Rangers Lose Finale Versus KC; Multiple Blown Chances

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Looking at the box score Elvis had an OK to good game.  But, in the top of the 7th Olt was on third and Elvis was on second with no outs and Young at the plate.  Young singled and of course Olt scored.  Elvis ran through third base coach Dave Anderson's stop sign and was thrown out at home by a country mile.  Again that was the first out of the inning.  Few batters later Nellie had a deep flyout for the last out of the inning that would have scored Elvis easily had he been on third where he was supposed to be.

Then in the top the 9th with Olt on 3rd and no outs Elvis couldn't get the bat on the ball for a bunt suicide squeeze and Olt is out.  The pitch was low, away and in the dirt so it was hard to get the bat on the ball.

Elvis leaves the game and and in the 10th Alberto Gonzalez comes in and commits an error.  Next batter, Olt commits a throwing error, winning run scores.

Oh yeah, Holland didn't look good either.

 Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Beltre broke out of his hitting slump with RISP.  Josh hit and scored and Olt is continuing to impress at the plate.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: This one got away.  Period.  Way too many chances that the Rangers let slip away.

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Rangers Over KC 4-2; Go for Sweep Tomorrow in Early Game

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Offense was a little more quiet than in recent games managing only 4 runs, otherwise not much to gripe about.


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Olt and Josh had the RBI's in the ballgame.  Good to see both those guys with RBI's.  Scooter Feldman is starting to look like the pitcher he was a few years ago with another strong outing.


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: A lot of TV talking head "experts" keep saying that the Halos are the best team in the division if not in the AL, well going into tomorrow not only are the Halos (6 GB) not first in the West but, they're 3rd behind the A's (5.5 GB).  Weird how the talking heads forget to mention that when they're gushing about the Angels...

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Yours Truly Talks Rangers Baseball on the Radio

The great great guys from the radio show Three Point Stance had me on their radio show last night during the Rangers/KC ballgame to talk all things Texas Rangers.  Thanks to hosts E.J., Scottie and Robbie for having me on.

Though the show emanates from Long Island, NY you of course can find their show online every Friday night at 8:00pm central time at: http://www.wlie540am.com/

They're on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ThreePointStance

And check out their twitter feed: http://twitter.com/3ptstanceradio

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NOT a Pitching Duel, Rangers Win 15-9, Split Series With Halos

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Dempster probably was hoping for a better first outing with his new club, giving up 8 ER's in 4.2 IP.

It was at least 105 degrees at first pitch.  And it was windy, the wind felt like a huge blow dryer was hitting your entire body.


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: The bats continue to produce on this second day of August and the Rangers beat up on C.J. Wilson in the process.  Lots of offense but of note are the new additions, Soto and Olt, both of them contributed to the offensive explosion.  David "Charlie" Murphy continues his hot streak going 2-2 off the bench.  Nellie and Kins both went yard for the second straight night.  And...Josh Hamilton had 4 RBI's in the ballgame.  


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Look, if the Rangers put up 7+ runs each game they should be hard to beat.  If Josh is getting right again the timing couldn't be more perfect especially if Napoli, Nellie, Murph and Kins continue to do what they've done recently at the plate.  Let's hope, wait and see.

C.J. Wilson, former Ranger and current Angel, is, to put it nicely, an interesting character off the field, here's some local media types having a little fun at CJ's expense using his own quotes:

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Rangers Rally to Win in 10 Over Halos

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: The Halos' first 6 runs of the game were on 2 hits in the top of the 3rd .  A combination of Yu walking batters and a throwing error to first when Kinsler was trying to turn 2 contributed to that.

Pujols homered twice.  Again.

In the top of the 10th Nathan gave up 2 homers which scored 3 runs to put the Halos back up by 3 in the ballgame after the Rangers tied it in the bottom of the 9th.

In the bottom of the 9th the Rangers had the winning run on second with 1 out (an Elvis double) but, the Rangers couldn't bring the run around to score and win the game then.


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: After being down 6-0 going into the bottom of the 3rd the Rangers rallied pulling to within 1 run, down 7-6 going into the bottom 9th.

Kins tried to make up for the early error by homering in the bottom of the 9th to tie up the ballgame.

Down 3 in the bottom of the 10th, first, Nellie homered to start yet another rally (by the way earlier in the top of the 9th Nellie gunned down a runner at home, which proved to be important).  Then Moreland singled in a run.

And last, Elvis had the game winning walk-off hit to score 2.  Rangers win the ballgame in the bottom 10th.  Wow.


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: You cannot give teams extra outs which is exactly what the Rangers did early on in this game.

The Rangers have scored the second most runs all year, second only to the Red Sox.  But, the Rangers were dead last in runs in the month of July.  Just shows how hot the Rangers were earlier in the year offensively and how far the Rangers' bats fell off in July.  Well it's August now, hopefully this win on August 1st will prove to be representative of the rest of August and the season when it comes to the Rangers' bats.

