Magic Number: 16

One of the fun things about baseball is 162 games gives you a better chance to see everything once. Even rare and incredible things, like the Oakland Athletics beating the Texas Rangers in a scorefest. Of course, that was not one of the fun things about today's baseball. It was just a thing.

Let's all just accept the 35,000th line drive out to end it was balancing out Michael Young being called safe, and poor one out for Alexi and Yoshi.

That was a nice win for the Rangers to open this ten game road trip. The Rangers should beat this Royals team and it was a comfortable feeling watching them do just that. The offensive still isn't clicking the way we know it can, but with Nelson Cruz back and Ian Kinsler on his way, it shouldn't be too long before the lineup is producing up to expectations.

With the win the Rangers are back up 8 1/2 games in the AL West over the Oakland Athletics. The Rangers were also able to drop their Magic Number down to 24.

T.R. Sullivan's report on the game is about C.J. Wilson. Clearly C.J. was the star of the game having gone 7.2 innings of 2-hit scoreless baseball. T.R. also talks about C.J. Wilson's second half and how it might be putting him in consideration for the Cy Young discussion.

Jeff Wilson's game story quotes C.J. Wilson as attributing his second half success to being able to better prepare for teams now that he has started against them a few times.

If you want to be scared to death, here's a story from Evan Grant about Josh Hamilton's knee. Grant mentions that the knee that kept Hamilton out of the field and regulated him to DHing Monday night is the same one that has bothered him all season and the same one that had a second cortisone injection in late July. Grant's headline of "Josh Hamilton's knee injury could doom Rangers" pretty much says it all.

The Rangers have decided to roll with Derek Holland in the rotation after Rich Harden struggled again in his last start. Richard Durrett spoke with Rich Harden, who is being moved to the bullpen, about his new role. Harden seems to be taking the move in stride while saying just wants to help the team. Holland will make his first start on Friday.

Durrett also has a piece up looking at the 40 man roster to see who might be getting a September 1st call-up.

T.R. Sullivan has some various Rangers notes including Ron Washington saying he will alternate David Murphy and Julio Borbon in the lineup now that Nelson Cruz is back from the disabled list. Thad Levine talks about the team's decision to move Harden out of the rotation and Holland back in. And Sullivan also has injury updates on Craig Gentry, Ian Kinsler, Cristian Guzman, and Scott Feldman.

Jeff Wilson reports that the Rangers are likely switching their Triple A and High A affiliates after renewing the deals with three other affiliates. Round Rock and Myrtle Beach, S.C. would be the logical replacements for Oklahoma City and Bakersfield considering both are owned by the Rangers new owner partnership and each of those team's affiliations are expiring after this year.

And finally, poor Emily Jones fielded horrible questions from fans during a Dallas Morning News Rangers chat on Friday. My favorite question involved yet another person trying to get someone to admit that the Rangers clubhouse hates C.J. Wilson. By favorite I meant most terrible.

Adam is predictably smashing marriages this morning so I will take you on the guided tour of all of the happenings in Rangers land this morning. Only today happens to be the deadest sports day of the year. Oops.

The All-Star Game ended with the American League losing for the first time since the Summer of the Macarena. One day before that All-Star Game, in 1996, The Spice Girls release their debut single "Wannabe" in the UK. It had been a while. This means the National League Champion will have home field for the World Series seeing as this one still counts. I look at this as a positive. If the Rangers are going to make it to the World Series, of course it will come in the year that the National League finally wins home field advantage. The Rangers wouldn't have it any other way.

And like I said in the All-Star Game Post Game Thread, the last time the NL won an All-Star Game was also the last time the Rangers won a playoff game.

Anthony Andro has some quotes from the Rangers contingent about their experience at and during the All-Star Game and T.R. Sullivan has a story about the Rangers player's attempt to influence the outcome of the game.

Even though the game itself was boring and FOX went out of its way in trying to make it unwatchable, we got to see Josh Hamilton, Elvis, Kinsler, and Ranger Cliff Lee all in one All-Star Game. That's amazing.

Richard Durrett spoke with Elvis Andrus about his first All-Star Game. Even though Elvis made a mistake on a steal attempt, and didn't produce in his lone plate appearance, Elvis being an All-Star was one of the few terrific things about last night's game.

Barry Shlachter has the latest on the other big story going on with the Rangers right now. The scary one. No, not the Rangers late August series against the Baltimore Orioles, I'm writing of course about the Rangers Sale fiasco. The latest is Judge Lynn is pretty much annoyed with everyone involved and is ready to get this over with. Aren't we all.

T.R. Sullivan says August 4th looks like the new date to circle in your doom calendar. That's the day the Rangers will be auctioned.

Andro writes that Bud Selig is proud of the way the Rangers have held up in the face of this catastrophe of a process among other notes. Of course, if this doesn't go Bud's way, the team will just end up contracted anyway.

Brett Perryman has a gaggle of DFW media links this morning; including a video of Jerry Jones looking particularly Skeletor-ish on HBO's Entourage.

