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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Who's Pitching for the Rangers?

Edgar: "Who's pitching for the Rangers tonight?"


Horace: "Yu."


Edgar: "I'm not pitching.  I'm just a fan of the Rangers."


Horace: "I know."


Edgar: "OK then, who's pitching then."


Horace: "Yu."


Edgar: "A wise guy, eh?


(insert more back forth here, a la the Abbott and Costello bit)


Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: No pitcher from Japan since Nomo has even come close to living up to the expectations placed on them.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Yu Darvish is, according to most if not all the talking heads, far better than any pitcher ever to come over from Japan.  7 different pitches, 5 quality pitches.  If he's half as good as the hype he'll be good to pretty darn good.  If he lives up to the hype he might be the Rangers first 20 game winner since 1998.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Prince Fielder is off the market, signing with the Tigers.  Oh well.  It was nice to hope for another big off season splash by your Texas Rangers.

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SH!T

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: So our cross continent rivals get CJ and Poo-Holes?!?!?


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: As someone just told me, the Halos saddle themselves with kinda Tom Hicks salary in a vain effort to hang on to relevance.


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Are we strong up the middle?  Yes, yes it most certainly is.  Josh, Elvis, Ian and Napoli.  Plus, I hope we still have a dude named Gentry that runs like lightening so Josh can move over to left and not kill himself by running into center field walls all over ballparks in America.  And our starting staff is looking like Dutch Oven, Cobra Lewis, Ogando, Matty Harrison and maybe Neftali Feliz?  And we still have Scooter Feldman that was looking strong last postseason?  Yeah, OK I can deal with this.  And didn't we sign a closer recently, albeit coming off an injury?

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So What Did I Miss Before Game 6 of WS?

 Back during spring training I got busy with other stuff (work mostly, remember this blog is an altruistic venture) and before I knew it the Rangers were well ahead in the division and a month or so of the season had already gone by.  I convinced myself that I didn't want to jinx the roll the Rangers were on by blogging, whether being critical or not, about them.  So, I sat back and enjoyed the ride and didn't worry about blogging about it, until now I guess.  I saw most of the regular season games and each game of the postseason games.  I even got to go to the ALCS game 6 when the Rangers clinched to go to the their second straight WS.

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Up to game 6 of the WS I thought my "plan" of not blogging and therefore not jinxing the Rangers was working.  2 outs and 2 strikes away for winning the WS.  Twice!  In consecutive innings.  I can barely write, think, talk about it even now.  It was hard to watch.  Still hard to comprehend that they were that close.  I know it's just a game but that hurt.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: 2 WS appearances in a row?!?!?  What a ride.  Please let us ride the roller coaster again next year.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: So close.  I am trying not to get spoiled and remember when Chan Ho Park was the "ace" of the staff and A-Fraud was hitting meaningless homers in 11-3 blowout wins and losses on the way to a meaningless MVP for him while the Rangers finished last in their division.

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How To Not Start Spring Trading/Training

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Really Michael Young?  Do you not understand you absolutely drove down your trade value to nothing by going to the press and demanding to be traded?  You're 34 years old now, not 26.  And this is supposedly the post-steroid era meaing that 34 is now old again in baseball years.  Plus, you weren't that great at 3rd base last year (see playoff defensive lowlights).  Why not be happy being a part time DH/utility player and cashing that huge paycheck?

As usual the pitching is being questioned.  Can CJ and Cobra Lewis and Tommy Hunter do it again?  Is Feliz ready to be a starter?  Who's going to close?  Was Webb worth it?

And so long to Benjie Molina and Big Bad Vlad.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Can you say defending American League Champion Texas Rangers?  Weird huh?  But, awesome. 

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: It seems like everyone else in the division got better.  I don't know if the same can be said for the Rangers.

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Oh Man. Well It Was a Hell of a Ride

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Rangers lose World Series in 5 games.  Josh had 2 hits in the series.  Cliff Lee had 2 losses in the Series.  I think the Rangers had 5 runs in the last 4 games of the Series.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: It may take a while and a little perspective but, holy crap, the Rangers made the World Series and won the AL Pennant!  Wash should be the manager of the year with Josh, Nellie and Kins being on the DL for significant, overlapping amounts of time as well as Wash having his number 1 and 2 starters on opening day not even make the playoff roster.  Josh should be the regular season MVP.  Colby Lewis was clutch in the post season.  Lee was clutch leading up to the World Series.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: That was a great ride.  Please, please, please let them sign Cliff Lee.

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