Peralta single to keep the lead at 2-1.
It would ultimately be Feldman’s control, which didn’t seem to be at it’s best on this particular night, that was his undoing. The very next inning, he gave up a 3 run homer to Ben Francisco on a mistake pitch that was supposed to be a sinker outside, but wound up a meatball in the LF seats.
Peralta tacked on a solo shot in the 6th, which was Feldman’s last inning, and that was all the Indians would require, as Cliff Lee allowed just 2 hits from the 3rd inning on (after allowing 7 of the first 13 Rangers to reach), and the Indians bullpen capped the night off with scoreless outings by Rafael Perez and Joe Borowski. Even though Feldman took the loss though, and beat himself up a bit over it, Ron Washington is still impressed with what he’s seen from “The Swan” so far:
“He’s still progressing,” manager Ron Washington said. “He just had trouble with his command. He’s still progressing, and he always finds a way to get into the sixth inning. He still has a ways to go, but once he gets his command together, he’s going to be tough. Tonight, he had Cliff Lee. He had to be really, really, really good.”
Getting through 6 innings was enough of an accomplishment for Feldman last night, as it meant the Rangers bullpen (namely Eddie Guardado and Joaquin Benoit) only had to throw 21 pitches in the 7th and 8th innings, and should be fairly well-rested for today. That could be important, considering rookie Doug Mathis (who lasted just 21. innings his first start) will be on the hill.
This loss drops the Rangers a game back of .500 again – twice in the past week now, the Rangers have pulled even with .500, but they have yet to find a win to actually put themselves over the mark. Rangers baseball: sometimes, it’s like banging your head on the ceiling.
The Rangers did get some good news today on Kevin Millwood though: the Rangers #1 starter threw 65 pitches in his simulated game yesterday with no problems, and has been cleared for action against the Oakland A’s this Friday in Arlington. Said Millwood:
“My groin feels good, I didn’t have any problems with it,” Millwood said. “I felt my stuff and location was as good or better than it has been all year.”
Wondering if Kason Gabbard’s horrendous outing on Friday might have been the result of some physical ailment? Well, according to Mark Connor, it’s not. Connor said he queried Gabbard about it after the game, and got an “unequivocable positive answer” from the left-hander. Actually, to tell you the truth, in one way it might have been a consolation of an injury had been responsible for the way Kason looked Friday. Because otherwise, it means he just flat-out sucked.
Some other notes from that article on the Rangers pitchers who reside in the mythical land known as the disabled list: Luis Mendoza is being assigned to AAA for his rehab assignment, and should start for OKC Monday. The Rangers say it’ll take 3-4 rehab starts before he’s ready to come back though… Brandon McCarthy has been cleared to start throwing again… at this point, I’ll believe any progress re: his recovery when I actually see it… and John Rheinecker (remember him?) had “cleanup” surgery on his shoulder Saturday, but should still return sometime after the all-star break.
Also worth noting is the fact that the Rangers future first baseman, Chris Davis, has been promoted to AAA Oklahoma. He’s still got some kinks to work out with his K/BB ratio, but I imagine this means that we’ll see him at first base by September for certain now. Which is why moving Hank Blalock to first base was a stupid, knee-jerk move.
Doug Mathis goes today against CC Sabathia – I hate to be negative, but all I really have to say is, it will be a small miracle if we win this game.
Filed under: Ranger Wins | Tags: Hank Blalock, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Kevin Millwood, Tom Grieve
Welp, it wasn’t pretty. In fact, it was long, drawn out, and ugly. But at the end of the night, the Rangers where able to call this one a win, as they knocked off the first of the Indians “big three” pitchers, Fausto Carmona, and drew even at .500 again with a 13-9 victory.
Neither starter seemed to want the win in this one - Carmona, who came into the game with an ERA of 2.25, got lit up in the first inning for 4 runs, which came on a 3 run double by David Murphy and an RBI single by Chris Shelton. But Kason Gabbard didn’t seem to have much going for him last night either, as his lack of control nearly lost the Rangers that entire 4 run advantage.
Gabbard, who would surrender a horrifying 6 walks in just 2.2 innings pitched, gave up 2 runs in the bottom of the first on a double and a wild pitch. He then committed a gaffe on a fielders choice in the second, and gave up another run on a sac fly. By this time, the Ranger lead was down to a scant one run, but that was all about to change in a flash.