John Heyman handed out his mid-season awards, in an apparent attempt to wet your whistle for the second half. Surprisingly the winners weren't all Boras clients. A Ranger is featured in every category. Including this: "GM of the Half Year: Jon Daniels, Rangers."

Weird things happen when the Rangers play the Orioles. Join my guided tour of the bizarre and marvel at the conquests of the superhuman when the men from Arlington face the birds from Baltimore.

• The Rangers score a team record 16 runs in the 8th inning of a 27-6 victory over these Orioles on April 19, 1996. The Rangers batted around twice in the inning. There were seven walks, five singles, a home run, a double, a stolen base, a wild pitch, and one grand slam before there were three outs.
  
• September 3, 2002, Aaron Myette (proof that none of us should ever complain about a pitcher ever again) threw two tight pitches to Melvin Mora to lead off the game. Myette was then tossed from the game by home plate umpire Mark Hirschbeck. Todd Van Poppel came into the game, finished walking Mora, and walked the next hitter before then wiggling out the inning and one more without a hit. Joaquin Benoit took over and pitched six more no-hit innings before giving up a lead-off triple in the 9th.
• August 22, 2007:


"AND LITTLETON GOT A SAVE! THEY SCORED 30 RUNS AND HE GOT A SAVE!" - Tim Kurkjian with a vocal assist from Matthew Lesko.


• Ian Kinsler had only had one other five hit game in his big league career (Also against Baltimore) when, on April 15, 2009, he decided to go one better in the hit column and in the history books when he went 6-6, becoming the first Major League player in 119 years to finish with six hits in a nine-inning game in which he hit for the cycle.
• May 19, 2010, the first Perfect Game by committee/40 run/20 run inning/7-7 with 7 home runs game in baseball history.
  

The best thing about all of the above wacky happenings is the coincidence that they were all in favor of the Rangers. Except for that last one, that one did not happen. You people are gullible. 

Wednesday, May 19 7:05: RHP Jeremy Guthrie vs. RHP Rich "Smilin'" Harden

Thursday, May 20 7:05: LHP Brian Matusz vs. RHP Scott Feldman

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I was going to write a post with lots o' tidbits from the Toronto series, but goodness, no. Who would ever want to relive that debacle? None of you? Good. Let's move on.

The Rangers traveling circus makes its way back home for two against the hated LA Angels. The cotton candy and buffalo nickels to see the bearded Elvis are on me. Why the Rangers are playing back to back home two-game sets and also playing the Angels for the first time in mid-May—especially when you consider they've already played the Blue Jays six times—is a question again left for the MLB schedule wizards.

Monday, May 17 7:05: LHP Scott Kazmir vs. LHP Derek Holland

Tuesday, May 18 7:05: RHP Jered Weaver vs. LHP C.J. Wilson

Don't look now (I mean really, don't, it's unpleasant), but the Angels are now 18-21, only 2 1/2 games back of the first place Texas Rangers, and a half game back of the A's for second place, after sweeping the A's in Anaheim. Is this yet another May where the Angels start to get it going and begin their destined ascent to AL West glory while zooming past the Rangers in the process? Maybe the 15-21 start was meant to lull the West into a false sense of security allowing Mike Scioscia and the Rally Monkey to orchestrate another claim on what has been recently rightfully theirs.

One thing though, I'm not buying it. Not yet at least. The sweep against Oakland could be the turning of the tide, but as of today, the Angels might have played as one of the worst five teams in baseball. They aren't one of the worst five teams in baseball, so their regression will mean progression, and maybe that has begun, but they've played like they are so far this year.

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The Rangers are making a short three game sojourn to Toronto this weekend to face off against a good Blue Jays team before coming right back home for a set against the Angels. It seems strange to me to schedule a series in another country that is sandwiched between AL West battles in Texas. I assume the MLB schedulers just thought Michael Young would be missing his buddy Vernon Wells by now.

Friday, May 14 6:07: RHP Rich "Dreamboat" Harden vs. LHP Brett Cecil

Saturday, May 15 12:07: RHP Scott Feldman vs. LHP Ricky Romero

Sunday, May 16 12:07: RHP Colby Lewis vs. RHP Brandon Morrow

With the Canadiens improbably in the NHL Eastern Conference Finals will Toronto put their rivalry with Montreal on ice long enough to get excited about hockey or will they notice instead that their baseball team is pretty good this year? If not for the fact that Tampa Bay is loaded with talent at pretty much every position and that the Yankees have paid for talent at every position, the Blue Jays would seem like more of a burgeoning story. Instead, they have played themselves into the "Too bad you play in the AL East" position the third best team of that division seems to face each year.

The Jays are getting solid starting pitching, currently have a surprisingly outstanding bullpen, and are sporting above average defense. Offensively, the Jays are being carried at the moment by players they likely weren't expecting to contribute as much as they have so far. John Buck is walking about 2% of his at-bats but that's because he's swing for the fences. Buck is sporting a .340 ISO and a 22% Home Run to Fly Ball Ratio. Alex Gonzalez is tied for second in the American League in home runs, and Vernon Wells is playing like someone embarrassed that he's getting paid $16 million dollars should play. Wells is currently 3rd in baseball in RAR (sneaking in just ahead of Marlon Byrd.).

