May 8 - Couldn’t Stand The Weather

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents – except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets…rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

--Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

Thunder, lightning, wind, hail, destruction and devastation – hmm, the Yankees were obviously in town again.  Let’s pull out one more weather cliché –  if you don’t like the weather wait five minutes and it’ll change – or in the Rangers case just wait for the Blue Jays to come to town.

Treacherous spring storms and the fact that there's already hail damage on the Civic from earlier this spring  (I really don't want any more of those lovely little dings) curtailed my baseball travels this week.

Sunday May 6 – Omaha (Kansas City) at Oklahoma: I did not make my planned trip to Oklahoma City on Sunday. After spending way too much time on the Weather Channel website watching thunderstorms moving across Oklahoma, I decided to stay home – but there are video highlights of the Redhawks loss to Omaha on the Daily Oklahoman website: http://newsok.com/sports/redhawks/  (and yes that is R.A. Dickey's picture on their website – someone needs to tell them he’s with Nashville now).

Monday May 7 – Midland (Oakland) at Frisco:  There was lightning in the left field sky, and some thunder in the Frisco bats when they defeated the Midland Rockhounds Monday night 5-4 at Dr. Pepper Ballpark.   Eric Hurley pitched well – 7 innings, 4 hits, 1 BB, 4K – 2 of those hits were “excuse me” type flares that just bounced out of the fielder’s reach.   Boom, boom, boom: Travis Metcalf, Steve Murphy and German Duran all cleaned me out of my beverage money with homers. (I’m referring to the Texas League tradition of “passing the boot” for a donation to the hitter after each home team home run.) . Steve Murphy made a spectacular falling forward grab in RF and Rockhoud pitcher Kauhit Tadano amused everyone by throwing an eephus pitch to Brandon Boggs (my new favorite Rough Rider).  Hurley left the game with a 5-0 lead in the 7th – Bill White and Jesse Ingram gave up 4 runs to make things interesting – but Ingram wound up with his 7th save with the tying run on base.

My pictures from the May 7th game are in the Photo Gallery.

Random Thoughts:

This week’s comparison – two guys who were traded for each other:

Nelson Cruz: 21 games, 67 AB, .209 AVG./ .274 OBP/ .254 SLG, 0 HR, 6 RBI
Kevin Mench: 26 games, 87 AB, .299 AVG/ .303 OBP/ .448 SLB, 2 HR, 13 RBI

Gone and best forgotten – how about two players from two unpopular trades that aren’t faring so well?  Termel Sledge was part of both the infamous trades with the Nationals and Padres.  He made the San Diego team out of Spring Training but is now hitting .245, 3 HR, 6 RBI and could lose his job to (of all people) former Ranger prospect Vincent Sinisi who’s tearing it up at AAA Portland hitting .351 with 6 HR’s, 17 RBI.  Then there’s Adam Eaton – 33 IP, 40 Hits, 17 BB, 28 K with an unsightly 8.18 ERA – feel better now about not re-signing him this past off season?

Take me out to the ballgame – what is all this whining about the Rangers attendance?  According the table on ESPN’s website the Rangers rank 10th in attendance (for home games) out of all 30 teams and they are averaging 32,003 which is 12th in all of MLB. 

Speaking of ESPN – the announcement that ESPN2 will carry the first few round of the Major League Amateur Draft is just a terrible idea.  After witnessing very small portions of the NFL and NBA drafts  - and by small portions I mean watching about on hour to see them make a total of 2 picks – I shudder to think how this will impact the MLB draft – which is long enough if you listen to it on MLB.com (and yes I do that).  Plus, I can’t wait for some of that insightful commentary on the draft choices from John Kruk “he’s a gamer”.

Taking down the storm warnings – I didn’t like the trade for Brandon McCarthy – and still don’t. But I’m also one of those who preaches patience with young players, especially pitchers. After a little research I’ve decided it’s time for me to listen to my own advice.  A random search through Baseball Reference.com of some of the current ERA leaders and one HOF pitcher’s performances at age 23/24 opened my eyes.  All of the following were IP and ERA’s as of age 23/24 for these pitchers:

Jason Marquis – 119 1/3 IP – 5.04 ERA
Bonson Arroyo – 71 2/3 IP – 6.40 ERA
Jeff Suppan – 112 1/3 IP – 5.69 ERA
Greg Maddux – 186 2/3 IP – 5.59 ERA

And one even younger:

Jeremy Bonderman 162 IP – 5.56 ERA

Let’s remember that although he has 177+ IP in the majors, Brandon isn’t even 24 years old yet. I am going to be patient and wait out the turbulent weather of the learning curve – I hope other fans will do the same.

Still looking for that rainbow at the end of the storm – Marla Hooch

P.S. San Jose State University has a contest each year for the worst opening sentence for a novel - the contest is named after the author of the famous "dark and stormy night" quote.  Here's the link to the " Bulwer-Lytton Ficton Contest" http://www.bulwer-lytton.com