Washout

No, there’s no space in the title, so don’t get your hopes up.  They extended him, anyway.

I hate rainouts.  You have all the waiting round to see if something is going to happen, and then it doesn’t.  Waste a bunch of time that you could use on more interesting things, but you don’t want to get started on something in case the game starts.  You’d think they’d have a better system for calling games, like someone saying “hey guys, there’s a bunch of tornadoes around, let’s get out of here!”.  They just don’t want to give up the ticket money.

Our garage door was bowing in the wind tonight, I really thought it was going to bust in and do some real damage.  It’s an interesting feeling to be watching the rotation in the clouds, while you’re listening to sirens going off.  No touchdowns, but it was certainly running through my mind at the time.  And there’s still thunder as I write, 6 hours later.

Our first pick in the draft went to Klein High in Spring, which is where both David Murphy and my niece went.  At different times, of course.

The Red Sox are 7-0 against the Yankees this year?  Wow!  If it wasn’t for that series, the Yanks could have a good lead in their division.  Of course, we might say the same about us and the Tigers, too.

I really want to write something insightful here, but I don’t have squat.  If I’d thought of it earlier, I could have started a longer stat study, my next will be on the 300 game winners and how they got there.  But it’s almost 1.30, so you’ll have to wait – just don’t hold your breath.

A little help

What would you think if I ran out of runs, would you stand up and walk out on me?  Lend me your ear and I’ll tell you a tale, and I’ll try not to go oh for three.

And so we continue the saga of Kevin Millwood suing the Rangers hitters for lack of support, as the rather boring old joke goes.  Here’s a question for you:  what exactly does clutch mean?  Numerous sabermetric studies show that clutch hitting doesn’t exist, but any baseball man will tell you that such-and-such a player is clutch, because he gets better when the game is on the line.  And, returning to Millwood, they’ll tell you players perform better in contract years, because their money is on the line.

Let me suggest this to you (and you’ve probably heard it before):  since it is impossible for anyone to give more than 100% (which by definition is the maximum), if they improve they must have actually been giving less than 100%.  So a clutch hitter is, if ever possible to find, not so much a clutch hitter in those pressure situations, but rather a choke hitter at other times.  And a Millwood is not so much proving himself this year, as proving he was dogging it the last three years.  He can bleat all he wants about finally being healthy this year, but you go back every spring and you’ll see stories about him being fitter than ever (didn’t he spend the winter a year or two ago doing karate to improve his fitness?).  So, whether these first three starts are an indication of being healthy, being better, or the contract year, I have no faith in him any more.  I’m waiting for him to break down, and I’m waiting for him to prove it was just a small sample size thing.  If that doesn’t happen, I’ll consider him a money-grubbing jerk.

We went to Saturday night’s game, but I spent more time out of my seat than in it.  Had to get seats in the third deck, because I sure as heck wasn’t going to pay $65 a seat to sit in the good seats (although by the end of the game I told my wife to make me buy the better seats if I ever think of going in the third deck again).  I spent about two innings trying to get some hot dogs and cokes on the third deck, and after a long wait I eventually went down to level two to get them, which was much faster.  Note to Rangers:  your food service on the third level sucks.  Watching the servers for four different lines grab each hot dog or hamburger as they came out, one by one, was pitiful.  The vendor up there is not doing their job, and even if I did only pay $8 a ticket, I would rather stay at home than sit in there again.

Between the first two games of the season and last night, someone in the Rangers organization made the rule that the vendors have to take the caps off the soda and water bottles before giving them to us.  Note to that person:  you are a $*(&(@$&.  Get out of your air-conditioned box, then try carrying a tray with hot dogs and a couple of uncapped bottles up the stairs on the third level.  I don’t care if someone else threw their caps, you don’t punish everyone for it.  You’re not Homeland Security.

Brad Wilkerson retired.  Some of us would say he retired three years ago, he just kept wearing the uniform.

Not even a Michael Young walk-off can make me happy about the fact that the Rangers are playing sucky ball.  I keep thinking I need to revise the projection down.  Seventy is looking a long way off right now.  The teams we’ve played so far are a combined 17-20 when not playing the Rangers.  How bad are we going to be when we play some good teams?  Better yet, how bad is the rest of the division when we’re tied for second?

Wish I’d known Derek Holland was in the bullpen Saturday.  We stood behind there in the late innings, and I looked at them, but the only ones I knew were Frankie Francisco and Taylor Teagarden (FF & TT).  Would have even been a nice surprise if Holland had had his jacket off, so I could have read the name on his back.  Could have told my son that there’s another one of the guys we met at Jamey’s book signing in December.

I feel pretty confident in saying that this is no longer Michael Young’s Rangers, it’s now Ian Kinsler’s Rangers.  There was a palpable difference in the crowd when Kinsler was up, compared to anyone else.  Okay, he just cycled and went 6 for 6, which would sure help his profile, but even without that I think he is now the man.  If you want another indicator:  my four year old now has an Ian Kinsler shirt, to go with his old Michael Young.  His choice.

I still want an Elvis shirt.  Best first two weeks for a Rangers rookie ever?  Must be close.  He’s starting to get the crowd buzz, too.

Do you need anybody?  I need somebody to love.  Could it be anybody?  Sure, as long as they can help the Rangers win.  It might take Superman though.

