Games like last night increase my desire for the season to get over with, and 2009 to start approaching. That sucked.
Brandon McCarthy's start was pretty meh. If you chalk up the first two batters (who both walked) as being nerves/rusty/whatever, and focus on the line after that, his stat line from yesterday was pretty decent, but he needs to have better command than he showed to be the guy the Rangers expect him to be. Still, the curve and change both looked better yesterday than they have in my memory.
Evan Grant's game story is about McCarthy's return and McCarthy talking about building on this outing.
Grant also mentions on the DMN blog that the Rangers decided that McCarthy was going to be limited to about 75 pitches, since having to warm up twice with the delay meant that he essentially already had 25 extra pitches on his arm. Grant also has this observation:
One thing Rangers people have told me is that McCarthy's offspeed and breaking pitches had regressed since he joined the organization.
I'm curious to know how a fairly polished young pitcher comes to the Rangers and has his curve and change -- his two best pitches -- regress.
Nolan Ryan says that pitchers are going to throw more and longer, and are going to throw live batting practice this spring. In the same item, there's a mention that Nelson Cruz is coming up around the time rosters expand.
According to T.R. Sullivan, Kevin Millwood, Vicente Padilla, and Frank Catalanotto have all cleared waivers, but Jon Daniels says the Rangers aren't looking to make fire-sale deals.