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Not that anyone cared after the first three batters, and with the MLB Draft going on, but the Rangers played in and lost a baseball game last night. If you're a sick individual, you can read Anthony Andro's recap of the things you probably didn't watch.
Or, if you want to relive the events that transpired in the game, Richard Durrett and Travis Brown have their reactions to the Rangers five game winning streak ending 13-7 loss to the Detroit Tigers at ESPN Dallas.
Brown has quotes from Colby Lewis about his start which is good because he had some explaining to do. Lewis' excuse for his four home run, 9 run outing:
"I felt good," Lewis said. "I felt fine. The ball wasn't winding up where it should have been tonight."
I would've hated to have seen what feeling bad would have looked like.
But, if you're looking for a silver lining, Nelson Cruz did hit a 459-foot home run for the fourth-longest dong ever at the Ballpark.
The other news of the evening was, as mentioned, the MLB Draft. With the #33 and #37 picks, the Rangers went all Atlanta Braves on us and picked a couple of guys from Georgia. Jeff Wilson of the Star-Telegram wants to help you get to know the Rangers two first-day picks, Kevin Matthews of Richmond Hill High School near Savannah, Ga., and University of Georgia junior outfielder Zach Cone.
T.R. Sullivan has a piece on first round pick Matthews, another trendy-tiny lefty with a trademark case of "smooth-arm" and recent Rangers early-round favorite, "pitchability." When asked about his height (reported as 5'11" by MLB.com but 5'8" on Matthews' own Facebook account), Matthews said:
"I use that to prove people wrong," Matthews said. "To me, that's never been a problem. When I go to these workouts, all the pitchers are 6-foot-6 or 6-foot-4, and I'm always the shortest guy. I don't think size matters as long as you get it done."
Penis size joke.
Starring in the role of toolsy, kind of overlooked, Jake Skoleish outfielder is supplementary round pick Cone. Durrett has a piece on Cone and why the Rangers liked him at #37. The buzzwords? Upside and tweaks. You can also read ESPN.com's scouting report on Cone here. I'm not sure what Round: 1000 means or was predicting but it doesn't seem like it could mean anything good.
Behind the DMN paywall, Gerry Fraley writes that the Rangers picks were not flashy and, would you believe it, "not sure things."
The early buzz on twitter amongst the internet scouting community was that the Rangers had massively over-drafted with their first two selections -- that may be the case, after all, Baseball America had Cone ranked as their #86 prospect and Matthews at #105 overall -- but I think Adam has some good points here on why the Rangers might have been looking at someone like Cone at least, in case you missed it. As for Matthews, well, how could the Rangers pass up a harder-throwin', 360-dunkin' Robbie Ross? They couldn't, honestly.
Briefly:
- There's notes from Durrett featuring one that says the Rangers will avoid a Dave Bush start because Matt Harrison says he will be able to make his start today.
- Evan Grant on the Rangers' road trip resurgence coming with the revival of Neftali Feliz.
- Finally, Andro spoke with Josh Hamilton about his memories of the day he was drafted in 1999.