Fooled me once, shame on you

They give you hope, they take it away.  Actually, I don’t have hope, except for a fleeting moment after sweeping the Indians, and watching the Angels implode.  Fact is, the Rangers are in last place in the West, and there’s only one team with a worse record in the AL.  Sweet dreams are not made of this.  The Indians, the team we swept, have gone 3-5 since, so they were a bad team we were beating up on.  The only good team in the West, and I use good in it’s broadest sense, are the Mariners, off to a 8-3 start on their way to 75 wins.

My guess?  First team in the West to 81 wins will take the division title.  Rangers?  71.

Over-under on Ron Washington I put at May 10.  Can’t even win when we’re given a patsy schedule to start the season?  His only saving grace may be the Rangers in foreclosure, so they won’t want to pay him to do nothing while they hire a new manager and have to pay them a million bucks.

2010 is looking a long way away, and realistically, if we’re planning on contending with a bunch of rookie pitchers, it ain’t gonna happen.  Let’s assume we get three prospects up from OKC by the end of the year.  They replace Millwood, Padilla and Benson.  Are we really going to be in it with a rotation whose most experienced player is Brandon McCarthy?  Or whichever piece of dreck they drag in next winter?  Nope, those guys will need time, as will the next group, and the group after that.  At best you’re bringing in three guys a year, two of whom can stick.  In three years you have half a pitching staff, with very little experience.  2012 is the earliest, unless the other teams throw in the towel.  Let me revise that:  2012 is the earliest we win a playoff series.

Millwood is flattering to deceive.  Just pray he doesn’t get to 180, or we’ll get another year of it.  I’ll be at the game tomorrow night, so I bet his true colors will be shining through.  Five innings, five runs.

It’s become even more clear that Nolan Ryan’s emphasis on starters going longer has been pushed into the manager’s brain, because he gets everybody 100 pitches regardless of if they stink or not that day.  I think he has a flowchart on how to manage pitchers, with the first box asking “has he thrown 100 pitches?”, and the No answer being “do nothing”.

CJ Wilson should never come in with a four run lead.  I’ve talked about this before:  bring him on with bases loaded and nobody out, he strikes out the side.  A four run lead, he will melt like an icecream on a Dallas sidewalk in August.

The Rangers are second in the league in batting average.  Take out Kinsler and Byrd and they fall to tenth.  Yeah, that’s how much those two have meant so far.  The offense has definitely not been firing very well so far, and 19 run outbursts really just mask how things are.  If we really have such an excess of offense, as we seem to every year, how come we’re not trading some of it for pitching?  Oh yeah, park effects.  Raw data gets masked so easily.

I think Kinsler flirts with .400 one of these years, if not this one.  Okay, six for six will inflate you a little in the early going, but he has so much potential and room for development.

If your four year old gets onto a team called the Diamondbacks, and they play a team called the Rangers, who do you root for?  I’ll find out in a few weeks.  Oh, and don’t tell anyone, because I’m trying not to be “that guy”, but I was as proud as punch when in his first ever practice with a real team, he was hitting harder and further than anyone else.

Central Market is expensive, but I could stand in the coffee aisle all day with my eyes closed, just breathing.

The Rangers need to wake up and smell the coffee.

Bubbles bursting pop!

Been meaning to write all week.  Takes the first loss of the season to get me to do so.  Hopefully that will deflate a few of the people talking about the Rangers contending.  Okay, yes, they did sweep the Indians, but one series does not a season make.  Has anything changed on the Rangers in the last week to make them suddenly likely to win the division?  No.   I’m sure you’ve heard it here before, but remember this phrase: “small sample size”.  How many times did the Rangers win three in a row last season?  A lot.  Just because it happened to come in the first three games of this season, are all the clouds surrounding this team blown away, and everything is now all fluffy and light?  No.

Hey, are you, like me, wondering what kind of idiot Ron Washington is?  In my case, it’s because he’s giving his starters 100 or more pitches in opening week!  Come on, even Kris Benson gets 100 today, when he sucked all day?  I know Nolan Ryan talked about getting the guys more physically fit so they can go longer, but please, this is ridiculous.  It’s like they told Washington that he will be fired if his starters don’t go 100 every night.  And yes, I freely admit that blame could just as easily go to Mike Maddux.  As of right now the MLB site shows 27 pitchers have thrown 100 pitches so far this year (presumably all in starts), and that doesn’t count Benson, who’s not on the list yet.  Our other three starters are though, tying us with Cincinnati as the two teams with three pitchers to do that.  I will bet you that one or more of these first four starters will be on the DL by the end of the month.  Don’t I remember Padilla having some trouble late in spring training, so much that he might have missed his start on Wednesday?  It’s criminal.  And yes, I did say when Millwood came out to pitch the seventh on Monday that he was about to melt down, having already gotten into the 90s in his pitch count.  If I can tell from section 235, how come Washington can’t?  Of course, I also called Salty’s home run (told my son to pay attention – he was goofing around – because Salty was going to hit a homer, and two pitches later he did), so maybe I’m just psychic.

Love the red.  Get a clue, Rangers.  Blue should be gone by next season at the latest.

