Day Off + Home Cookin’ = Big Win

Twenty games in twenty days. Pitching questions. Anemic bats. Worried? Nah. Okay, yeah I was. But all of that was temporarily put on hold as we had the total package Friday night at the Ballpark. A six-run first jump started our lagging offense and saw us score eight more times the rest of the way, off some quality pitchers. Plus, we were re-introduced to the Boom Stick as Nellie Cruz drove in eight runs including a cherry-on-top grand slam. Brandon Morrow was chased the earliest in his career and it appeared he never recovered from Ian Kinsler lead off marathon at bat that resulted in a walk. Ian and Michael Young showed signs of snapping out of it, even though M.Y. had a couple of glitches in the field. Almost as important as the boat load of offense was the quality start by Derek Holland. He struck out a career high nine Jays tonight too.

I hope we remember these Jays took two of three from us in Toronto not that long ago. It just seems that way because of how many games we have played since. Checking the buzz around baseball….I have seen a lot of talk about Roy Oswalt needing to climb down from his lofty demands, especially if he wants to play for Nolan and the boys…the A’s appear to be coming off their hot streak as the Angels are getting into one….one problem with the Angels streak…it’s been against those A’s and now the Mariners….sometimes that’s all it takes….Albert is finally finding his groove at the plate though and if it continues that eight game lead we have will shrink in a hurry….tomorrow Colby Lewis is back on the mound. Let’s hope he has put the tee away for a while.

It’s Okay to Come Out Now C.J.

First and foremost tonight, let’s talk about the most excellent Ranger fans. They started the evening by giving C.J. Wilson an appropriate welcome, gave Yu Darvish his props, almost all of the sellout crowd waited through a two-hour rain delay, then ended the evening chanting “we want C.J. as the beat down wound down. With all of the comparisons of the Rangers-Angels rivalry to that of the Red Sox – Yankees, tonight was certainly worthy of that.  Why were the fans chanting “we want C.J.”? While Yu Darvish stayed loose and came out and pitched a very solid 5 1/3 innings, Mike Scioscia decided to put C.J. on ice for Saturday’s nationally broadcast game. He threw the starter for Saturday’s game, Jerome Williams to the wolves and the Rangers finished what they started.

The most surprising thing of the night is remembering no matter which team has been the AL West’s chosen one the last ten years, these games have always been nail biters and I remember never counting the Angels out. Instead of resembling a team that has been the powerhouse of the west for the last decade they resembled the 1985 Rangers. Bad throws, outfield near collisions and missed cut-off men. Albert Pujols? I think the words of the L.A. Times were best:

The most solid contact he made all night was when he hit Yorvit Torrealba’s face mask with the follow-through of a first-inning swing and knocked the catcher out of the game.

They said it, not me. He never got a ball out of the infield. He’s now hitting .192 and out of respect, I won’t do the math on what each of his RBI’s, hits or his one home run equate to on his current contract. But alas it’s just 1 of 162 games and we have many more to play with this team. I have learned one thing. To never count them out. But this is still mad fun and when they leave they will still be at least 6 games out.

Tomorrow, it’s C.J. Wilson vs. Matt Harrison and Sunday it’s Jared Weaver vs. Neftali Feliz. Mitch Moreland is really putting it together at the plate and the forgotten one, Craig Gentry is too. Josh is hitting on all cylinders and most were the first two weeks of the season. What happens if they all do? Not even the rain could stop us tonight.

It’s Raining in Baltimore and Raining Josh Hamilton Coverage (still)

First of all, I hate rain outs more than off days and as previously stated here, that’s a bunch. This is even worse for the Rangers because they will now play a double-header on the road, get home in the wee hours and play the biggest emotional game of the season against the Angels and C.J. Wilson. But that’s not why I am writing tonight.

It’s the Josh Hamilton history making, 4-homer night last night. I am going to do something different here because there is just so much trivia related to this.

There are the basic numbers. 

The well researched numbers. 

The “how not to cover stories”

And my personal favorite the Pujols Vs Hamilton story

I knew there would be a lot of contract talk and there was even a mini-update from the Rangers DMN blog before the first pitch of the record-setting game. All I need to know about that is that Josh had maintains (and again after the game last night) the the contract talks won’t have an effect on his play. I do believe that, for now. Someone asked me last night where this ranks on my all-time Ranger moments and all I could say is it is in my top 10. I think that deserves more thought and will be fodder for a future post.

Thursday’s double-header we’re still on track with Colby Lewis in game one and Derek Holland in game two while the Orioles counter with Wei-Yen Chen and Tommy Hunter. I think we can do this tomorrow but at what cost? Let’s play the bench in game two while the starters watch video of C.J. in the clubhouse.

