It was a nice 5 game run, and really, if the streak is going to end, I think I'd just as soon see the team lose in a clunker like this as lose in a close game that could have gone either way.
But yeah, that sucked yesterday.
Evan Grant has an explanation from Brandon McCarthy, who followed up three strong innings with an awful fourth inning, of what he started doing wrong:
"I threw a bad pitch to start the inning and some poor quality pitches after that," said McCarthy, who fell to 3-1 for the season. "It was unacceptable. And then the pitch to Cust was awful. The game just got to fast and I didn’t slow things down enough."
McCarthy’s more in-depth explanation: Once he fell into an old bad habit on the mound, he couldn’t identify it quickly enough to fix it before the inning fell apart.
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McCarthy said he felt like he fell into a practice of "pulling off the ball," which makes his fastball either run way too far inside against left-handed hitters or drift too far over the plate against them. The walk to Giambi was the product of what happens when he comes too far inside; the homer was the product of the other problem.
Jeff Wilson's game story includes some quotes from McCarthy about how he has to put an end to having the one bad inning that ends up being a black mark on his starts this season.
What has been so frustrating about McCarthy this season is that he'll have several innings where you see a guy who looks like a legit top of the rotation pitcher, and then he has something like the bottom of the 4th yesterday where the wheels come off. It is maddening.
Wilson also has a piece up that discusses how, along with the new conditioning program, the Ranger pitchers are getting amped up scouting reports, with Mike Maddux and Andy Hawkins being much more "intense" in the work they do with the starters in regards to the preparation and scouting.
Derek Holland says he has learned from the pitch to Jim Thome that he left out over the plate the other night, that resulted in a three-run game-changing double.
Ron Washington said that Taylor Teagarden will be Matt Harrison's personal catcher from here on out.
Over at the DMN blog, Richard Durrett discusses the state of Eddie Guardado and Kris Benson.