So, yeah, kind of some big news last night. Jon Daniels on Eric Hurley:
"Our people feel like he's made steady progress, has been making adjustments, learning to pitch with his stuff," general manager Jon Daniels said via e-mail. "All young pitchers go through a period where they move from 'good arm' to 'good pitcher,' and Eric's in that transition. We think he's deserving of an opportunity to help the club."
If you are going to make your first major league start, right now, there's probably not a team that's better to debut against than the Royals, who have been just about the worst offensive team in the majors.
Kevin Sherrington talks about Pacman Jones and the Rangers taking on perceived problem cases, along with Sidney Ponson's release (and flatly denies that Ponson got in a fight with Michael Young).
Jim Reeves spills some more details about the incident in the bar that has been alluded to:
My only complaint about the way the Rangers handled this -- and it's a mild one -- is that they didn't run Ponson off four days earlier, when he embarrassed the team and himself with an ugly incident at the hotel bar while the team was playing at Tampa Bay.
Observers say that when the bartender there tried to cut off a clearly already over-served Ponson, the Aruban right-hander became enraged, challenged him to fight and teammates had to intervene.
And Ponson was pitching against the Rays the next day.
"Ron addressed it on the spot and some of our players did as well," said Daniels, who was back in Arlington for the birth of his daughter during that trip. "It was partial judgment call and partial circumstances. We just decided not to take action at that point."
Already under a zero-strike policy with the Rangers because of his previous problems with other teams, Ponson caught a break there. Unfortunately, he didn't take advantage of it.
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Depending on whom you talk to, Ponson may have even challenged manager Ron Washington to fight.
Maybe he mistook him for the bartender.
What apparently is not at all true is any part of another popular rumor of a confrontation between Ponson and second baseman Ian Kinsler in the shower in which Michael Young intervened and suffered his broken finger and strained groin.
Reeves also says that, vis-a-vis the "personal days" of Vicente Padilla and Kevin Millwood, Padilla was in Nicaragua with his seriously ill daughter, and Millwood had a court appearance relating to his recent divorce case back in Georgia.