After pitching a scoreless second, Fausto Carmona was greeted by a Milton Bradley double to start the third, and then apparently strained himself covering first on a David Murphy infield single. After a prolonged injury delay on the mound, Carmona was removed from the game, and veteran reliever Jorge Julio was brought in to take over. That was when the wheels fell off for Cleveland.
Julio immediately walked Brandon Boggs to load the bases, and then walked Chris Shelton to force in a run. That brought up Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who came into the game 3-4 with 5 RBI in bases-loaded situations already this year. 2 pitches later, BOOM. First career grand slam for Saltalamacchia.
Ramon Vazquez (who had 3 doubles on the night) and Ian Kinslerfollowed up with back to back doubles, and Milton Bradley capped off the 7 run explosion with a sac fly. From there on out, it was just a matter of hanging on for the Rangers, but that wasn’t as easy as you’d have thought.
The struggling Gabbard, who was awarded new life thanks to his teammates 7 run outburst, promptly gave up a three-run homer to Grady Sizemore the next half inning to close the gap to 11-6. That brought about Gabbard’s immediate exit, and Kameron Loe took over to try and stop the bleeding. Which he did for awhile, pitching 2.1 scoreless innings before running into trouble in the 6th, when he gave up an RBI double to Ben Francisco, that probably should have been a 3-run homer.
Francisco appeared to hit the ball off the railing just above the high wall in LF. But the umpires blew the call and it went as a one run double, despite the best efforts of Indians manager Eric Wedge (who rightfully got ejected over it). That may have made a huge difference in the game, because Frank Francisco came in and bailed Loe out of the inning, and while the Indians would score two more in the 7th on a 2-run double by Jamey Carroll, it was only 12-9 instead of the 12-11 it could possibly have been.
We’ll never know for sure exactly what might have transpired had the Indians gotten those two runs, but as much bad luck as the Rangers have endured themselves this season, and with the way the umpires just treated us in Minnesota, I don’t really feel all that bad about Texas getting that call - even though it didn’t look like it was the correct one.
In any case, the Rangers tacked on another insurance run courtesy a Ramon Vazquez double in the top of the 8th (they’d previously gotten one in the 6th on a Vazquez sack fly), and Jamey Wright came in and retired all 6 batters he faced in the 8th and 9th innings to finally secure the victory – 4 hours and 9 minutes after the start of the game. Between all the scoring (which wasn’t so bad, really, it’s just the stuff that interspersed it), the 16 total walks that permeated the game, an umpire huddle, two ejections (Milton Bradley got ejected in the 9th for arguing balls and strikes) and a couple injury delays, and the fact that Rafael Betancourt (the slowest relief pitcher in the universe) pitched in this game, it was one of the most painfully drawn out Ranger wins I can recall – but I’m more than happy to take it.
In other news, Hank Blalock did not rejoin the team today, as you might have already guessed – apparently, Hank has now developed Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. As as dissapointed Hank would put it: “I feel like I lead the league in syndromes.”
On an even more somber note, Rangers broadcaster Tom Grieve has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and will undergo surgery June 9th. Fortunately, it appears they caught it in time, and he will only be missing 2-3 weeks up in the booth – my thoughts and prayers go out to TAG, and I really hope he makes a full, speedy recovery.
Random stuff: Kevin Millwood will throw in a simulated game today, so the Rangers can determine if he needs to go on a rehab assignment, or if he can be activated Friday against the A’s… The Rangers have released John Patterson, since he will not be able to pitch at all this year… the DMN’s Kevin Sherrington has a piece up comparing Josh Hamilton and Edinson Volquez so far this year, and says the Rangers made the right choice in making that trade… duh… and finally, if you want a good laugh, check out this recent interview yahoo sports did with current Twins broadcaster (and one-time Ranger pitcher) Bert Blyleven. Hilarious stuff. My dad actually pitched on the same team as Bert in high school back in the 1960’s… but that’s another story.
Today, it’s Scott Feldman vs. the Red-hot Cliff Lee. To tell you how good he’s been, Lee leads the AL in ERA at 1.37, has a .202 opp average, and 46 K’s to 5 BB’s this year. He’s also left-handed, and the Rangers have struggled against left-handed starters so far this year – but his 6.52 career ERA against the Rangers is his second highest against all AL teams. Whatever happens, the Rangers could use a solid start from Feldman after having to burn through the bullpen last night – with Doug Mathis starting on Sunday, the Rangers are going to want to conserve their bullpen if at all possible.