Murphy scored three times and had a RBI to continue his hot streak.  Napoli also continues to stay hot with 2 RBI's and a run scored.  Elvis, Moreland, Kins, Beltre, Cruz, Napoli, Murph, Young and Gentry all either had at least one RBI or one run scored in the win.

Oh yeah, welcome to Texas Dempster, how'd you like your first game with the club?

How cool is it that the Rangers do the fireworks and play the theme from "The Natural" every time a Ranger goes yard?  You cannot really appreciate how awesome it is unless you're at the ballpark when a Ranger goes yard.  Anyways, I think it's pretty darn cool.

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Dempster Is a Ranger; Rangers Lose Second in a Row to Halos

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Yup, Rangers lost another game to the Halos managing just 2 runs against the Halos 6 runs.


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: They lost to Weaver who arguably is the best pitcher in the AL right now so what did you expect.

Dempster is a Ranger!  And Dempster will hopefully cure what ails the Rangers, at least when in comes to having some type of veteran anchor in the rotation with Colby Lewis out for the year.


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Pitcher Martin Perez was sent down from the big club to Triple-A Round Rock to make room for Dempster.  Perez's ERA was a tad north of 4, not too bad for a newbie.  The only problem with Dempster being added is that it doesn't address the offensive problems the Rangers have been having.

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Rangers Lose to Halos 15-8

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: That's right 15-8, the Rangers were beat like a drum.  Oz gave up 8 hits and 3 HR's in 5.1 IP.  Not good.


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Wasted a great Josh (breakout game?) effort, he went 3-4, with one BB and a HR, scoring twice.  Rangers put up 8 runs albeit in a losing effort.


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: If you would have told me the Rangers would have dropped the claw on the Halos to the tune of 8 runs I would have bet dollars to donuts the Rangers would have come away with a 'W'.  Shows what I know.

Mitch Moreland is back and the Rangers traded for catcher Soto from the Cubs, a former rookie of the year for a minor league pitcher.  But, that's one too many catchers with the big club so sadly that means that apparently catcher Yorvit Torrealba will designated for assignment by the Rangers. If that's true then so long Yorvit and thanks.

Now the Rangers are up 4 on the Halos and A's.  The A's play the Rays on the West Coast so if the A's win tonight the A's will be 3.5 behind the Rangers.  Again, it's a 3 team race in the wild West Division.

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Rangers Avoid Sweep Versus White Sox

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Rangers only scored 2 runs.  One run on a ground out to the pitcher, the other on an error.  Offense continues to struggle to say the least.


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Scooter!!!!!  Feldman pitched 8 innings of shutout ball.  Then Joe Nathan closed it out.


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Next up 4 vs. the Halos.  Is it still a big series since the Halos are 3rd in the division behind the A's?  Answer: yes, but, this is now a 3 team race.  You gotta check the A's and Halos scores each night when the Rangers aren't playing them.

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Rangers Lose Again to White Sox; Josh Sits Out

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: It's hard to win when you cannot get a hit with runners in scoring position.


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Napoli hit a solo homer accounting for the Rangers only run of the ballgame.


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Yes, Josh sat out of tonight's ballgame.  And why not, he hasn't exactly been effective at the plate recently.  Besides an arm maybe the Rangers could use a bat.  All the Rangers, for the most part, looked like they are trying to figure stuff out at the plate tonight.  Maybe they need to shake up the batting order.  Why is Gentry batting 9th when he's one of the few Rangers hitting over .300.  I know that some will say that he's hitting so well because he's batting 9th.  Well, let's test out that hypothesis by moving him up in the order.  Just a thought.  


Josh also had an interesting quote before the ballgame tonight apparently:


"The frustrating part is dealing with (the media) and not being able to share everything with you guys," Hamilton said. "When the time is right, you guys will be right in the loop."


So, what can he not share with us?  Is he hurt?  Has he been since June?  What else could it be?

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D'oh! Halos Land Greinke

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Really?  The Brewers had to deal Greinke to the Halos? Oh, yeah Rangers lost to the White Sox last night.


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: There are those that think Greinke would not have been a good clubhouse fit in Arlington and that Josh Johnson is the Rangers' real target.


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: If not Johnson then again, what about Dempster?  The Marlins will likely try to make the Rangers overpay for Johnson.  Or could the Rangers pull off the rarely seen intra-division trade with the Mariners and land King Felix?  With the Halos loading up on some pitching for a playoff run I would think the Rangers would do something.  I guess they don't have to but, if the Rangers don't make a move and end up in a one-off wild card playoff game or (gulp!) don't make the playoffs because both the A's and the Halos overtake them then there are going to be a lot of questions about not making a move.  All that said all the talking heads on TV seem to think a Rangers move is in the making to acquire a front of the rotation pitcher.

Of course, any pitching acquisition may be for naught if the Rangers' bats continue to be anything but consistent.  Let me put it this way, does anyone really think the Rangers have any chance of winning a World Series much less winning a playoff series if Josh Hamilton is hitting .190?  Well, Josh has been doing just that since June 1.

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