Enjoyed Opening Day, despite the horrible traffic around the ballpark.  Somehow they actually managed to make it worse.  Yes, they’ll blame construction, which will presumably make things better one day.  Me, I blame the cops, who were doing a terrible job of traffic control everywhere I went.  When you’re in a mile-long backup, seeing the cop just letting people turn right on red into the very road all your cars are trying to get to, that’s pathetic.  We couldn’t go anywhere because the right-on-redders kept filling in our gaps.  If the cop had stopped them once in a while, we’d have gotten there in half the time.  And as for the folks at Six Flags (where we were forced to go to park), they should realize that they should open all of their ticket booths when they have a thousand cars waiting, not half of them.  I wanted to tell their workers who were blocking the lanes off that they should open the booths instead, but my wife wouldn’t let me.

Wednesday night was a lot better, of course, since only half as many people showed up.  I think it was a much more enjoyable day, too.  The temperature was just right (whereas on Monday we were fine in the sun but froze when the shadows hit).  The ballpark has much better screens this year, I really like the various video boards.  Plus, we saw Elvis hit his first career home run, hopefully the first of many (and yes, I know he’s only going to average two a year, but still).  I wonder when we’ll be able to get Andrus shirts in the store?  If it’s anything like Chris Davis last year, we’ll have to wait until Opening Day 2010.

How do you explain to a four year old that green dot won’t win every time?  He was just so mad about it, and then red won twice in a row, so that just made him even madder at Mommy (her dot is red dot.  Mine is blue).  It’s really funny to watch him get mad about it though.

One of the things about blogging (or indeed writing in general) is that you need to stick with it to be successful.  Take a few days off, and soon enough it becomes a few months.  I must try harder to post daily, or at least several times a week.  Too many thoughts bounce around my head to not commit them somewhere (and no jokes about committing me somewhere, please).

Nick Adenhart, huh?  On Opening Day we were in traffic that was so slow (I estimated it took us 45 minutes to drive a mile at one point) that the passenger in the car in front of us went to the cooler in his trunk twice while we were watching.  He tried to hide it when he went back, but obviously he and the driver cracked a couple of beers each while they were driving.  How stupid can people be?  And how come a victim like Adenhart dies, while the driver walks (or runs) away?  Let’s get some serious punishment for these people.

I like the idea of day games, but it still doesn’t really feel like the season has started until we get into our rhythm of watching the ballgame every evening through the summer.

Hit me once, hit me twice

By now, if you’re a Rangers fan, you’ve seen and heard about the big fight tonight, which was mostly just a bunch of handbag swinging.  The clear exception was Richie Sexson, who I would expect to get at least a 10 day suspension.  You want to throw punches, that’s one thing, but throwing a helmet can cause serious injury.  The guys on the Rangers broadcast said he’s well-liked and this was out of character.

The ridiculous part is that the Rangers were completely innocent on this.  They had been hit twice by Felix Hernandez (whose reaction during the fight was way over the top), Kinsler looked like he was going to start something when he was hit but didn’t, and Gabbard’s pitch was a long way away from Sexson.  I know there will be people who will defend the Mariners in this, because I’ve been on the other end and defended the Rangers in similar situations (Frankie Francisco in Oakland, for example), but I fully expect most neutrals to side with Texas.

The video wasn’t completely clear on the location, so here’s what Gameday showed:

This shows the pitches in Gameday during the full at-bat. The one at the top is the one to Sexson, the others were to Cairo after Sexson was ejected.  Now, I may be biased (yeah, may be), but this shows pretty much what we saw on tv, that this was a high pitch, not inside.  Admittedly, Sexson is a giant freak of nature, and his head sticks out like a pelican, so maybe he thought it was closer than it was.  But really, it’s on the edge or maybe slightly off the plate.

Curiously enough, the Gameday data logs don’t show it.  Sexson is simply missing from Gabbard’s data at that point, then you have Cairo’s at-bat and it is three pitches long.  If you didn’t know better, I think you’d probably just assume it was a glitch of some kind.  In Sexson’s batter data, it appears he only batted in the second inning.  My guess is that they didn’t program for this situation, not that they are trying to hide something.  The pitch existed at some point, because they made the chart from it.

Ahh, okay, I found it.  It doesn’t exist under the individual players, but it does exist in the inning data, which means it’s probably a programming oversight that didn’t get it into the players’ logs.  But the inning data has errors too though, because it shows all four pitches to Cairo.  Here’s what the data has:  px=”-0.879“ pz=”5.362“.  5.3 feet high (pz), so about eye height for a crouching Sexson.  0.879 feet inside.  That’s about 10.5 inches, which with the ball diameter is right on the edge of the strike zone.  If it was lower, it would just as likely been called a strike as a ball.

I love that Gameday called it an “On-field Delay”.  Someone out there was imagining a streaker, surely.

Sexson’s just mad because he can’t hit any more.

Took a while, but I finally saw Ichiro on the video, coming out at the back.  For a while I thought he wasn’t there at all, which would have been a major faux pas on his part.

