Holland Pitches Rangers to 4-2 Win Over Cubbies

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: The Rangers had managed only 5 hits and 1 run through 7 innings at the plate.

In the top of 9 Gentry was called out at home plate for the 3rd out on a throw from the 1B after the pinch hitting Martin had an infield hit.  The replay showed clearly that he was safe.  Terrible call.

Rangers' relief pitching continues to struggle.  And Jeff Baker dropped an easy fly ball that would have ended the game and secured the shutout.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Of course Derek, Doogie, the Dutch Oven, Holland only gave up 2 hits, no runs and no BB through 7 IP and when he left the game leading 1-0.  Then the Rangers added 3 runs in he top 8, including a Beltre 2 run homer.

Jeff Baker started in left and Muph sat.  Wash's decision kinda panned out as Baker had the first RBI of the ballgame (but Baker misplayed/dropped a fly ball in the 9th, see above).  And needless to say Murph's been struggling.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: In the top of 8 while the Rangers were batting (and scoring 3 runs) you could hear Rangers fans at Wrigley cheering, "let's go Rangers," during the broadcast.  Pretty cool.

Does anyone else remember when the Texas Rangers wouldn't even consider "asking" Alfonso Soriano (now a Cub) to play the OF?  Then he was traded to the Nationals and then-manager Frank Robinson did't ask him to play OF, he told him to and eventually Soriano did.  And now he plays OF for the Cubbies.

Oh yeah, it was in the 40's temperature-wise during the ballgame.  Sometimes it pays to live in Texas.  Of course I might change my tune when it's triple digits for 2 months straight in the summer.

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Rangers Lose Finale to Mermen 4-3, Split Series

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Splitting a 4 game series is about as unsatisfying as it gets, your team didn't win the series but at the same time didn't lose it either.  It's like kissing your sister.

And again the Rangers offense struggled leaving 10 on base with no HR's.  And Nick, Bulldog Jr, Tepesch earned all 4 runs giving up 9 hits in 5.2 IP.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: But Tepesch didn't walk anyone and his ground ball to fly ball ratio was 12-4, meaning a lot of ground balls found holes in the infield.  It happens.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Rangers still have not lost a series this year.  Next up inter-league play versus the Cubs in Chicago.  There are way too many key Rangers still batting under .250 (see Murphy, Moreland, Beltre, Gentry and Elvis for example).  That's got to change if the Rangers offense is ever going to get going.

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Rangers Beat Seamen 3-1

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: The Rangers managed only 5 hits.  And Ogando looked shaky in 5 IP.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: But Ogando only gave up the 1 ER and kept the Rangers in it.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: And Wash threw out a funky lineup.  Murph was moved down, Pierzynski was moved up the batting order, Baker played 1B, Garcia played SS, Berkman and Moreland sat, and Elvis DH'ed.  It got the job done in the end though.

Now the Rangers will try to win the 4 game series against the Mermen tomorrow afternoon.

The A's finally lost a game (versus Detroit) and their lead is now 1 game over the Rangers.

In other division news, the the Halos got a taste of Josh Hamilton checking out mentally in a ballgame when he lost track of the outs in the final inning and got doubled up on the base pads to end the game yesterday in a loss against the 'Stros.  Since Hamilton is fond of comparing himself to Jesus, I wonder if Jesus ever lost track of the number of outs when he was running the bases.

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Rangers Lose 3-1 Versus Mermen

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: How many games are the Rangers going to win when they score only 1 run?  Not many, including this one.  Murph and Beltre continue to struggle in the middle of the batting order.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Yu had a good, albeit wasted performance.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Murph is batting worse than Moreland yet he's #5 in the order.  Is it time yet to move Murph down the order and move Pierzynski, batting well over .300, up?

Oh, and by the way, the freakin' A's have now won 9 straight and lead the division by 2 over the Rangers.

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Rangers Win Ugly Versus Seattle in Opener Last Night

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Grimm looked rough on the mound.  And not helping matters the Rangers managed only 4 runs on a 11 hits.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Even though he looked rough Grimm managed to only give up 2 runs, keeping the Rangers in it.  And Everyday Joe Ortiz came in and looked good again giving up only 1 hit and 0 ER's.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: The A's have picked up right where they left off last year, are on an 8 game winning streak and lead your Rangers by 1 game going into today's action.

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Rangers' Offense Stunk Up the Joint...

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: ...and they lose the finale/getaway game 2-0 to the Rays.  The offense managed only 5 hits.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: And the Rangers wasted a good (even great) pitching performance by Doogie Holland.  He gave up only 2 runs on 5 hits.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: The poor offense was without Pierzynski and Berkman who had the day off.  I guess that's a some type of excuse for a goose egg.

Next up Seattle.

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Welcome to the Majors Mr. Tepesch!

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: The 4-8 batters in the Rangers' lineup were a combined 0-fer through 7.  Not good. (Although Beltre did have a ground ball out, RBI in the 5th)

Aggressive base running got Kins thrown out at 2B trying to stretch a single into a double behind Martin going from 1B to 3B on Kins' hit.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Rangers' rookie starting pitcher Nick Tepesch gave up only 1 run on 4 hits in 7.1 IP.  Not too shabby.  And his ground balls to fly balls ratio was 16-2.  Excellent, especially in the hometown park.

