Oh Scooter...

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Scooter Feldman just cannot seem to put together a good game much less a good inning this year.  He's 0-6 with and ERA north of 6.  When the Rangers could really use a spot starter to come through, Scooter just hasn't delivered.

And Josh is in the hospital with an intestinal virus (that sound unpleasant to say the least) getting fluids through an IV.  Same thing that put Doogie Holland on the DL?  Don't know.


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Still up 3 games on the Halos even though the pitching and offense has been inconsistent.


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: The thing about Scooter's performance that really hurts is two-fold: (1) on the one side Scooter could have played himself into the rotation (at least for a while) especially with Ogando, Feliz and Holland out and Oswalt not ready yet but, his play has made that all but impossible; (2) and if Scooter had played well and when Feliz, Holland, Ogando and Oswalt are ready to pitch, Scooter would have been great trade bait to offer a team near the trade deadline.  Oh well.

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Poor Manship ...

I heckled Manship mercilessly years ago when he played against your Texas Rangers.  No cursing or anything but, it was fun to yell, "you got nothing Manship!"  And the Rangers rallied against him.  Now his own team can't even spell his name right.  He can't win for being Manship.  Or Mansihp.  

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Rangers Lose Series to Halos But Salvage Game 3

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Errors.  Way too many errors.  And way to many runners left on base, which is very unusual to date for this incarnation of the Rangers.


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Matt Harrison looked great through 4 innings (perfect I think) and they hung on to win the last game of the series.


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: After all of that your Rangers are still up 4.5 on the second place Halos.  Now the dog days of summer are about to begin.  The Rangers will play in games during the day in the mid to high 90's and the low 90's to at best the high 80's at night.  But, our Rangers are used to that kinda heat right?  What about the new guys like Nathan and Yu?  We'll see.

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Went to the Game Last Night, Rangers Got Beat Like a Drum

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Two errors hurt, especially the one committed by the usually reliable Beltre which cost the Rangers a 3rd out that would have gotten Scooter Feldman out of a bases loaded jam.  Rangers gave up 6 earned runs in the game, 10 total runs, compared to getting only 3 of their own runs across.  Ogando looked shaky at best in relief.  The Rangers are getting into the habit of making the Seamen look a lot better than their W/L record would indicate.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Josh went yard.  Scooter Feldman will get a lot of criticism for the loss but, look at his line, 4.1 IP, 2 ER, 3 K's, 3 BB's.  Not a great K/BB ratio but, not as bad the score would indicate.  Just saying, it wasn't all Scooter's fault.


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Halos are only 5.5 games behind your defending AL champion Texas Rangers.

Rangers sign Oswalt.  This causes multiple questions to pop up:
When will Oz be ready to start?
What happens to Feliz when he's healthy?
Feliz back to the bullpen?
Is Feliz more seriously injured than the Rangers are letting on?
Tommy John surgery for Feliz?
Will Robbie Ross have to wear the pink backpack again?

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Not Bad But, Not Good Either Recently

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Like I worried about in my last post it appears the Rangers are human after all.  Remember everyone was falling over themselves proclaiming how good they are?  Now they're 4-6 in their last 10.  Josh is below .400.  Feliz is injured and Scooter Feldman was knocked out today with a grand slam by the powerhouse Mariners (last part meant to be sarcastic, the Seemen are anything but an offensive juggernaut). And Napoli is in a huge slump.


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Beltre is apparently over his injury.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Yu pitched poorly yesterday too.  He's human too.

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So The Past Week Or So Hasn't Sucked

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Not too much, if anything, to b!tch about here but, I'll give it a try:

Holland and Harrison have given up more than a few runs in some recent outings.

I'd like to see Mitch Moreland hit for average.  It's painful sometimes to watch Young play defense at 1B, 2B and 3B, is it just me or does it seem like his feet are stuck in cement?  Of course he is the utility guy and on the wrong side of 30.

Oh yeah, and some a$$hole ump threw Wash out of a ballgame on his 60th birthday.  His birthday!  That's not right.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: JOSH HAMILTON
(the other guys haven't been half bad either)


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Tom Verducci and others had better quit trying to jinx the lil' Rangers and stop writing articles saying they're the best team in baseball and/or comparing them to the Yankees of the late 90's and/or saying the Rangers will be good for years to come.  Quit it.

Oh yeah, the Rangers lost to an\\KC's old, soft throwing lefty last night whose fast ball tops out in the mid-80's mph at best, managing only 1 run.  That'll hopefully keep them humble.

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Behind Yu, Rangers Shut Out Spankees, Win 2-0

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: I got nuthin' here really.  Rangers managed only 5 hits against Spankee pitching but, the Ranger pitching picked the bats up.


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Yu continued to improve, he pitched all but one pitch tonight for the shutout against the Spankees.  Oh yeah, Joe Nathan came in and threw one pitch to induce the the game ending double play in the 9th to pick up the save.  That's very strong to scary strong.


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: To continue the double-backwards jinx, Josh is now batting exactly .400.

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Boston Homer Party

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Not much here.  Didn't tune in till top of 8 when Rangers hit 3 homers and first seven Rangers batters in that inning reached safely.  Heard mention that Young was lifted for David "Charlie" Murphy because of a stiff back, that's not good.  Also, it seems that a lot of times huge offensive outputs like this are followed up by anemic performances the next day, we'll see.


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining:  Offense was very strong to unbelievably strong.  21 hits, 18 runs.  Colby Lewis has walked one batter in his first two starts.  Is that good?


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: There was a Vicente Padilla sighting (former Ranger '06-'09) who came in as a reliever for the Red Stockings.  I just remember Padilla being a pitcher who either had terrible control at times or would bean a batter for a team just 'cause he felt like it.  Used to make for interesting ballgames when he pitched for the Rangers, if someone went yard on him it seemed like clockwork that he would bean the next guy.

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In With the Good, Out With the Bad, Round and Round, Like a Carousel

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: So Joe Nathan (no relation to the hot dog company as far as I know, stay tuned for more info re this) has lost one game and blown a save now in this young season when:

a) entering a ballgame on short rest (48 hours or less think)
b) coming off Tommy John surgery
c) being older, 37 years old and again, coming off Tommy John surgery


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Today Doogie Holland pitched a great game.  Who knew?  And the offense, for the most part, has been strong to very strong.  And David "Charlie" Murphy is batting over .400.  Oh, and Josh is also over .400 too.  I'll keep you posted regarding their respective charges to be the first batter since the Splendid Splinter to bat .400 or better for a season.  Yeah, that's right, I jinxed them, deal with it.  Might as well as get over with jinxing it now.


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: I don't like Poo-Holes and the Halos.

And, at the encouragement of many, I will trust in Wash and collective Rangers brain-trust when it comes to the closer.  But, Adams and Ogando are sitting right there...

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Why the H Wasn't Yu Darvish's First Start Televised Locally?

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Seriously, why wasn't Yu Darvish's first start, albeit in spring training, in a Rangers' uniform televised at least locally?  I would bet dollars to donuts it was televised in Japan.  This is the biggest rookie start in Dallas since when?  Since Aikman's first start wearing the star on his helmet?  And I think they showed Aikman's first preseason start his rookie year in its entirety.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: ESPN news showed Darvish face his first 4 batters.  And he threw 36 pitches, gave up 2 hits, 0 runs, walked 0, and fanned 3.  Not a bad start.  From what I saw he had a deceptively quick fastball, a slider that tricked hitters and a good sinking/cutting fastball too.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Some local media outlet should televise all his starts, please.

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