It occurred to me a little later that my three year old was asleep at the time, but would probably have been watching if this game was in Arlington.  Josh loves to mimic the players in great detail, down to pulling on his gloves, stepping out of the box (not that he knows what the box is, he just knows that the players step back a little after each pitch), or even trying to break his bat over his knee after Milton Bradley did that the other day (plastic bat, and no, he didn’t really try very hard).  But if not today, one day, he will see players fighting.  And even though we’ll tell him that was a bad thing (just as we did with Bradley), and they’re not being nice, I am right now imagining the moment when he is going to throw his bad down and charge at me, and throw his helmet at me, “just like the Rangers did”.  That’s a bit of an uncomfortable feeling, when you’re the cause of your son being hooked on the Rangers.

Other notes:  Ben Broussard DFA’d.  Should have happened a couple of weeks ago, and given the job fulltime to Botts.

Edinson Volquez had a quote in today’s Star-Telegram, I can’t find it in the online edition.  He said something like the difference between last year and this is that last year he was just throwing pitches, but this year he is throwing them for a reason, and he understands why he’s throwing them.  I wish I had the exact quote.  Point is, the moment I read it, I of course thought that the difference is that this year he has a pitching coach who knows what he’s doing.

Jon Daniels says Ron Washington’s job is safe at least until the All-Star break.  Roll on All-Star break.

We’re going to try and get out to Saturday’s game, weather permitting, and get our budding superstar the Michael Young poster.  Hopefully it won’t be the only sighting of Michael Young we have.

Oops! Sorry Vinny, I didn’t mean it.

If there are any Ranger players reading this (yeah right), stop right now.  I can’t afford to say anything that might cause you to stop hitting, or pitching, or fielding.  Lord knows you’re already doing it badly enough.

First I cursed Michael Young on Opening Day, and he proceeded to go 0 for a week. Then, just two days ago, I praised Padilla, and said I hoped I wasn’t jinxing him. Sure enough, he went out and had an abysmal performance against the Tigers (who, despite a slow start, will be there or thereabouts at the end).

The collapse of the Rangers continues. Ron “Mr Fundamentals” Washington clearly has no idea what he is doing. Someone asked me the other day if he was asleep during the games, because he doesn’t appear to have any idea what’s going on, let alone show any kind of emotion. I’m not a big Mike Scioscia fan, mainly because his team usually beats us, but I’d sure rather have a guy who cares, not someone who looks like he should be in his rocking chair in the retirement home, telling us about how players in the old days were so much better, that they could run and steal and bunt and forget all this newfangled nonsense about getting on base, or maximizing your roster to it’s full potential.

We were leading I think 3-1 against Boston the other day (I’m pretty sure it was a 2 run lead), in the middle innings, we get the first man on, and Washington calls for a bunt. Because, you know, against some useless team like Boston, bunting the man over so someone can drive him in (or not, in the Rangers’ case) gives us that extra run, and that will make all the difference. Washington, you’re an idiot. You know what the Red Sox can do (you certainly do now). This is the American League. You don’t play for one run, you play for five or six. Remember the saying, don’t kick a man when he’s down? Doesn’t apply to baseball! Not only should you kick him, you should beat him with your bat.  Because if you don’t, he will.

The Rangers led 5-0 in the middle of the 7th on Sunday.  Win expectancy for the Red Sox is 0.039, which surprisingly enough is about 1 in 25.  I would have expected it to be much lower than that.  On the other hand, that means the Rangers should have won that game 24 out of 25 times.  I was astounded when Millwood came out for the 7th inning – I had seen his pitch count at the end of the previous inning (104 I believe) and said “okay, he’s done for the day”.  When I saw him come back, it was like “uh-oh, nothing good can come of this”.  If I can think that, what on earth were Washington and Connor thinking?  104 isn’t too many, they might have hoped to get another inning from him, but he hadn’t really been great anyway, he’d given up 8 hits and 2 walks in 6 innings.  Of course, with the bullpen collapsing, what else can you do?

Think Washington will be fired before the end of the year? I do. Those geniuses in the front office gave him a one year extension last year, through 2009. Which means when he’s fired in June or July, and Art Howe gets the job, we’ll be paying him an extra year of salary for nothing.

Not that Tom Hicks really cares right now – he’s too busy trying to save his skin in England, where the fans hate him so much the police told him he should not go to a Liverpool soccer match. We may think he sucks, but at least we wouldn’t try and kill him. Unless, that is, he tries waving his scarf and singing along with the fans.

Yes, the Boston massacre was embarrassing, and humiliating.  A coworker came into my office this morning and said “well…”, and before he could go any further I said “think they’ll manage 50 wins this year?”, and he laughed and left.  Believe me, there is no taunting that can make a die-hard Ranger fan feel worse about the team.

On Opening Day I commented about Ben Broussard being lackadaisacal in the field, comparing him to the all-out effort that Teixeira would give. Broussard’s lack of attention cost us dearly against Boston on the weekend, as he sauntered away after thinking he had made the play at first, totally ignoring the guy who kept on running and scored the go-ahead run. You know Tex would have been watching for anything like that. It’s not just his bat we’re missing.

In the Star-Telegram today there was a line from Washington about how he and Jon Daniels had talked and agreed to get Jason Botts more playing time.  My guess is that JD did all the talking in that conversation.  There was also a “kick the tires” comment on Frank Thomas.  Yeah, that’s what we need, a 40 year old washed up first baseman.  We already have a 30 year old.  Maybe we can get Bonds, too, then we can block two future players at the same time.

