Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Rangers win 2 out of 3 versus Spankees in Jeter's last trip to Arlington

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: If the Rangers's bullpen had anything last night the Rangers would have swept them. Of course last night the bullpen was terrible and wasted a great offensive performance by Arencibia and the Rangers.

And again last night there was an error in the outfield. Sorry, it's on Leonys Martin as the CF to call his fellow outfielders off when he can make the play and too often this year he hasn't been assertive in his role defensively.

Sadly, this is the first series win for the Rangers in over a month. Is that bad?

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Lewis looked good again. And again Feliz closed out a game.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: This weather recently and this summer generally is freaking me out. It was downright pleasant at the ballpark last night and I'd guess is was more of the same weather-wise tonight.

Beltre quietly is having a great year at the plate. Please, please, please don't let me find out that he has been traded.

Even though he's a Spankee, I never heard about Jeter acting like a jerk like a lot of his Spankee peers (see Clemens, ARod, Texeria, for example). Pretty much a class act. End of an era. That said I will be glad when he's not playing against the Rangers anymore.

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Monday, July 28, 2014

Just tuned in through 4.5 innings versus the Spankees and...

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: ...the Rangers bats have mustered all of 2 hits (of course zero runs) and Yu has given up 2 solo HRs to Brett Gardner. And sure, why not some more salt in the wound, Jeter's 2 for 2.  So yeah, about par for the course/season at that point in the game. 

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Rangers rallied in the bottom of the 5th and put up 4 runs. Then Yu had a shutdown inning in the top of 6. 4-2 Rangers would be the final score. 

And in the bottom of 9 none other than Neftali Feliz had a 3 up 3 down inning to get his second straight save. It's weird but good seeing Feliz close games. Especially close games successfully. 

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: While watching tonight's game versus the Spankess I started thinking of all the things that have gone wrong for the Rangers this past off season and this season. Sure most of them involve injury but I decided to list them in no particular order off the top of my head. Here you go:

- Nolan "retired" and then is an advisor to the 'Stros owner. Huh, that's weird, retirement usually does not mean working somewhere else, much less for a competitor. 
- Holland injured his knee allegedly by tripping over his dog. "Tripping over his dog," allegedly does not mean playing in a rec league hockey game during the off season. 
- Prince got hurt and missed games for the first time ever in his career. 
- Choo signed a huge contract and then bats more like Elvis than Beltre. 
- Martin Perez has to have Tommy John surgery. 
- Profar got injured. 
- Soto got injured, then got caught with weed, then got injured again. Oh yeah, and Soto was the best option the Rangers had for a starting catcher. 

That's all I can think of right now. Feel free to chime in in the comments if I missed something. 

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Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Rangers lose 2-1 to Spankees' ground crew's ineptitude and rain

Apparently the Spankees' ground crew had never tried to cover the field with a tarp before trying tonight. And it took them close to half an hour to finally cover the field in a torrential downpour in the Bronx.


Again, the Rangers find another unique, seemingly impossible way to lose a ballgame, with Yu on the mound no less. 

And the Rangers traded away Soria tonight. 

This yet another swift kick to the Rangers' baseball jimmy. And I'm sure there are more kicks to the Rangers' baseball jimmy to come. 

More curse of the Kolan?

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Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Spankees beat Rangers 2-1 with a walk off hit in 14

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: in the bottom of 12 it looked like to me that Elvis clearly called the ball on a pop up to shallow left-center field. The outfielders pulled up and then Elvis quit on it and it fell in. That lead to a bases loaded 1 out situation.

Soria uncharacteristically gave up a run to let the Spankees tie the game in the bottom of 13.

And in the bottom of 14 Tepesch gave up the walk off winning hit.

And the bats only contributed 1 run in 14 innings.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: The Rangers got out of the bases loaded situation in the bottom of 12 even with Scott Baker on the mound (he'd given up 9 HRs in 16 appearances this year).

And in the top on 13 Arencibia hit a solo HR.

And and in the bottom of 13 Arencibia at 1B made a smart fielding play allowing a weakly hit ball to land in front of him and turn 2 to get out of the inning.

Nick Martinez pitched 5.1 scoreless.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Questlove and Wyatt Cenac (I think that was him, former Daily Show correspondent) were sitting behind home plate and stayed until the end of the 13th in the 14 inning affair.

This was just another kick to the baseball jimmy in this season of multiple, different types of kicks to the baseball jimmy.

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Monday, July 21, 2014

Mikolas pitches Rangers to win over Spankees

Starter Miles Mikolas pitched into the 8th and Soria got the save to pitch the Rangers to a 4-2 win over the Spankees. The bats got to the Spankees' starter Greene and got enough runs on the board to support some good pitching. And now the Rangers are .500 after the All Star break.


