I'm still boggling at the awful umpiring last night. Jim Caple has a story which includes quotes from Tim McClelland on his two egregiously blown calls:
First, Scott messed up the pickoff attempt on Swisher. Swisher clearly was out diving back into second base -- shortstop Erick Aybar's tag was right on his hand several inches in front of the bag -- but Scott called him safe. No matter. McClelland made up for it moments later when he called Swisher out for leaving too soon on a fly out to center fielder Torii Hunter.
"I said in my heart I thought he left too soon, but the replay showed that he didn't," McClelland acknowledged.
* * *
Napoli clearly tagged Cano when he was off third base and then tagged Posada, who also was standing off the base.
McClelland, however, did not see what everyone else in the park and watching on TV saw.
"I thought Cano was on the base," McClelland said. "I was waiting for two players to be on the base, and then there was never the situation where both of them were on the base at the same time. When [Napoli] tagged Cano, I thought Cano was on the base, and when [Napoli] tagged Posada out, I thought Posada was out.
"[The replay] showed that Cano was off the bag when he was tagged. I did not see that for whatever reason. So obviously there were two missed calls. Obviously or not obviously, but there were two missed calls. And I'm just out there trying to do my job and do it the best I can."
Geez.
Evan Grant grades the Rangers' relievers, and other than being too generous to Eddie Guardado, I think he's pretty much spot on.
Jeff Wilson has some more details on the Derek Holland recruiting trip to Japan.
And potential Rangers owner Jim Crane was in town yesterday, meeting with the baseball and business folks and touring the ballpark. He apparently met with Jon Daniels and Nolan Ryan, despite earlier reports that Ryan wouldn't be involved in these meetings.