Friday Happy Hour at the Elysian Fields Bar & Grill

Welcome to the Elysian Fields Bar & Grill, the perfect place to hang out on a medical rehabilitation assignment.

* Rangers opponents are hitting .259 with a .309 on-base percentage and a .404 slugging percentage after they fall behind 0-1 in the count. Those are the highest numbers for any pitching staff in the American League. Said pitching coach Mark Connor, "We’re getting ahead of hitters and making mistakes. We’ve given up something like 63-65 hits on 0-2 and 1-2 counts. That’s not good."

* Connor on his young pitchers Brandon McCarthy, Kameron Loe and Robinson Tejeda: "If these guys are our future we have to stay with them. Detroit did it a few years ago, they figured out who to keep and who wasn’t worth keeping. Two or three of them helped them get to the World Series."

* Dave Stewart was 0-6 with a 7.42 ERA for the Rangers in April 1984. Finished the year 7-14 with a 4.73 ERA. The next year they moved him to the bullpen and he was 0-6 with a 5.42 ERA. Then they gave him away to the Philadelphia Phillies. He was 27 when they traded him. He was 29 when he won 20 games for the first of four straight seasons with the Oakland Athletics.

* Rangers manager Ron Washington was talking about what happened the other day with Alex Rodriguez in Toronto when he said something to the Blue Jays third baseman and made him drop the ball. Washington admitted that when he was the Athletics third base coach he would yell to the defense to "cut" a throw to the plate. Said Washington, "I never used my own voice. I had a couple of third basemen tell me that’s horse…but I’d say, ‘What do you want me to do. I’m trying to get my runners in.’"

* Washington said it’s not uncommon to for baserunners to say something to a fielder trying to make a play but said, "If an infielder allows a runner to affect what he’s trying to do, then he’s a weak infielder. It’s an excuse."

* Just for the heck of it: Kevin Gross

* Manager Lou Piniella – sounding a lot like the local manager – on the Cubs: ”God almighty, we’ve lost some hellacious games. But nobody should throw in the towel here. The players aren’t, the manager and coaches aren’t. This organization isn’t. We’ve just got to keep playing and get this thing turned around. Nobody’s going to feel sorry for us. All these other teams don’t give a **** whether we’re struggling or not struggling. But we’ve got to turn this thing around, and we’ve got to keep working at it. And we will.”

* Then there is his crosstown counterpart Ozzie Guillen who said about his team: ""We should be in last place by 10, 14 games. Believe me. I’m telling the truth. This is a pretty good ballclub, a ballclub similar to 2005, but we’re not playing up to the potential. That’s what I feel, and I blame myself for not making those guys play hard enough and good enough to win games. I want to finish my career here, but if my bosses think I’m not handling this ballclub right.  I’m making good money, and my job is to make this ballclub be consistent and play the game the right way. I don’t think I’m doing it right now."

* Left-hander Rich Hill is 4-4 with a 3.06 ERA in ten starts with the Chicago Cubs. So? He was a fourth-round pick by the Cubs in the 2003 draft out out of the University of Michigan. It was the pick they received from the Rangers for signing free agent pitcher Todd Van Poppel.

* Vicente Padilla’s 6.45 ERA is the third highest in the American League, exceeded only by Tampa Bay’s Jae Seo (8.13) and Casey Fossum (7.89).

* Worst months ever by the Rangers? They were 3-23 in September, 1972 and 6-24 in August, 1973.

* The Mariners are inducting Edgar Martinez into their Hall of Fame on Saturday and Washington: "A professional hitter. A professional hitter. He’s a quality human being. It’s very admirable for the Seattle Mariners to do that because he’s so deserving. A professional hitter. A professional hitter."

* Tomorrow is June 2. It was 72 years ago tomorrow in 1925 that Lou Gehrig started at first base for the New York Yankees because Wally Pipp supposedly had a headache. It was his first of 2,130 consecutive games and players today still get called "Wally Pipp" if they take a day off and their replacement has a big game. Actually that was an urban legend. Pipp got the day off because manager Miller Huggins wanted to shake up the lineup.