Thursday morning items, as we prepare for Dickeymania to sweep the DFW area...
Randy Galloway offers a public mea culpa. He ripped Jon Daniels last week after the Dellucci trade, saying Daniels lost credibility in the aftermath of the deal...but today, has backtracked:
I will throw it in reverse and back up.
Credibility? Yeah, Daniels still has it, and that's just me, because maybe he didn't lose it with most people anyway.
And why is Galloway publicly recanting?
Then the Dellucci-for-Tejeda trade was made late Saturday night.
Daniels said he did it because of the Eaton injury.
I didn't believe that. At all.
Now, however, if the Rangers did have an extra outfielder (and that's questionable about Dellucci being an "extra"), trading him for a pitcher is obviously what this team needs to do, baseball-wise.
But during a long conversation with Daniels on Wednesday (yes, he's still speaking to me), he gave his opinions.
John Hart was killed by the media in D/FW, primarily because he was awful at his job while he was the g.m. in Texas, but also because he did an extraordinarily poor job of dealing with the media.
Galloway, like him or hate him, is one of the biggest dogs in the D/FW sports media. Daniels is aware of that, has clearly absorbed what the bad relationship with the media did to the front office in Hart's tenure, and is working to rectify that.
Sitting down with Galloway and talking about the issues he raised -- and apparently being convincing enough to get Galloway to issue a retraction -- is an indication both of how media-savvy Daniels seems to be, and how self-confident he apparently is. A huge change from the way things had been done before...
Similarly, Daniels seems to have learned from his predecessor's mistakes in dealing with the players. Also from the Galloway column:
Daniels went into the clubhouse the day after Dellucci was traded, inviting about 10 veteran players to attend a closed-door meeting.
"I wanted to explain the rationale, and also hear any comments they had," he said. "It's no secret that last summer a wedge developed between us and the clubhouse. Many of the players felt we weren't on the same page.
"Frankly, this kind of situation is not acceptable. My thought was not to have that again. Let's talk about it now."
Several veteran players who didn't agree with trading Dellucci had high praise for Daniels' up-front approach with them.
Very good to see...
Despite the loss, Kam Loe got praise for his solid performance last night...with Eaton gone, Loe and Padilla are crucial to the Rangers' chances of success this year, and they've gotten off to an encouraging start.
The decision to send Teixeira from third on the Mench single in the 8th last night, rather than holding him and giving D'Angelo Jimenez a bases loaded, one out opportunity, came under quite a bit of criticism on the game day thread last night, and Buck Showalter didn't come out and endorse Steve Smith's decision to send Teixeira home:
"It's a tough job," Rangers manager Buck Showalter. "Smitty's one of the best in the business. He makes a lot of good decisions."
Evan Grant has a brief write-up on R.A. Dickey's season debut, with Dickey saying he's basically going to ride the knuckler, for better or worse. Grant suggests that Robinson Tejeda will be joining the rotation shortly, meaning that a bad outing from either Dickey or John Koronka, tomorrow, could result in them being bumped for Tejeda.
Kat O'Brien says the coaches believe that the Rangers catchers are better at catching the knuckler than Josh Bard, and those shouldn't have all the passed ball problems Bard was having when Tim Wakefield on the mound. Barajas is going to start behind the plate tonight.
O'Brien also has a rehab summary:
The developments for rehabbing players: Brian Anderson will throw batting practice today, Frank Francisco will throw 25 pitches today, Ryan Bukvich will throw two innings in a simulated game today, Josh Rupe threw from 60 feet Wednesday, C.J. Wilson will pitch an inning for Double A Frisco today, and Gary Matthews Jr. will DH for Triple A Oklahoma today.