Yay, a win! And in a season where some LSB faves have struggled, it was great to see LSB faves Wes Littleton and Gerald Laird step up with big games.
And Frank Catalanotto, who at least a few folks were suggesting should be released a month or two ago, has his OPS up to 803 on the season...not bad, given the awful April he had.
Mike Heika points out a strange move by Ron Washington, who brought in John Rheinecker to face the lefty Jim Thome in the 8th, but then left him in to face the righty Paul Konerko before lifting him for Wes Littleton.
I don't know what that is about...if you are going to bring Rheinecker into the game, presumably it is just for Thome. I'm not sure if Littleton wasn't ready, or if Washington wanted to see Rheinecker against a righty (despite the fact righties have killed Rheinecker this year), or what, but it leads me to wonder once again about his game management decisions.
Kevin Sherrington has a column up about John Danks and the talks with Florida for Josh Beckett a couple of years ago, with Tom Hicks proving once again he shouldn't talk to the media, as he drops his g.m. in the grease:
Next thing you know, the owner's confessing that Josh Beckett was almost a Ranger.
"Had we been willing to give him up sooner," Hicks said of Danks, "Beckett would be pitching here."
Here's how this sordid tale supposedly went down:
The Marlins approached the Rangers with Beckett and Mike Lowell in November 2005. They asked for Hank Blalock and Danks or Thomas Diamond, Rangers' choice.
The way Hicks tells the story, Florida wanted an immediate decision. Daniels, fresh on the job, wanted a consensus from his advisers. He also tried to see if he could get the Marlins to bite on someone other than Diamond or Danks.
But the potential trade got out, Boston got involved, and the Marlins ended up dealing with the Red Sox instead.
Or as Hicks summed it up: "Jon learned a lesson about making fast decisions."
Of course, that's assuming the Marlins really wanted to do the deal with the Rangers and weren't using them to drive up the price from Boston.
But for the sake of the argument, let's say the Rangers could have done the deal had Daniels jumped on it.
After winning 16 games for Boston in 2006, Beckett is 16-5 this season with a 3.21 ERA. Lowell, a contract dump by the Marlins, is hitting .322 with 17 home runs and 93 RBIs.
Bottom line: The Rangers could have had both, and it wouldn't necessarily have cost them Danks, either.
A couple of points here...
Beckett would have been a free agent after 2008, and I'm guessing signing an extension with the BoSox was a little more attractive to him than signing an extension with the Rangers, although Texas may have been able to get him locked up.
Second, while Sherrington mentions the 16 wins last year, he ignores the fact that Beckett did that with a 5.01 ERA and a 92 ERA+ in 2006. Beckett wasn't very good last year, although he's been outstanding this year.
The biggest thing, though, that Sherrington hints at but doesn't come out and say, is that all this is probably moot.
Florida didn't really want Danks or Diamond all that badly. Sure, they probably would have made the Texas deal if they had to, but they'd then have had to try to flip Hank Blalock in another deal, and the Texas prospects weren't the Marlins' primary target in the first place.
The Marlins wanted Hanley Ramirez. He was the guy they targeted, the guy they wanted first and foremost for Beckett. If the Rangers had said, "Sure, we'll give you Danks and Blalock," the Marlins would have shopped that offer to the BoSox in order to get them to part with Hanley (as they ultimately did).
And there isn't anything wrong with that...I'm sure Daniels shopped the Atlanta offer around for a couple of days when he was trying to move Teixeira.
But the Beckett situation isn't much different than the attempt to sign Carlos Delgado a few years ago...the Rangers made a strong offer, and the other side used that offer to extract a sweeter deal from the team they really wanted to do business with.
Hicks coming in now and volunteering that Daniels' inability to make a decision cost the team Josh Beckett is, I think, pretty misguided.
Brandon McCarthy played catch yesterday, and the Rangers are still hoping that he gets a couple more starts in before the season is up.