Loved seeing Pudge catch that foul popup, then smile at the cameras. Wish he was still doing it for us.

I forgot to save the link, but sometime in the last week or so someone wrote that Trey Hillman is outstanding at getting the young guys to improve their game.  What could have been, huh?

The Rangers are leading their opponents in something:  they’re ahead about 25-9 (I forget the exact number, and I’m not going to look it up) in errors committed.  Fundamentals.

Here’s a thought: You know those $10 Fox Box tickets? They’re $12 this year, with a $2 donation to the Boys and Girls Club. I’m all for the B&G Club (except for having A-Rod as a spokesman), but I’m really opposed to this kind of forced donation. I have charities I donate to (this is my favorite) already.  Having some multi-millionaires try and make me give money somewhere is ridiculous.  Make the tickets $12, and if the Rangers want to donate some money, do so.  Funnily enough I was just watching Bono on tv last night, talking about charity.  He said (and I paraphrase) that if it’s done publicly, it’s not charity, it’s PR.  In this case, it’s definitely PR.  There was a quote in the paper a few weeks ago about how the team has lost the fans (or rather, the franchise has lost the fans, it’s not so much to do with the team itself), and they’re trying anything to get them back.  Ironic that their new neighbors are going to charge tens of thousands for a seat license – and sell out.

Jeez, do I sound like Larry King, starting a paragraph off with “here’s a thought”?

Okay, two last lines:

John Danks: 2-1, 3.04 ERA.  17 hits (0 HR), 16 K in 23.2 innings.

Edinson Volquez:  2-0. 1.17 ERA.  12 hits (0 HR), 16 K in 15.1 innings.

And one last comment:  that’s 40% of our 2010 rotation.  Maybe, just maybe, the Chris Young/Adrian Gonzalez deal isn’t going to go down as Jon Daniels’ epitaph after all.

You Gotta Believe

Most baseball fans will recognize the title of this blog post, one of the more famous sayings in baseball history, going back to the early 70s Mets and their rallying cry to believe in themselves and that they can win.

The 2008 Rangers do not believe.

They can’t hit.  They can’t field.  They can’t pitch.  They can’t throw.  They can’t run the bases.  They don’t know what they’re doing on the field.  They are the Bad News Bears of baseball.  They do not believe in themselves – and if you hear any of them saying they do, remember that they’re paid to say they do.  They don’t.

It’s been a horrible week in Rangerland.  The Opening Day fiasco.  Sweeping a double-header from Baltimore, who had won something like six straight, and were suddenly being anointed as contenders – apparently everyone forgot that this was Baltimore.  The team with an almost identical record to the Rangers over the last decade, identically mediocre, that is. Having Baltimore win six at the start of the year and be contenders is like having Detroit lose six at the start and be toast – you know which will be at top and which at bottom come the end of the season.  It’s like some nobody hitting three or four home runs in the first week – think Ben Broussard – and suddenly he’s a star who will end up hitting 50, not the mediocrity who will end with about 20 and a .230 average.

And then the roof fell in, metaphorically of course, because the idiots who designed the Ballpark in Arlington weren’t smart enough to put up a roof, figuring that the pitchers wouldn’t have any problem in 110 degree Julys and Augusts.  Yep, being swept by Toronto, a decent team who would be a contender in pretty much any division except the one they’re trapped in.  Then, the last two days, the disaster of losing two at home to division rivals Anaheim, who we had somehow surprised enough to win two in their place a week before.

We know they can’t hit, they’re about the bottom of the league in hitting in most every category you can think of, especially with RISP.  We know they can’t pitch, some of the guys in the rotation started well but you know they’re acting just like Baltimore, they’ll end up with their 12-12 record with a 4.89 ERA (assuming they can get it under 5 this year).  They have their little hot streaks, and maybe Millwood is on his three year rotation of good seasons (trade him if he is, his value will never be higher), but fact is even if they’re pitching like #1 starters this month, they’ll finish like the 4s they really are.

We didn’t know they couldn’t field or run the bases.  Yesterday Hamilton tossed one in which allowed a runner to score, and Marlon Byrd completely missed one that rolled to the fence.  Michael Young has had half a dozen errors or simply misses in the field, and watching those you realize why he is consistently ranked as the worst fielding shortstop in baseball.  Milton Bradley got tagged out at home because he tried to score on a ball which rolled about two feet from the catcher.  Today Murphy got out in a rundown because Byrd decided to stop at third – I’m not going to assign blame, whether it was Byrd for stopping when he was being waved (possibly with an injury) or Murphy for not watching what the guy in front was doing (to their credit, both tried to accept the blame) – but we’ve seen some funny things, and I use the word funny without any humor being connotated in it.  Hamilton was thrown out in the ninth, trying to advance to second base on a wild pitch, when his team was down by three runs.

When Ron Washington was hired he was hyped as being the guy for the fundamentals.  He has done nothing to show he knows anything about fundamentals, or about coaching.  I’m starting to wonder if maybe the real Ron was abducted by aliens, because the guy we have is nothing like the guy he was advertised to be.  Quote from the Rangers site today:  Washington had “an extended postgame meeting with general manager Jon Daniels.”  Think something might happen?  Not so sure, since Tom Hicks is still distracted by the impending collapse of his sports empire in Europe.

