Two crappy games against the Yankees, one good one. Not the way you want a series at home to go, but it is going to happen.
Evan Grant says that the Rangers are a good team that is terrible against other good teams -- particularly offensively.
Anthony Andro's game story says this was a learning experience for Derek Holland, who says that he had issues with his location last night.
Although Matt Harrison is having his start skipped, the team isn't talking d.l. right now, and Mike Maddux and Ron Washington both say the starting pitchers aren't being overworked.
The most current All Star balloting has Ian Kinsler and Josh Hamilton both getting in as starters. I'd be a little surprised if Kinsler maintained his lead, but I suspect Hamilton will get voted in.
Randy Galloway's column today talks about Tom Hicks now being open to selling a majority stake in the Rangers, Derek Holland's home starting debut, and the recent attendance surge, although I think he's a little cavalier on one point:
Wednesday night’s crowd of 38,409 was the sixth consecutive home date of drawing 33,000-plus, which is small-time in many baseball markets. But the Rangers have had one winning season this decade. Therefore, Wednesday was a gate landmark, of sorts, since the last time the ball yard hosted this many fans on six consecutive dates was 2001.
Calling 33K+ "small-time" seems a bit of a misnomer...the Rangers have averaged more than that only 6 times in their history, all in TBIA, the most recent being 2001 (when there was all kinds of excitement over ARod joining the club). Twenty teams are averaging less than 33,000 in attendance this season. If the team can draw like this -- particularly in the first two months, when school is in session and the races haven't heated up -- you have to be encouraged.
And Jeff Miller continues his stellar work over at Inside Corner with a great feature piece on Frisco infielder Adam Fox, and his journey to try to make the big leagues.