And by the way, a friend pointed out that the Rangers' starter tonight looks like a young Nick Nolte. Which fits nicely with me thinking he was going to leave the game, change into a Hawaiian shirt, leather jacket and blue jeans and hit the beat as a 1970's NYC police detective with his older, wiser partner Wash.  You be the judge:

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Saturday, July 19, 2014

Rangers are 1-0 after the All Star Break, beat BJ's 5-1 last night

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Choo struggled at the plate again.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: It was weird, timely hitting combined with solid pitching beginning, middle and end equaled a win yesterday night. Beltre continued to be strong to very strong at the plate and he got some help from Arencibia who chipped in with a 3 run homer to break the game open. And Yu was Yu and Soria closed it out in his typical efficient fashion. It's just a shame that Soria hasn't been afforded more save chances. He's just that good.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: During the break reliever Frasor was traded away for a pitching prospect.

Benjie Molina wasn't the 1st base coach last night and TAG wasn't in the booth.

I understand that MLB wanted to honor Jeter during the All Star game. But what about all the other greats that deserve to be recognized. For example, what about honoring the late great Tony Gwynn? Fellow BBA writer Paul Francis Sullivan "Sully" put together an "In Memorium" video honoring the great players that passed away recently, including Tony Gwynn. You can find more from Sully at
http://sullybaseball.wordpress.com, his twitter handle is @SullyBaseball and his podcast is at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/sully-baseball-daily/id580843151.

There is a rare, weird noon game start time today versus the BJ's.

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Monday, July 14, 2014

Swept by the Halos the Rangers limp into the All-Star Break...

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: ...with the worst record in MLB, on an 8 game losing streak, after getting swept in 2 straight series, having lost 22 of their last 25. Since June 1st they've lost 29 out of 39.  To put it into perspective another slightly different way how fast the fall has been, on the morning of June 8 the Rangers were at .500. Now they're 19 games below .500.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: The Rangers can't lose any games during the break. And Yu and Beltre made the AL All Star team.

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Saturday, July 12, 2014

It just gets worse and worse and worse...

That's 21 losses in the last 24 games. That's also 7 losses in a row. And in this current 4 game series they're on the verge of getting swept by the Halos. And if that happens that'll be back to back sweeps against the Rangers leading into the All-Star break.


Today the offense managed 2 runs on 4 hits.

It's just tough to watch. And it's only the midway point of the season. Damn. 

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Nope. That wasn't rock bottom apparently for the Rangers. How is that even possible you ask?

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: It's possible because one of the few times the Rangers got a decent to good performance from their pitchers (3 runs given up all by Tepesch in 6 IP) the Rangers bats put up a goose egg against the Halos. I've asked before but will ask it again, how many games are you going to win when you score zero runs? Oh, that's right, none.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Pitching was good enough to win.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: That's 20 losses in the last 23 games played and 6 losses in a row. That's almost a month of just bad. I really don't remember a bad run like this since I started following the Rangers in 2000.

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Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Rangers swept by 'Stros. Is this rock bottom? It's got to be right?

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Even Yu has caught the bug plaguing the team as he lost to Houston. That bug is what you ask? It's called bad baseball. And the Rangers were swept by Houston in the process of Yu catching the bad baseball bug. I repeat, the Texas Rangers were swept by the Houston Astros. THE. HOUSTON. ASTROS.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: If this is rock bottom then it can only get better right? Yeah, I know, I'm lying to myself. But it makes me feel better. Kinda.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: With all the injuries this season Wash and JD get a pass for this season. At least that's the mantra I keep on hearing.

I blame this year on the curse of Kolan (getting rid of Kins + Nolan).

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Tuesday, July 8, 2014

The Rangers' pitching isn't just bad, it's the worst in MLB, and I'm not exaggerating, numbers don't lie

As the Rangers seem headed to their second straight loss against the lowly (yet compared to the Rangers, the mighty) 'Stros I made the mistake of checking the Rangers pitching as compared to the rest of MLB. Whoops. And keep in mind there are only 30 teams in MLB. Also per a text from a friend I received earlier tonight the Rangers were sending their 12th different starter to the bump tonight. All that said/written the Rangers' pitching in MLB is:

29th in ERA
30th in quality starts
30th in WHIP
30th in BAA (batting average against)

And those are just the stats I found by barely looking. And since I'm not a baseball masochist I didn't dig deeper into the pitching stats for fear of what other horrors the numbers might reveal.

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Monday, July 7, 2014

From, "it's like a train wreck, but I cannot look away," to "please make it stop, I can't watch anymore," to, "tell me more about this Tour de France thing"

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: If my calculations are correct, going into tonight's game against the 'Stros your Texas Rangers have lost 16 of the last 20 games, and as I write this they're losing to Houston 6-2. Somewhere Nolan is leaning back in a chair smiling.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: I got nothing.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: I'm serious. I'd rather watch guys a continent away ride things we all learned to ride as children than Rangers' baseball. At least before now I had the NBA finals and then USA soccer in the World Cup to distract me. Now? I have another half of a season of terrible baseball to watch.

Might as well call up every prospect that's even close to ready for the Show and see if they got anything.

As a great friend has said loudly and often, the whole training staff needs to be fired.

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When Last We Left Our Boys of Summer...

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