Throw Jason Jennings out with the bathwater right now.  He was 2-9 last year, and it wasn’t a fluke.  He is living proof that pitchers who spend time in Colorado never recover.

Was Scott Feldman really the right person to bring up to start on Sunday?  He made a decent start, but still, not only was the risk high, there were other choices to make that start.  Kam Loe, AJ Murray, even Jamey Wright, who was already in Arlington.  Heck, bring up Ponson, or even Tejeda (there’s probably some rule that wouldn’t let Tejeda do it) or Eric Hurley.  Maybe even Danks or Volquez?  But Feldman’s fear should be his arm falling off, like Willie Eyre’s did last year.  You take a reliever, try and convert him to a starter, then rush him too far, and see what happens.

Jason Botts is not only being used sparingly (five PAs in two weeks), but stupidly.  Yeah, nice going Ron, have a guy sit for a week then stick him in with the bases loaded and two outs.  If he succeeds you’re a genius for putting him in, if he fails then it’s just more proof that he’s not worth being on the team.  I hope Jon Daniels realizes this is what he’s doing.  Otherwise Mench will be up in a month or so, after Botts has ten at-bats.  I thought this kind of petty vindictiveness would have disappeared with professional management.  Oh yeah, that’s right:  professional and Ron Washington do not belong in the same sentence.

Week One:  OPS 1.094.  Week Two:  OPS .422.  You think David Murphy likes that he got them in that order, instead of the other way round?

Week One:  OPS .071.  Week Two:  OPS .946.  You think Marlon Byrd wishes he could have gotten them the other way round?

If you can believe it, the Rangers are actually a game worse today than at the same time last year.  5-9 now, they were 6-8 after 14 in 2007.  They were also only 1.5 out, today they are 3.5 out.  Yes, things can change, but right now it is shaping up to be an even worse 08 than 07, and you wouldn’t have thought that possible, would you?

At this rate Washington’s career managerial record will end with the proud record of just one single day with his team over .500 – last week when we were 5-4 after the double header.

Still, no matter how dark things get, you can always think of it this way:  my three year old loves his dot race t-shirt, and in our living room baseball game he hits half a dozen home runs (playing as “Joshua Hank Blalock Michael Young”) and the Rangers win every night.  If only he was for real.  It’s both amazing and hilarious what a young mind can come up with – I have to have a very particular stance if I’m playing catcher, just the same as Gerald Laird does, and I’m not allowed to lean back against the couch, because I need to leave room for where the umpire stands ( or rather, “the man in black who stands back there”).  And I have to wear my hat backwards, not because I’m a football player (it’s been at least a year since he started wearing his Rangers cap backwards “like football players do”), but because that’s what catchers do.  Today we were playing pop-ups, because he saw the catcher go after one yesterday.  In the time it takes him to throw off his helmet, then carefully remove his sunglasses (yes, in his world catchers wear sunglasses and take them off to catch the ball and if you tell him they don’t then he’ll cry until you let him) and place them inside the helmet , then turn around to find the ball, I think even Marlon Byrd might have been able to score.

Buzzkill

Well, that one didn’t go too well, did it?  Took all of five minutes for the first boos to appear at the Ballpark this year.  By the third or fourth inning, that’s all there was.  Every time the Rangers got a rally going (and when I say every, I don’t mean to imply there were many of them) someone came along to snuff it out.  On the other side, every time the Rangers got a rally going, there was a pitcher there to make sure that Baltimore wouldn’t have any trouble.

A sell-out for Opening Day, but in the eighth inning we estimated that about a third of the crowd was still there, those of us masochists who like to hang around for the bitter end.  Tomorrow night I’m guessing there’ll be about 30,000 there, if that, and even that will shrink if the weather doesn’t cooperate, like the weatherman say it won’t.  As I write we’re going through thunderstorms, which were predicted for this afternoon but held off until late in the evening.  Tomorrow they’re supposed to be earlier in the day, so ballgame time.

Not that there’s much likelihood of any kind of thunder happening in Arlington.  It very much surprised me to see we had nine hits today, I would have guessed at about four.  Once again the offense was lackadaisacal.  They noted on tv tonight that the Rangers have alternated wins and losses every game so far, so tomorrow we’re due to win, but sooner or later that offense will catch up.  Michael Young is flailing around like he is Richie Sexson.

The Rangers are 4-7 in the home openers I have attended.  They started off 2-2, then have slumped to 2-5, which is pretty much indicative of how the team has performed over the years.

In the second inning, with a runner on first, a ball was hit down to Ben Broussard, he fielded it, stepped on first, then turned and tossed it to the pitcher.  I couldn’t help comparing that to Teixeira, who every time he got a ball he was always spinning around to check where the runners were, to make sure they weren’t trying to get an extra base on him.  He’d always take a couple of steps towards the runner, too, just in case.  I guess that’s the difference between a gold glover and a run of the mill first baseman.

We sat behind a couple with a baby today, the mother said it was one month and two days old.  Josh’s birthday is September 30, so he was six months old before he got to go to his first Opening Day (today was his fourth).  But yeah, I would have taken him at one month, too.  I was a little worried for them when the flyover was about to happen, because of the noise, but I was surprised that it wasn’t that loud this year, it was probably the quietest flyover ever.  Suggestion was that there was only one, but I can’t imagine two made that big a difference.

