Impressive outing by Matt Harrison. In the second inning in his last start, I had mentally thrown in the towel on him, and was pretty much ready to see the Rangers send him back to Oklahoma when Kris Benson was healthy, or else move Derek Holland into the rotation into his place.
And I'm not sure what exactly happened, but it is like a switch flipped...he's allowed 0 runs in his last ten innings, he's been throwing strikes, it is like he's a whole new pitcher out there. This looks like the guy who the Rangers traded for, the guy who was a BA top 100 prospect.
Anthony Andro focuses on how two key parts of the Mark Teixeira trade -- Harrison and Elvis Andrus -- fueled yesterday's 5-1 win. But Ozzie Guillen wasn't impressed with Harrison:
"What did I see out of him?" Guillen said of Harrison. "He throws strikes. He was in deep counts all the time and walking people. But he got the win. To me, whoever got the 'W', that's the one who is the best. I don't care how good or bad he throws."
Harrison actually didn't issue any walks yesterday, although he did go deeper in counts than you'd like, and his pitch count was too high for 5 innings. But I'll take that from him right now...
Jeff Miller's story includes comments from Ron Washington about keeping Andrus in the #2 hole while Josh Hamilton is out, although he then indicated that David Murphy might get some time there, as well.
With Jarrod Saltalamacchia recovered from his eye problem, Max Ramirez is heading back to AAA, and Greg Golson is coming up to take his place on the roster.
Kris Benson's rehab start went fine from a health standpoint, andT.R. Sullivan says the question now isn't whether he'll replace Scott Feldman -- who is apparently sticking in the rotation -- but whether he'll be activated immediately to replace Luis Mendoza in the bullpen.
Gil LeBreton says that, while the Danks/McCarthy trade was a backstory for this weekend's series, it is time to let that go and move on.