Green Guy Bass

Pow!!

Thanks for the support. So very sore.

Today was a great example of the club winning despite Wash. Terrible move today to ph Vlad for Max Ram instead of Garko, who was today's DH. That one move forces Treanor to play today after catching 22 innings already this weekend. Luckily Muprhy was able to come through and Elvis gave the team some great AB's and a key SB. CJ kept doing what he do (to quote Wash). The bullpen was great. 4IP no runs, 2BB, 4K's. Solid. Feliz picked up a save on his b-day. 1st place bitches. Let's go sweep Oak.

Leave TY out of this

enough

yes

Stay tuned. Tonight david Newberry.....after that, not completely sure yet. Tune in anyhow if you like. Will the show ever be the same?? No. But I am dedicated to putting forward the very best product for the listener and the Ranger fan. This has been a really tough week. But we will soldier on as we always do.

Rich Harden. New set up man once Hunter is healthy and ready.....thoughts? A strikeout pitcher that can throw harder that the low 90's he registers as a starter. He could cover up some weaknesses at the back end of the pen, allowing Texas to not call up Tanner Scheppers or Alexi Ogando from Frisco to help out. He has proven he can't give you much more than 5IP. The club will not pick up his 11.5 million in 2011 so you shouldn't worry about pissing him off, so if he struggles more over his next few starts, maybe try it out to see if it helps matters. Hell, if the Cubs can put Zambrano in the pen for a while I see no reason why the Rangers can't.

Davis optioned to OKC. Time to Smoak out!!

It's because people hate you.

I understand the urge to want Holland up here, but him getting the ball every 5th day and learning how to become a professional starting pitcher is huge right now. Who knows what JD will do, but I will be irked if he is up here before June with other options out there like McCarthy and eventually Hunter.

Willing to bet money the Rangers get swept today. Facing another Lefty in Andy Petite. This offense sucks period, even worse against southpaws. Prove me wrong Rangers....prove me wrong.

Baseball is in decent shape financially on many fronts....move along, nithing to worry about. The Indians and O's are okay money wise as well. Both are losing clubs with little to look forward to in 2010, both in the bigs and somewhat in the system. Also, both have seen some early games this season, which does not translate into impressive crowds. I do believe the Yankees and Redsox are not helping the O's. Not to mention a not god-awful Nats franchise taking away some of the fan-base. The Tribe....well it was staed earlier that they shipped away 2 CY young winners....so....yeah they are going to struggle. Oh yeah and they have a lot of money committed to some players that aren't producing as much as they used to. Bad baseball is not strongly supported in markets like Cleveland and Baltimore. Also those parks are around 15 years old....so that novelty is also wearing off. If they put out a better product, the attendance #'s would be much better. You could say that about 2/3's of the league.

Make no mistake. Ian Kinsler loves the fact he hit 30 bombs last season. With the surge of power at the position throughout the league, he feels that he needs to keep up in order to demand Chase Utley money down the road. I hope he will be more of a team guy when is healthy, but I expect another parade of flyouts in 2010. Wash batting him 6th will not discourage his crap approach.

I have thought on it for a while today, and I can't at all blame Wash for keeping Matty in the game to face Choo. Truth is there should have been 2 outs when he was coming up....but we all know about ifs. He was dealing all afternoon long and might have been the most effective option outside of Feliz. Neftali the night before threw and inning and a third. I can live with what happened. Not thrilled about it, but if we see that Harrison a dozen more times this season I think we will all be pleased. Interesting to see how CJ fares after dropping 7 lbs. after food poisioning. Keep a close eye on CJ's pitch count per inning. That is one of the big things that has made him effective in the spring and in start #1. Facing a patient team that works pitchers and counts like NYY will be a good measuring stick to see how much CJ has evolved into a starter. The starting pitching has been mad good so far. But in 3 of their 4 losses they have blown leads after the 7th. Who here really thought the back end would be this wheels off even with CJ in the rotation? Baseball.....yeah baseball.

Well sonofabitch!