Tom Hicks says that traffic is going to get worse around the ballpark over the next few years, as they do a lot of construction.  I have to say that it wasn’t too bad getting in today, in fact it was easier getting in than out.  We got there pretty early though, driving in around 11am.  Note to Hicks:  quit worrying about the traffic.  We know you have your limos and helicopters, you don’t have to deal with it like we do, so don’t pretend you care about it.  We’ll be happier if you pretend to care about getting some pitching.  PS:  Liverpool sucks.  And they hate you.

Umpire watch:  credit again, after calling a home run, they talked about it and changed the call to a ground rule double.  I haven’t seen it anywhere, so I’m not sure, but I never thought it was a home run when I saw it at the game (I was on the third level, first base side).  What I said at the time, as they took about five minutes to talk about it and explain it to both sides, was that if they’d watched a replay on tv they would have taken 30 seconds and actually been sure they got it right.  Still, at least they talked about it, instead of ejecting someone for arguing.  The interesting part was that Washington and Byrd ran to argue with the first base umpire, who stood there talking to them.  The second base umpire came halfway to first, and obviously had something to say about it, but in the bizarro world of umpires, he’s not allowed to say what he actually saw unless the other umpire asks him first.  Transparency and common sense, that’s all we ask for.

Couldn’t even get Jason Botts into the game in the 9th inning, down by seven?  Count the days until he is out of here, sent to a team that will use him and discover the next Travis Hafner.  Those days will also be counting the Mench arrival.

Finally, a big thank you to a fan who gave my son a ball today.  We were walking through the concourse just after noon, and he stopped us and handed Josh a ball, and said that Aubrey Huff had just hit it for a home run in batting practice.  How believable is that?  It’s a white ball, slightly scuffed, so I have no reason to doubt it.  Either way, Josh enjoyed playing with it during the game and at home tonight, so whoever you were, thank you very much.

Six months down, one night to go

A lot has happened since I last wrote, and it’s only been four days. The Rangers won a series in Anaheim (could have had a sweep if the bats were awake), and come home 3-3, and after this amazing start people are already starting to say positive things. I guess everyone expected them to go 0-162.  I’m not going to jump on the bandwagon, because those people jumping on will jump off again as soon as they feel the slightest bump, and I don’t want to get in their way. Remember, the Rangers were 5-5 last year. I would say I’m a glass half empty kind of guy, but then I’d also say that it depends on if you’re filling or emptying the glass – and I hope the Rangers are filling.

My biggest fear is that the Rangers get slightly into contention in midsummer, and abandon the long-term plan again, doing some panic deal like bringing in Carlos Lee for a few months of nothing, and getting rid of someone with actual value to the team. This is why I’d rather they stay well out of the race, get eliminated by say June 1 (kind of like last year) and then concentrate on the kids.

Everyone’s been talking about the pitching, since the hitting has been doing little.  I can only say what I’ve said a hundred times before, small sample size.  Even a blind dog does something or other now and then.

No, phooey to that, let’s go half full for a moment.  Come on pitchers!  Jason Jennings, you can do it tomorrow!  Win one for my son, that’ll make us all happy.  He is so excited to be going to the ballpark again.  Me too, I’m looking forward to a ballpark hotdog, and a new shirt (I hope they have Salty shirts available by now), and the chance to pay ten bucks to leave my car a mile away for a few hours.  Reports are for rain, I hope they don’t affect the game.

I said prior to the opening game that Washington had said he wouldn’t use Botts, and it was true. One at-bat all week, it’s ridiculous. He even said he is going to use Byrd tomorrow, to get the platoon advantage, and move Murphy to DH. Okay, Murphy may need to be in the lineup because of the way he is hitting, but how do you reconcile that with Botts sitting on the bench while Broussard plays against a lefty? I guess it’s the three home runs keeping him in the lineup, it’s sure not the 4-for-21 performance.  And more to the point, how do you justify putting Murphy at DH, he is looking better every day at the plate, and in the field.

I’ve complained about the umpires enough, here’s some credit for one: In Friday night’s game, Mike Scioscia came out to argue something, and Derryl Cousins stood there and listened patiently and politely. He clearly respected Scioscia’s right to say something, he didn’t yell at him or stare him down, he listened, let him have his say, said a few words and then they were done. This was a very professional attitude from the umpire (and indeed from Scioscia, not something I would always say). To my surprise, as I was checking the facts on this (making sure which day it was) I discovered this photo of the moment on ESPN.com.  I should point out that Scioscia’s finger is not in Cousins’ face, it is pointing off to the side.  But just look at the way the ump is listening attentively, not just saying screw you like we’ve had other guys do already this season.  Bravo Derryl Cousins!

On the subject of Pitchfx, I said last time that I’d try and write up something about the first few games of the season. Well, as usual, I started digging into the data as I went, and found more and more stuff I wanted to write about, and ended up writing nothing. My most interesting result was on the new fields in the data, the pitch type and the confidence in that pitch, and how they seem to be being interpreted as they went along. Here’s a question for you: who do you think the algorithm would have more confidence in, Millwood or Padilla? And don’t think for a second that it relates to confidence in their actual ability! More on that, including the answer, very soon.