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2-1. That's a score from today's baseball game and the tally of the overall series.

I missed the game today thanks to the Comcast SportsNet sending a crew to televise the games of this series but apparently deciding today's game wasn't worth their time. Did Comcast SportsNet Bay Area take a day off to go to Six Flags or something?

Ray Fosse: "Want to go to Hurricane Harbor?"
Glen Kuiper: "Heck no. It's not warm enough for that yet!"
Ray Fosse: "What? It's like 90 outside today."
Glen Kuiper: "That's like...air temperature or something. The water is probably still cold."
Ray Fosse: "Fine, want to go to the House of Wax?"
Glen Kuiper: "Ooooh. Yeah! Do you think they have a Wax Pete Rose?"
Ray Fosse: :(

I'm sure it has to do with the actual TV contract, by why even send a crew if you're not going to broadcast all of the games. Anyhow, because I live in Oakland, somehow, I was supposed to be able to go to the game in Texas as the Rangers' broadcast of the game was blacked out on MLB.tv.

However, once the game was archived on MLB.tv, I watched the whole damn thing so I could sweat out a sweet win like everyone here.

Some thoughts on a nice series win and a two game division lead for the Texas Rangers:

• I'm not sure exactly why Josh Donaldson is afraid of home plate, but he made two routine looking plays at the plate much more vague for the umpire to call. In fact, upon watching the replay of Ian Kinsler's attempt to come home, I'm pretty sure Donaldson didn't actually apply the tag until Ian was sitting on the plate.
• C.J. Wilson is now the guy I'm most confident of when I check out who is starting the game that night. I think back to just about every time he was called into a ballgame from the bullpen the past few seasons and the groans of contempt that was heard from a large contingent of every faction of Rangers fans and I am amazed that C.J. is doing what he is doing.

  He's walking too many batters and he isn't striking out very many, and eventually he's going to give up home runs, but even as he regresses, I'm confident that he is a much better starter than I thought he would be. This experiment is becoming a revelation.

• Gio Gonzalez is a funny when he is unhappy:

  

• The O'Day chant needs to become canon at the Ballpark. It has become one of those natural, not forced, special things about the Rangers and the Rangers fans that doesn't come along very often. The chant needs to continue to be cultivated and nurtured so that when the Rangers are fighting off foes late in meaningful games in September, the entire 45K+ crowd is hollering their 'O'Days' in a way that transfixes the opponent and becomes a part of the legacy.
• Speaking of O'Day, he might not get the opportunity to pitch late in meaningful September games if Ron Washington continues to show a lack of know-how on how to use him. It was 7-0 Rangers in the 7th inning yesterday when Ron Washington inexplicably put O'Day in a game he had no business seeing. At other times, we've seen O'Day come in for only one or two batters.

  O'Day has been the Rangers third most effective reliever behind Neftali Feliz and Darren Oliver. He shouldn't be coming into a game as a mop up guy. That's what Doug Mathis is here for. And even though Doug Mathis did come in the next inning, pitching O'Day in that game just didn't make any sense. O'Day would have been very useful in the game today but, because of last night, he was all but unavailable. I just don't think Ron Washington knows what he has in Darren O'Day.

• Back on April 28th I mentioned a trend of Ron Washington lead baseball teams and how once they get themselves out of the two week funk of the last half of April, they tend to have a solid May. I was hoping for the Rangers to go 10-5 over the next 15 games played from that date. They've gone 10-4 since then. Regardless of tomorrow night's game in Toronto, the Rangers are meeting expectations.

It's an early May tickle fight for the AL West division lead this week in Arlington. The good news is there's only about a 1 in 12,000 chance an A's starter pitches as well as Dallas Braden did on Sunday. The bad news is there's a 1 in 1 chance that Ryan Sweeney was born solely to cause misery.

Tuesday, May 11 7:05: RHP Trevor Cahill vs. RHP Colby Lewis

Wednesday, May 12 7:05: LHP Gio Gonzalez vs. LHP Derek Holland

Thursday, May 13 1:05: RHP Ben Sheets vs. LHP C.J. Wilson

With Brett Anderson and Justin Duchscherer injured and Dallas Braden busy scheduling a parade for himself in the 209, the Rangers will be facing off against the soft underbelly of the A's rotation. However, this particular underbelly is ripe with potential smelly hazards. Trevor Cahill is going to be a really good big league pitcher someday soon. Unfortunately for the Texas Rangers, against them, he already is. Cahill is 4-1 against the Rangers and 7-13 against everyone else. But since wins is pretty meaningless stat, it's also of note that Cahill gives the Texas Rangers his best SO/BB, SO/9, SO, WHIP and opponent's OPS & OBP for any team he has faced more than twice.

Gio Gonzalez is a lefty, 'nuff said. However, Ben Sheets has been fairly terrible this year. Some of it has been a bit of bad luck as he is facing a .335 BAPIP, but it's not terrible luck. He's not striking out nearly as many guys as he has in the past and he's walking almost twice as many as his career average. That's a recipe that has him at a 5.46 FIP. Welcome to the American League, Ben.

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