A lonestar in california

Well, the bad news on Saturday night was the Rangers vs. Mets game got washed away. As it turned out, that was also the good news, because it provided us with what will no doubt go down as one of the Rangers 2008 kodak moments.

With the rain pelting down at Shea Stadium, Ian Kinsler, Milton Bradley and their cohorts Josh Hamilton, Gerald Laird, Josh Rupe and Michael Young decided to take advantage of the conditions, and have a little fun by turning the infield tarp into a waterpark in “the great tarp slide”.

“We were having some fun,” [Michael] Young said. “All I heard was, ‘Tarp slide! Tarp slide!’ I couldn’t get my cleats off fast enough.”

 And so the intrepid six went hydroplaning through the puddles on the tarp, much to the delight of the staunch Mets fans that had remained through the rain in hopes of seeing a game. Cheers and chants of “lets go Rangers” quickly arose, as even the big bad Milton Bradley was having ball, playing umpire and joking around as he and his teammates went romping through the downpour.

“That’s what you call having fun,” [Josh] Hamilton said. “Team unity. We were saying we might be the last ones to do this in Shea Stadium. We’ll be a trivia question: ‘Who was the last team to tarp slide in Shea Stadium?’”

Heh. Now that sounds like a perfect fit for the back of one of Josh’s 2009 baseball cards.

Of course, the spoilsports will talk about how it’s fortunate nobody got hurt in all this, and some might even call it a stupid stunt – but as for me, I just call this awesome. It’s really, really great to see the players out there having fun like that – that’s a good indicator of a positive clubhouse atmosphere right now. My only question is where CJ Wilson was for all this – tarp sliding seems like something that would be right up his alley.

With the rainout, it means we’ve got a doubleheader scheduled for tomorrow - Kevin Millwood and John Maine will square off in game 1 at 12:10 central time, and 30 minutes after that contest wraps up, the newly activated Kason Gabbard will take on Pedro Martinez in game 2. Ron Washington says he will only start Milton Bradley in one of the two games, and will go with Marlon Byrd just to be on the safe side with Milton’s health.

To make room for Gabbard on the roster, Robinson Tejeda has been DFA’d. If he’s not traded first, this will be the second time this year the Rangers have put him through waivers, meaning that if he’s not claimed by another team, he can refuse the assignment to AAA and opt for free agency, which is probably what he’ll do. So get ready to wish him happy trails, folks – but we’ll always have his April 2007, in which he 2-hit the Red Sox in the home opener to remember him by.

Shifting gears for a moment, Evan Grant had some notes on Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s struggles with throwing out baserunners in his last game story, something I missed yesterday. It’s an important issue, because a lot of Ranger fans are getting pretty impatient with Saltalamacchia’s throwing struggles this year. 

And there’s some justifiable reason for that, of course - right now he’s going through a streak of having allowed 21 consecutive stolen bases, and is 1-23 in throwing out runners on the year. And the frustration from those numbers is only aggravated by the fact that Ranger fans have been pampered the last couple years by Gerald Laird’s impressive throwing arm (which still lurks every two days in the current platoon), and for a decade before that by the immortal Pudge Rodriguez. Ranger fans are simply not used to having a bad thrower behind the plate – and as such, many seem to be prematurely calling for Saltalamacchia’s catching gear on a stake.

The main problem for Saltalamacchia seems to be a serious flaw in this throwing mechanics – namely, an annoying tendency to hesitate, or double clutch on his throws that costs him a critical instant before he releases the ball. It’s something that most definitely needs to be corrected. But it’s not the only issue at work here - there’s a lot more to throwing out runners than just the catcher. How well a pitcher holds runners, and how fast of a delivery to the plate he has is just a critical an issue as throwing arm or throwing mechanics. And Salty hasn’t exactly been done any favors this year by the pitching staff – many of those steals are also coming off pitchers that have been slow to the plate and not held runners, such as Scott Feldman, Jamey Wright and Robinson Tejeda. During this streak of stolen bases he’s also had the challenge of having to try and gun down some guys like Carl Crawford, BJ Upton and Jose Reyes, whom even the most profficent throwing catchers have an extremely hard time catching. Now, I’m not denying that there’s a problem here that needs to be fixed – again, Salty needs some big improvements on his throwing – but the situations Salty has had to make a lot of these throws in of late have been less than ideal, and it’s accentuating the problem, making it look worse than it really is.

Also to be kept in mind is that he’s only a raw 23 years old - and his throwing mechanics are something that will most assuredly improve as he matures and spends more time behind the plate. Another thing that is key here is his inconsistent playing time - you can’t tell me that playing two days on/two days off doesn’t affect Salty’s throwing, just as it seems to affect his offensive game. On the flip side of the platoon, even the ever-reliable Gerald Laird has made some throwing errors since this platoon started, and had a couple here just recently in Kansas City. 

While there is hope for Salty’s throwing to develop into an asset, I’ll be the first to admit that he probably won’t ever be any more than average at catching base stealers (at the very best). Most of his value is going to come out of his bat in his career, and that’s something Ranger fans just need to learn to accept. Guys such as Jorge Posada, AJ Pierzynski, Jason Varitek and Victor Martinez have all managed to get by with less-than-stellar throwing abilities in their careers thanks to their offensive skills, and other abilities as a catcher, such as game calling and pitch framing - and Salty displays the potential to be above-average in all those fields. That’s why he needs to play every day in the Majors at catcher, so he can find his offensive groove, and continue to call games against Major League hitters. The throwing is going to be an annoying growing pain, probably just as Eric Hurley’s propensity toward long fly balls is going to be a frusterating problem in the RBiA - but with the superstar ceiling that Salty has a chance to achieve, it’s more than worth putting up with a few stolen bases and extra runs now if it means we have a defensively adequate, offensively stellar catcher for a future playoff run.

Patience is a virtue, Ranger fans – just keep that in mind this year when you see young players struggling with certain aspects their games. And don’t fool yourselves into thinking we’re in contention this season, either – mathematically we might be, but organizationally we are not. Most of our best players have yet to even take the field in Arlington, and those that have are just beginning their careers – but they are the ones who will win us the division titles when the Vlad Guerrero’s and the Torri Hunters of the AL West are on the backsides of their careers. As Yoda might say: yet to come, much is.

Quick hits: The team is going to stop off at the White House next week when they are in Washington playing the Nationals… President Bush of course is a former co-owner of the Rangers… Joaquin Benoit apparently had a cortisone shot in his sore shoulder three days ago, and played catch yesterday… apparently the Rangers think he can be back in the bullpen on Tuesday… Brandon McCarthy, who has been out all season with elbow inflammation, is now throwing up to 105 feet, but he still has a long way to go in his rehab, and might not be back till August 1st.

And finally, some useless trivia: when Kason Gabbard goes in the nightcap tonight, it will be the third time he has started in a doubleheader since joining the Rangers at the trade deadline last year. I wonder if that’s some kind of record or something. Don’t know exactly how much of the doubleheader I’ll be able to catch though, so in case I miss most of it, here’s a hearty GO RANGERS!