Nobody Asked Me But...
While paying respects to Jimmy Cannon, the best that ever was...
* Washington D.C. and Houston are both oppressively humid. But Washington D.C. is infinitely more fun.
* Why are exotically beautiful animals always on the extinct list while the mosquito, water mocassin and house fly endure forever. If we can kill off all the buffalo, why not the mosquito?
* Jarrod Saltalamacchia is going to be the No. 1 story for the Rangers in July.
* They have a message board here at Minute Maid Park that list prices for oil stocks, oil futures and oil commodities. Have no idea what any of that means but suspect they are all doing pretty good.
* But if you want to save money, don't make the mistake of buying Jose Canseco's second book. It's just not quite as well written as The Sun Also Rises, From Here to Eternity or a Separate Peace.
* Jose appears to be going to the way of Jack Higgins. The more books he writes, the worse he gets.
* If Big Brother is going after smoking in all public places, certainly cell phones are going to be next. How were all these people able to exist before cell phones were invented?
* Why do people insist on taking all their worldly possessions through security checkpoints at airports? And are those big belt buckles really worth the trouble?
* It will just be like the Rangers luck if Robinson Tejeda turns out to be a stud reliever for the Royals. But that can't possibly happen can it? Of course not. And Armando Galarraga can't possibly... never mind.
* Just to ruin the good parts - Canseco slams Rafael Palmeiro all through his book and repeats accusations against other former Rangers teammates. But I'd hate to spoil the ending.
* In Canseco's first book, he extols the virtues of steroids and how good they are for you. Remember the part about how he said Ben Grieve should have been taking steroids? In this book, he said he wrote the first book to tell the world how baseball was being ruined by steroids. Now steroids are bad.
* Congress is looking into steroids being bad. Plus Bill Belichek's penchant for spying on other teams. But not oil prices.
I wouldn't be shocked to see Tejeda become an effective reliever. He's always been better the first time through a line-up, he can rely more on his fastball out of the pen and a manager can pick and choose his spots so he's not over exposed to lefthanded hitters, who've always mashed him. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised to see him totally flame out and become a classic AAAA type. There are a lot of guys who throw 95 and never amount to anything.
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If Tejeda is successful with the Royals, it won't hurt as bad as Gallaraga's success does. He had every opportunity to become what we briefly saw when he was pitching in late 2006 and early '07. However, if he can regain what he had then Mark Connor and the coaches at AAA should be held somewhat accountable for that.
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Par for the course on Congress. You wouldn't expect them to do something for the common people would you?
Boom Boom for Cannon comment...
and by the way Liam Devlin is looking for you for the the Jack Higgins comment.
Nice game for Hurley last night...sharper than the game before. Feldman and Ramierz are almost too painful to watch tonight. Oh for a catcher who knows how to call a game.
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As Coco says, the Rangers aren't in any position to be getting rid of pitchers. Tejeda should have been in our rotation. I like Padilla, but l would sell high on him and Millwood and commit to a true rebuild. Bring on Harrison, Gabbard, Feldman, Mathis and Mendoza who i think has something and Hurley. Millwood doesn't stay in shape and is evidently reeling from his divorce. Say goodbye to Padilla and Millwood and save some cash and get some pitching prospects. Which begs the question who are the top pitching prospects in the next wave and how close are they? I would keep Bradley as DH and trade Cat and Laird. I would move Young back to second base and Kinsler to centerfield. This is an exciting team and would be even moreso if we had Danks and Young on it..... I am going to forget Volquez eventhough i said he was going to win 15 to 18 games, but he is an end of the rotation type of guy. We definitely have some chips to trade lets get a bag of beans for Blalock and get on with it....
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"..the Rangers aren't in any position to be getting rid of pitchers." Next but one sentence,d'god, you want to get rid of both Millwood and Padilla.Anyone notice an inconsisancy? And incidentally, you were raising the question, not begging it. {Don't feel too bad about it. Even TR has made that mistake! :)} I doubt whether Tejada will ever make a consistant pitcher. The way his arm flails about when he pitches means that it is impossible to locate the ball. No doubt our coaches tried to improve his mechanics, and if the Royals people can do it, then all power to them! Kinsler to centerfield?? This one's out of left field (to coin a phrase..) even for you.
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I know they must think fans like me are crazy, but what do they see when they look at their own actions. One stupid move (sending down Kason Gabbard) leads to another - calling up a pitcher you have to be sure about because he's out of options. And when their scouts are giddy about someone who might be overlooked in another farm system - why can they not see that Galaragga still had value and was being overlooked in this farm system? Why should we believe them on the Ponson situation? I have problems with Washington and his protection of "key" players and obvious lack of faith in others. Stuff like this, and far worse offenses, has led me to think about breaking my ranger's habit.
http://dallassports.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/goodbye-500-hello-common-sense/
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Oh, for a catcher who can call a game, indeed. I'm sure if Laird wasn't on the DL he'd have engineered a shut out last night despite Feldman's lack of command. It's odd how much better Max's game calling got after Feldman's exit, though wasnt' it? I wonder if Gerald would've tattooed that knee high pitch over 400 feet?
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Hefe...you probably didn't note that the kid didn't call a single pitch. The dugout did. That's why I said it was tedious. The first four innings especially took a ton of time as Feldman used an average of 25 pitches...so you see we still don't know if the kid can call a game or not. Feldman definitely wasn't sharp.
In addition no one said the kid can't hit...it was whether or not he could hit MLB pitching...which he did last night....far from a full season but evidentally his hitting gave the Rangers hope for Davis. Let's see...we may have some excitement or we may have just a couple of flashes in the pan.
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No, I noticed him looking to the dugout between pitches early on. He and Feldman were out of sync a lot and that couln't have helped. I was just giving you a hard time because I was excited the kid had a good game. To be honest I think he's better suited to DH. I've seen him at Frisco. I do, however feel really strongly about his offense. He rarely swings at a pitch outside the zone, he seems to have great pitch recognition and a knack for putting the good part of the bat on the ball. He has a nice compact swing. I think he's as close to a "sure thing" as a guy straight out of AA can be. Davis' K/BB rates aren't what I'd like to see, but he's shown improvement at every level while still continuing to hit for average and power. Time will tell rather he's Russell Branyan II or a legit middle of the order stick.
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