Gabbard had such a terrible spring that he was on the verge of being sent down, I think.  It was only thanks to the lack of bodies available that he made the team, but he put it all together the other night.  Just one start, but certainly hopeful, as was the way Millwood and Padilla pitched on the weekend.  Do you get the feeling Millwood was going to go a complete game no matter what, just because everyone had talked about the Rangers setting the record for most games without one?  Oh yeah, what does this do to their arms, pitching for long periods so early in the season?  I’ve always heard that their pitch counts are kept down to start the year because it’s cold, and they’re still working their way up to full strength after the winter.  Remember, if arms start falling apart again in a month or two, you heard this theory here first.

Edinson Volquez struck out eight in 5 1/3, gave up one run and got the win, in his debut for Cincy.  John Danks had five no-hit innings going, ended up giving up one run in 6 2/3 (no decision), last week against Cleveland.  Just sayin’.

Opening Day at home at last, we’ll be there. Look for me, I’ll be the guy in the blue McCarthy shirt, with the red cap. You ought to be able to find me, just look for the three year old bouncing off the walls as he drags me around the ballpark.

Flat

Just three games in, and I’m already in a baseball funk.  The Rangers played tonight like they are, too.  Hopefully the day off tomorrow will help – although it’s a bad sign, looking a day off in the first week of the season.

I only watched about half the game today, first couple of innings, bits and pieces in the middle, and the end.  It couldn’t hold my attention for very long, because there was literally nothing happening (no, not literally).  If you were someone who didn’t like baseball, you would point at this game as a prototypical example of boring baseball.

Jennings wasn’t too bad, four runs in five innings is a fairly typical Rangers start, and really apart from the two home runs he didn’t do much wrong.  But he also didn’t do much right – there was no dominance, no striking out the side, in fact, only 48 strikes in 91 pitches.  Bland.  Can he do better?  Maybe.  His track record from last year doesn’t suggest he can though.  I think he’s on schedule to throw the home opener on Tuesday (hey, Josh Lewin, when’s the home opener?  Tell us again, for the four thousandth time, even though if we don’t have tickets already we’re out of luck), which after watching this game, does not fill me with great excitement.

As for the rest, Ben Broussard’s home run was the highlight of a three hit attack.  Carlos Silva stayed in way too long (116 pitches) for a first start of the season, and toward the end there he was looking a little shaky, but he did enough to keep us off base.

I am so mad at the tv people though.  Last night they missed the first pitch of a Josh Hamilton at-bat, which happened to have him grounding out, but all we saw was him crossing first base.  Tonight they went far worse, missing the first three pitches of the game, including the Kinsler double.  I understand they’re trying to squeeze as many ads in as they can, but come on!

Josh Lewin also treated us to the surprising news that the yellow line marking home run territory is not necessarily the home run line, according to umpires.  It’s just an indicator, he said.  Firstly, it doesn’t indicate much if they get so many of those calls wrong, and secondly, this will come as news to every single fan who has ever watched a game, and 99% of the broadcasters.  Is this yet another case where the umpires are making things up as they go along, to try and insert themselves into the game?

Speaking of umpires, I had no problem with them tonight, after a couple of bad displays the first two games.  Maybe I should keep track of that stat:  bad umpire plays, or maybe games ruined by jerks in blue suits.

Everyone will point out that the Rangers haven’t won an opening series since 2001.  I will point out that they seem to start on the road every single year, so they’re automatically given a tougher start than they could have.  Once again this week people are talking about the weather interruptions (Jays at Yankees were rained out, if only it had been Yankees at Jays then it would have been in a dome).  If that’s the case, the Rangers should get more early games in the season, because we’re having some pretty nice weather right now, no snow or 50 degrees like in Seattle.  Who makes up those schedules, anyway?  (Do I remember reading about some old man and his wife who’ve been doing it for umpteen years?  Or am I crazy?)

8 runs for and 13 against will give us a Pythagorean winning percentage of .274, or about 45 wins.  Remember, small sample sizes tend to distort things.

You know how the Rangers have the “You could use some baseball” theme going?  It could be worse:  the Mariners’ theme is “Mojo Risin’”.   I’m sure that means something to someone.  Actually I’m only guessing that’s their theme because it’s in the same place on their mlb.com page as the Rangers theme.  The other teams I checked didn’t have one.  Which may be another pointer – you have to be a pretty lame team to need a theme (that is, a theme other than “we’re going to win”).

I’ve been meaning to mention all series about how the Mariners are kind of the model for the Rangers.  By that I mean that while the Rangers have been floating along, winning from 71-80 games every year but one in the 2000’s, the Mariners weren’t afraid to tear their team down, from 116 wins in 2001 to 93 in 2003 to 63 in 2004, and then climbing back again.  The Rangers committed to mediocrity, or just below mediocrity, and the Mariners went back to basics and quickly jumped back into contention.  Who would you rather be right now?  A team with an average offense and no rotation, or a team with below average offense and one of the best rotations in baseball?  Their pitching is going to carry them close to the top, whereas ours is going to lead us back to 75 wins.

I’ve been looking at Millwood and Bedard’s PitchFX data all week, trying to come up with something to say about.  Since tomorrow is an off day, maybe I’ll get it written up, perhaps even expanded to cover all six starters.  We’ll see how it goes, but keep an eye out for it.