Oh yeah, the Rangers won 6-1 behind  young Mr. Tepesch's pitching and good offense from the 1-3 (Kins, Elvis & Fat Elvis) & 9 (Leonys Martin) hitters in the Rangers' lineup.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: I, as others have done, compared Joe Ortiz to Everyday Eddie Guardado yesterday.  So today I'm going to compare Nick Tepesch to another lanky right handed starter that didn't have an overwhelming fastball but did induce a lot of ground balls and looked calm, cool and collected on the mound.  Yup, I'm going to compare Tepesch to Orel Hershiser.  At the very least Tepesch sure did remind me of Hershiser tonight.  Bulldog, Jr.???

The Rangers have won the first 3 series of the year.  You know what that means?  Yup.  They're on pace to win each series this season.

Speaking of on pace...what's it about batting in the 3-slot for the Texas Rangers in the beginning of a season?  Berkman is batting .480 in the young season.

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Welcome to Baseball Town, TX Tampa Bay Rays! Rangers Win 5-4

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: The way our local announcers, Busby and Tom, "TAG", Grieve, were talking during the first 5 innings you would have thought Ogando was getting beaten like a drum.  In fact he only gave up 1 ER on 3 hits through 6.1 IP.  Sometimes I have no idea what game they are watching.  Frustrating to listen to announcers do that, much less our hometown guys.  Usually it's the national broadcasters that do stuff like that.  Oh, and the whole time Busby and TAG are bagging on Ogando they're praising the pitching of the Rays!  The Rays, who at the time were losing the game 3-1 in a pitching duel!  To Ogando!  Again, frustrating.

Also, Ogando seemed to be on a short leash since Wash pulled him after 6.1 IP, with less than 90 pitches thrown, having given up only 3 hits and 1 ER.  Sure, in the 6th he had 2 on with 1 out, but what happened to letting your pitchers pitch their way out of trouble?  Wash?

Kins' poor awareness at times on the base pads reared its ugly head again, he got caught in no man's land in the first inning.  This is a long running (pun intended) problem for Kins dating back to last season.

Kirkman is our setup guy?  He came in with a 5-1 lead in the 8th.  He started the 8th with 6 straight balls and eventually was pulled for Lowe, with the bases loaded and 1 out.  Then Lowe walked in a run and gave up another run on a fielder's choice making it a much more tense 5-3 ballgame.  This is an ongoing experiment/adventure.  Maybe Joe Ortiz (see below) will/should get a shot at being the setup guy.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining:  Beltre is starting to come out of a mini slump he was in to start off the season, driving in a first inning run.

Pierzynski and Moreland went yard back to back in the bottom of 4.  Moreland went 3-3, staring to come out of his early season slump.

As mentioned above, Ogando was lifted for the young reliever Joe Ortiz with 2 on and 1 out in the 6th.  Ortiz got out of the inning without giving up any runs.  And Ortiz was perfect in 1.2 IP.  At least one media-type has referenced that Ortiz reminds some of an Everyday Eddie Guardado-type pitcher, especially because of the way he carries himself on the mound.  And not just because he has the same "body-type", is a lefty, a reliever, and has a Latino surname like Everyday Eddie.  Everyday Eddie, Jr.?

Elvis drove in some insurance runs (2) in bottom of 7 to give the Rangers a 5-1 lead.  The Rangers would need those runs given Kirkman and Lowe's adventures (see above) in the 8th.

Nathan pitched the 9th and after a bit of another adventure (and a terrible called 3rd strike for the final out), got the 300th save of his career.  Impressive. (Correcting my last post, his last outing against the Halos was not a save opportunity).

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Is it weird that a ball club's name is associated with a the body of water adjacent to a metropolitan area?  I think so.  Tampa, Flordia is a town.  Tampa Bay is the body of water in the Gulf of Mexico next to the city.  The Rays don't play in the bay.  They play on land, in Tampa, Florida.  The whole thing is very unstable.  Of course the Rays learned it from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

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DFW Metroplex's new nickname? Baseball Town, USA

I like our new nickname.  Thanks Hambone.

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Rangers Beat Halos 7-3, Win Series

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: The wind was jet streaming out to right field, which, as the national ESPN announcers pointed out about 27 times before first pitch, could help the visiting team.  Yu got off to a little bit of shaky start in the top of the first giving up 2 runs.

Wash pulled Yu due to a blister that affected him throwing his change-up after 5 IP.  In the 6th he was due to face the bottom third of the of the Halos' order with righties due up, instead lefty Robbie Ross came in.  Why not throw a righty?  Ross put two on before getting out of the inning.  Also the blister only affected Yu's change-up and he had only thrown 85 pitches.  So why not just have Yu not throw the change?

For at least one game, Hamilton broke out of his slump with a single and a double.  I also question if you can call it only a "slump" since it dates back to last June.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: The wind was jet streaming out to right field, which of course could help your Rangers and did.  Berkman and Murph went yard back to back in the first putting 3 runs on the board. Soto, giving Pierzynski a breather behind the plate, had a double and then scored on a hit by Kins.  Speaking of Kins, what did I say?  It's an odd (versus even) year.  Kins also had a 3 run homer to increase the Rangers' lead from 1 run to 4 in the bottom of 6.

Here is yet another example of Yu being strong to very strong: in the top of 3, with no outs, Yu walked Pujols and then gave up a double to Hamilton.  Pujols held at 3B.  Then Yu struck out Trumbo and Kendrick and induced an inning ending fly ball to CF.  Nice.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Pujols doesn't look right when he's running.  In fact it's painful to watch him run.

Why Leonys Martin instead of Gentry in CF?  Again I know it's a small sample size but right now Gentry is playing better this year.  And given how well Gentry played last year for the club I would have thought it'd be his spot to lose.

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