That was some Opening Weekend as MLB was calling it. The Rangers swept the Boston Red Sox and are already alone in first place in the AL West. And while one series isn't nearly enough to draw any kind of conclusions, it's nice to be on this side of an early season massacre for once.
Of course, while the offense was both prolific and historic the first three games, the talk of yesterday's game is about the performance of Matt Harrison. T.R. Sullivan's game recap talks about Matt Harrison's outing with quotes from teammates and Ron Washington about how it was "Harry's game."
Richard Durrett writes that even though the Rangers offense grabbed the headlines, it was Matt Harrison's outing that was the best thing about the whole weekend. And for those of us worried about the back-end of the rotation, it's hard to argue.
Gil LeBreton goes into more details on Matt Harrison and his newly discovered use for the written word. If Matt Harrison has truly "arrived" as LeBreton has quoted Ron Washington, then something tells me this won't be the last time we read about Matt Harrison reading.
Durrett has about a dozen and a half interesting bullet-pointed notes on Sunday's win.
Just reading these reports from the local media makes me feel like tonally, right now, the Rangers are riding a huge wave of positive momentum here after the weekend which is pretty big coming off a season that now demands heightened expectations.
Jeff Wilson's game recap appears to bolster's this opinion. While the Rangers know it was just three games, the positivity is almost overwhelming as a Rangers fan used to actively looking for the bright side.
Anthony Andro has some post game notes from Sunday's game about the offense including an obscene distant mark for Nelson Cruz's opposite field upper deck home run. Durrett himself has quotes from Nellie's teammates about the home run. Including: "That doesn't make sense" from Ian Kinsler.
Speaking of Cruz and Kinsler, Sullivan writes of the history each of them carved out for themselves during Opening Weekend.
Nolan Ryan was thrilled with Opening Weekend himself, writes Andro. Nolan said it best when he said, "...you can't be any happier..." Partially why Nolan has a reason to be happy is the Rangers set an attendance record for most fans during the first series of a season.
Paywall shielded DMN content includes J-JT saying Ron Washington has all the right moves, and Evan Grant pondering if Matt Harrison can be this year's C.J. Wilson.
Lastly, T.R. has some notes up about, among other things, how Andres Blanco plans to cope with erratic playing time, Adrian Beltre welcoming the opportunity to hit behind Josh Hamilton even if that means watching teams walk the reigning AL MVP to get to him, and the Rangers sparing no spare in the presentation of rings.