Goodbye for another year, Surprise, AZ. The Rangers on onto more important things. Things such as Myrtle Beach, SC. Myrtle Beach, SC: Home of the Beach Music Festival, Chuck Greenberg's Myrtle Beach Pelicans, and as of tonight, Alexi Ogando's tune-up against the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers.
Richard Durrett has some notes about today's schedule that include Ogando, in his final start of the spring, but first since becoming the anointed favorite to open the season in the rotation, perhaps facing both Chanticleer players as well as some of his own teammates as the Rangers try to get their work in.
T.R. Sullivan recaps the Rangers final day in Arizona which included a nice 9th inning rally to beat the Diamondbacks behind a go-ahead Chris Davis RBI single.
Jeff Wilson has his own recap of the game in which Ron Washington concluded that Matt Harrison had a solid outing other than "the ball that King Kong hit."
"King Kong ain't got nothin' on me!" - Russel Branyan
Brandon Webb threw, felt good, will throw some more, might pitch, says Evan Grant.
The big news from camp yesterday was about the Matt Treanor deal and how that opened up spots on the roster. Sullivan talks about the two players impacted the most by the trade, naming Mike Napoli and Mason Tobin. However, Grant says Michael Young's playing time in the field might be impacted most.
As a farewell, Anthony Andro writes about the departure of Treanor by saying he had become a luxury item. For Treanor's part, he says it's "tough" to leave the Rangers but he's looking forward to playing for the team that originally drafted him. We'll always have the Miami Triple, Matt. We'll always have the Miami Triple.
Grant says that if Mason Tobin makes the team (which is expected) he will likely be protected by Washington by only pitching in games where the outcome has been decided until he has won a few battles and earned higher leverage innings. For whatever this is worth late in spring, Tobin's first foray in pitching on back-to-back days was a complete success; Tobin pitched a hitless, scoreless inning with 2 Ks on Monday.
JFE has her annual "The Rangers have a lot of questions" article before Opening Day. Apparently one of them is a pressing question about Chris Davis which makes me think the Rangers are pretty well off as far as unanswered questions are concerned if a non-entity such as Davis is an issue at the moment.
Lucky 5%:
- Kevin Sherrington thinks it's a mistake starting Julio Borbon in center over Josh Hamilton
- Evan Grant writes that Matt Treanor had to go because of depth concerns
Finally, in case you missed it, T.R. wrote a nice piece on Chuck Morgan and if you didn't already believe that we were lucky to have him, you will after reading it.