Beltre Shuts It Down

Mike Adams had his uncharacteristically second iffy outing in a row (with help from Mike Napoli) and let Derek’s nice outing almost go for naught tonight, but all’s well that ends well, after Adrian Beltre hit a three-run bomb to center to ice the Indians tonight and end a three game skid. Tonight I passed on game notes and tried out a really cool app on my iPad. iScore.  More on that in another post but here is scorecard 5-5-12 generated by said app.

Derek looked to have it all together again, but there were some troubling moments later that even had Wash make a rare, non-pulling the pitcher visit to the mound. He did that a couple of times last year to help cure Derek’s rectal-cranial disorder which seemed to be the case tonight after a nice strikeout was followed by six straight pitches out of the strike zone. Snoop came on and worked a nice 9th and 10th for the win while Joe Nathan finished up with a strong save that included two K’s.

Other observations tonight….Mitch Moreland and Elvis Andus continue to swing a hot bat, while Mike Young is still looking to get his groove back…I have made it a point to not have a favorite player on this team the last couple of years but Elvis is as close to that as it gets. He is playing an efficient short while having at least one jaw-dropping moment a game in the field. If I’m Jurickson Profar paying attention at all from Frisco, I am starting to wonder where I fit in with this club. It’s a good problem to have though….while Naps had a bad moment with that passed ball in the 8th, after gunning down a couple of runners last night, I know Mike Scioscia’s ass is still hurting….speaking of Big Mike, he sat Albert tonight. The media is still making a big deal out of his career long homer-less streak, but I am thinking it had more to do with his .194 batting average….the entier AL West won their games tonight, which was still bad news for the Angels, who could have climbed out of the cellar with a Mariner loss….tomorrow the Indians get their first look at Yu Darvish…he squares off against Ubaldo Jimenez, who is not having the best of season thus far. Game time is early enough for me, I’ll set my alarm just to make sure.

Mr. Tilley’s Math Problem of the Day

On my ‘About Me’ page I gave props to my 7th grade math teacher the late great Mr. Chauncy Tilley who taught me the basics of algebra using baseball stats and how you get them. So this is for you Mr. Tilley…

L.A. Angels Vernon Wells ($24 mil- this season) and Albert Pujols ($12 mil- this season- his contract is back loaded)- combined .218 batting avg. with 4 HR’s (all Wells) and 13 RBI’s. That’s roughly $77,000 per hit for the month of April. 

Money well spent.

Yu Darvish: The Retraction

You only need to go back to my post AS Yu Darvish was making his first start to see all of the reasons why I wasn’t pleased with the Rangers winter acquisition. Also all of the reasons I was wrong. On top of that, while certainly not jumping off of a bandwagon (remember my butt has been glued here since ’72), It was a knee-jerk band-wagon-y OVER reaction. I even broke my own rule. Trust in Nolan. That said, we all witnessed something special in game 2 of the current Yankees-Rangers match up.  Out of all of the stellar moments, I was beyond blown away by Yu putting his nose to the grindstone and working out of a bases loaded jam in inning three. It was pitching and I’m not so sure that by the end of the year he won’t be setting a shining example for our young pitchers coming up.

Other notes from tonight….Ian leading off the game with a big fly was obviously important and he just continues to grow and grow. Speaking of…checking some online numbers Elvis has been unconscious at short this season. I won’t say what he hasn’t done in quite a while because I am superstitious….I do think it was good Wash took Darvish out when he did. Could he have finished? Probably. But why do anything to tarnish his best effort of the year…Joe Nathan getting an inning ending double play on his first pitch had to do a lot for his confidence and hopefully quell (for now) concerns from some of the fans…on the Dallas morning News website this gem:

The Rangers have shut the Yankees out four times in Arlington in the 18 years since Rangers Ballpark opened.In 40 years, it was only the sixth time the Rangers had scored two or fewer runs and still beaten the Yankees in Arlington.

I was at one of those six games in 1978. Opening day when we beat the Yankees on a great outing by Jon Matlack and a walk-off home run by Richie Zisk off of Goose Gossage. I actually posted that on my other blog two years ago…HERE it is. I have been thinking about doing an all-time Ranger list and all-time Ranger moments list but they all have to be separate from anything that has happened the last two years.  It seems like every game is indelible in my mind now.

The Angels lost to the Rays leaving them 7.5 out already. Albert was 0-4, up to 69 AB’s with no homers and hitting .232. As I tweeted tonight: C.J. Wilson 2-1 2.37 ERA 15 strikeouts -Yu Darvish 3-0 2.42 ERA 24 strikeouts but gave it the hashtag #ItsStillEarly.  We’re pushing 400k in attendance already this season with standing room only for the weekend set with the Rays. I think Nolan will get his wish of breaking the three million barrier.  Is ANYBODY talking about the Cowboys or Mavs?