Colby Lewis. 5.1 2runs 10K's. This rotation might be better than we all expected. So far the starters have an ERA of 1.65 through 8 games, and maybe the dude with the best stuff has food poisioning. Fun. It will be interesting to see if Feliz cam go back to back days, especially with such an early start after going 1.1 tonight. Hope we are in a position to see him.

It's been one day. Already miss it.

Maybe in the minors. Never done it in the bigs.

People forget this was a club that finished 10 games out of 1st last season. They didn't play post-season ciliber baseball last season and they are not now. Like last year they have the ability to win every night, but they are still flawed. Especially offensively. 5 games in it's dissapointing, because they should be 4-1. But hell who knows. Baseball is weird. The bats could figure it out and the starters might stop pitching at a their current 1.70 ERA, which is so very likely. At the end of 162 you are what you are. This is a team that will be somewhere around .500, but I am hoping for better.

Yes, but realize a closer has to be able to throw back to back days, and Feliz has yet to do that. Can he and be effective? Sure. But there might be days that Neftali might not be 100% rested and you might want to roll Frankie out there for the 9th. Sort of a committe thing. I know he has blown 2 saves already, but Wash and Maddux have to get him back to an effective level. Even if FF is no longer the closer - he needs to be a confident option in the 8th. Chris Ray is not that guy, and O'Day seems to be a better situational option and 7th inning guy. With CJ in the rotation, another lefty would be nice at some point.

If there are any issues moving forward. I hope to hell we just stay out of it.

Just skimmed through today's game on the DVR (2nd viewing). This offense is not in a good way. If there has been a philosophical shift from Rudy to Clint I wonder what exactly that is. The hitters approach is still too aggressive and they can't produce witj RISP. Example.....2nd inning - 2nd and 3rd no outs....no runs, bottom of the order couldn't do anything. Not a mid range flyball, not a grounder to the right side, not a squeeze bunt. Zip. They wasted a dazzling start from CJ. 7IP, 9K's, 0 runs. Wow. I am somewhat surprised that he is adjusting so well. Great to see him limit his pitchers per inning (the anti-Harden). Salty is DL'd again. No shock whatsoever. I would kill to still have a solid receiver and great room guy in Gerald Laird still here. A few years ago they had 4 guys behind the plate and traded the wrong one. Salty had value on the market. That now is a thing of the past. I am pulling really hard for Teagarden to put it togteher, but it's not happening yet. Wash you say?? I don't really care for how he handled the bullpen after Frankie's failure. He threw O'day for a 2nd straight day a few weeks after the dude needed a cortizone injection in his elbow. Also Oliver is probably not available tomorrow against the M's. They already need a good bounceback series or this could be a long first month. Do a rain dance for the bats. D-talk tomorrow night after the game.

Yep....this offense is still similar to that of last season. Not very disciplined at the plate and one that could rely on the HR if guys like Borbon and Elvis don't get on base. I know that Ian Kinsler is DL'd at the moment, but even when he gets back I am not sure he will help matters. This team has inconsistencies producing and manufacturing runs and Ian hacking and hitting fly-balls is not what this thing needs. Unless he is taking the ball to RF more, then we can expect an avg. around .260 and an OBP around .325. Hope that is not the case. Josh had a great spring. Hopefull tonight was just him having issues with a lefty that had decent stuff. But only getting ahead in 1 of 4 AB's and picking up the golden sombrerro is not promising. It's 2 games, he might be fine, but eerie nontheless. Also, Elvis' wrist is still bothering him and you can see that when he is at the plate. I wouldn't mind a bunt out of him tomorrow afternoon. Pitchers - 10 walks. That never wins. By the way we all need to understand that Rich Harden going past 5 is a good outing. The dude is afraid of hitters making contact and he will be in the neighborhood of 100 pitches in the 6th inning in just about every time out. He is no Feldman, but he has good stuff when he has command....which was lacking mightily tonight. Oh yeah....Diamondtalk returns Friday night on the Ticket with me and Mike Bacsik. Tune in. Love you.