Friday A.M. Things

So, I forgot what day of the week it was and didn't do the Thursday morning links, and let me tell you: no one communicates the very depth of your personal failures by six word text message like my brother.

The Rangers took the season series against Kansas City last night, as should be expected because Kansas City is a crappy team, but it took some doing. T.R. Sullivan has a game recap, with Scott Feldman doing his best Nuke LaLoosh: "It's a lot more fun when the team wins." That it is, Scott. Also, Ned Yost said "I think they [the Rangers] are glad they're getting out of town," but that goes without saying because it's Kansas City. Sullivan also has a column on MLB.com's top 100 prospects and the Rangers' top 20 prospects, with Profar (1), Olt, (17), Perez (50), and Buckel (96) all cracking the top 100. Sullivan's notes column has some content-free quotes from Joe Nathan on his streak of consecutive saves, an update on Mike Napoli from the Springfield Mystery Spot, and the encouraging news that Robbie Ross has been cleared to begin throwing as early as today.

Over at the FWST, Jeff Wilson also has notes about Mike Napoli and Robbie Ross. Ron Washington said that Ross will begin a throwing program today, and I'm sure Wash is happy about that. As of August 31, Robbie Ross had pitched 22% of the Rangers' relief innings. By way of contrast, Mike Adams had pitched 13%.

Evan Grant says that Mike Napoli didn't feel "comfortable" at the end of his workout today, which means that we can expect six more weeks of summer. Grant also has a post about Kinsler's relatively poor season on the basepaths, noting that he's stealing at a 70% clip this season and was successful 86.1% of the time from 2006 to 2011. It's worth keeping in mind, though, that at 30 attempts on the season we're not dealing with a huge sample size... he's 21 for 30 on the season and would be 26 for 30 at his historical rate. Whether he's due to regress to his career mean or not, Washington apparently has no intention of stopping Kinsler from running (or, probably, stopping Elvis from bunting). Also at the DMN, Jered Weaver will miss his next scheduled start (Friday) due to mullet tendinitis and chronic horseface.

Over at ESPN Dallas, Robert Falkoff has his rapid reactions to the game. He discusses Royals' catcher Salvador Perez's nice pickoff throws and makes me bitter about everyone we play running all over us. It's getting ridiculous. Falkoff also has a "Michael Young is a grinder and gamer" post and a "Feldman didn't shame himself (like Roy Oswalt probably would have)" post.

Finally, I'm obsessed with photographs of women in the Israeli Army. Here's a whole bunch of them.