No Glory Blog: Let's Go 2014 Texas Rangers!

Listening to last night's game. It seems in general that Ranger games are super-long. When the screen comes up for a recorded broadcast, you see the total time. Last night's is 4 hours and 42 minutes. I don't know what happens but there's a half-hour pregame. We just hit the seventh inning stretch (with a moment of silence for The Gerbil) and the time is now three hours and 15 minutes. So... either this 6-5 Oriole lead is going to be tied and we go into extra innings and/or there is an hour of post-game and/or the last two and a half innings are going to take an hour-and-a-half. Oy.

Well, to be fair, I expect games to generally be 3 hours, which would average to 20 minute innings. So if the end of the game goes for 50 minutes, that's only a bit more than half an hour to cover which could be post-game so maybe that isn't that much. But I still feel like I've been listening all day.

Adrian Beltre is single-handedly trying to win this game for the Rangers. Remember how much of a "disappointment" he was in LA? Good job, Dodgers. JAWS is loving him for the Hall.

Here's the thing about these broadcasts. Wow, the commercials. Each one is trying to out-jingoist the last one. Things you would never expect, like freaking ice-cream, go on and on about the best country in the world is "right here in Texas." I'm sure they also mean New York City, right? There was a furniture commercial with a foreign-sounding guy who wanted to make sure that we knew that the furniture was not made outside the USA. "Let me set the record straight..."

That's going to be tough to listen to all year.

Or, am I just doubling at this point? What is double nothing besides nothing anyway?

Catching the Rangers at the Twins this afternoon. First game since opening day I've made an effort to watch or listen to. It's just been a really busy year so far with buying a new house and having work done on it and the old house.

At this point, the Rangers are pretty much where they started the season at. 27-26. 5 games behind Oakland. Not awesome but nothing to panic about. The state of the team is... injuries.

Prince Fielder: Out for the season. Spinal surgery a couple days ago. I just ate lunch so I am not going to read any opinion pieces about that yet. Sounds like he was dealing with a lot of pain.

Martín Pérez: Eight starts, two complete games, one Tommy John surgery. Gone for season.

Jurickson Profar: Torn shoulder just re-aggravated while sleeping. Probably out for season.

Geovany Soto: Still hasn't played from knee surgery for Spring Training injury. Maybe end of June.


Derek Holland: Yet to appear this season as he recovers from knee surgery.

Good news?  

Yu Darvish has missed a couple starts but has been awesome. Rookie Nick Martinez seems to be doing ok but maybe the league is catching up to him, like today. An 18/15 K:BB ratio isn't awesome despite that low ERA. The rest of the current rotation: Robbie Ross Jr., Colby Lewis, and Scott Baker are getting beat pretty hard. 

Seems like the team is going to be relying on a lot of luck. Like today the 3-2 difference in the Rangers' favor is because with the bases loaded and two strikes, Shin-Soo Choo lined a double to score three. When the Twins had the same situation, they lined into a double-play. Clutch Defense 3!

 Mitch Moreland's been doing his Mitch Moreland adequacy thing at 1B. Someone named Rougned Odor has been playing 2B along with Donnie Murphy and Luis Sardinas. None of those make me happy or distinguish themselves from one another. 

Ron Washington has been running a lot. So, we're leading the lead in Caught Stealings with 23 and sixth in Steals with 39. Ugh. Then again the Brewers have an even worse ratio plus leading the lead in sacrifices and they're killing it. Well... let's have at it.

Another walk-off win? Another victory by the power of controlling the strike zone? Heck yeah!

Game on! Well, that could have gone better. The Scheppers-as-starter experiment did not seem to work real well as he blew up in the second, putting the Rangers in a 6-0 hole to the Phils. Remarkably, the team came back to take the lead in the 4th. A team with some offense is exciting, I guess. (While this game went on, the Pirates took a 0-0 tie into the 10th to Walker-off in the bottom.) Then the bullpen blew up -- theoretically good pitcher Alexi Ogando and 29-year old "sensation" Pedro Figueroa took the game out of reach even for double-digits. Blech.

We got treated to some God Bless America through the radio because Texas but otherwise it was a nicely called game. Some of the commercials are totally cray and are going to be my favorites, I'm sure.

Interesting note: Eagles/Cowboys have actually never played a 14-10 game. Rollins' grand slam was his 200th homer. Some yahoo threw it back on the field, I think, according to the cheers. Idiot.

Rangers bounced back and won a crisp game yesterday winning 3-2 in the bottom of the ninth by drawing walks and getting a key hit. This is new for me.

The Opening Day projected battery of Yu Darvish and Geovany Soto will not be appearing next week. Soto's got a bad knee and Darvish a bad back, which they hope is all. The good news is that instead we get someone making his major league starting debut on Opening Day against... the Phillies. BAH! I hate Interleague. The bad news is it isn't a young superstar. It's Tanner Scheppers. We'll see if he hits a wall in the fourth inning.

OK. I think I've decided. With reportedly an excellent radio broadcast team in Eric Nadel and Steve Busby, a really interesting AL Western division where all teams could possibly win it, and a varied mishmash cast of characters, I think I'll try to root for the Rangers this year.

I can't think of a team I want to follow... This bodes ill for the next 27 years.

I'm happy these came out well. Just need to draw something for the backs. "Have you SEEN the BACK?!"