I am very bullish

About the World Serious returning to the City.

I am sightly bullish about the Rangers winning tonight.  I just have a feeling that Hunter's curve will be working tonight and the Rangers will hit the Giants rook lefty hard.  (Around my condo today I saw two decked-out Giants fans smoking furiously on their patios today, is doubt starting to creep in?)

I have no idea who will pitch for the Rangers in game six, though.

Get 'em Rangers!

Mitch Moreland, North Texas Folk Hero

After game three Frenchy said, "He's from Mississippi.  He doesn't have any idea what he's done yet."

The Rangers have a lot of cool stories, as do the Giants, as do generally all teams that make it this far.  (Speaking of far, with the Rangers winning yesterday, the World Serious [as the immortal Ring Lardner called it] will extend in to November this year.)  But one of the biggest stars for the Rangers yesterday deserves having his story told here today.

Meet Mitch Moreland, drafted v late (but driving a hard bargain and a $60,000 signing bonus pretty much on his own) by the Rangers in 2007.  The Rangers 1B at the time was the super-duper Mark Teixeira.  "Tex" was traded at the deadline later that year for Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz, Matt Harrison, and a couple of other players.  The Rangers installed Chris Davis at 1B the next year and for a young kid he did pretty damn good, earning a nickname even, "Crash" Davis.

'09 came around and "Crash" was really struggling, striking out a ton.  The ballclub sent Davis down to Oklahoma City to see if he could figure it out.  He did well there and got called up late in '09 and did okay, enough to earn him the starting job this season.

Davis, who has always played good to great defensively, just was not hitting.  & worse for him the Rangers had another kid 1B, not Moreland, a switch-hitting Mark Teixeira clone named Justin Smoak (great great baseball name) ripping through the Minors, itching to have "Crash"'s job.

& Smoak got Davis' job early this year.  Davis got sent back to OKC and Smoak did alright up in the show, hitting the occasional homer, walking a fair amount, playing decent defense.

But the Rangers really really really wanted Cliff Lee, you see.  And to get Lee, and to also prevent the Yanks from getting him, the Rangers had to pony up super-prospect Smoak to the Mariners.  They did, Cliff Lee was ours but who the eff was going to play 1B?

"Crash" got another shot, was not getting it done, and behind the scenes the Ranger brass started working for a trade to bring in a veteran 1B.  "What the eff," they must have thought, "Let's give Moreland a shot."

Moreland, meanwhile, did not get off to a good professional start.  At one point he talked the organization in to giving him a shot as a pitcher.  That did not work out, either.  He went back to 1B & 3B and worked hard to make it to the Show.

Moreland immediately endeared himself to Ranger faithful because like his at-bat last night, even against tough left-handers, he always battled, he drew walks, worked counts, always did whatever he could to get on base & help the club.  Maybe he's not as talented as "Tex" or Smoak, or, hell, even "Crash" but Moreland is that old-school gritty-ass type known as a Motherfucking Ballplayer.  He'll do anything and everything to help the team out.

(Now that I think about it, the Rangers should have put Mitch Moreland in to pitch in game two when all sorts of hell was breaking out for the Rangers.)

But that behind the scenes stuff came to fruition.  The Rangers acquired Jorge Cantu in a trade.  I think the idea was that Cantu would become our everyday sort of guy.  He is a legit, decent sort of hitter, most certainly a vet, & v good defensively.  But, either, Cantu hates the Rangers & the AL, or I do not know what, or he has just lost it, because he stunk w/ the Rangers.  He did exactly one good thing with the Rangers, he hit the eventual game-winning (division-clinching) home run up here, against the A's, on Renee's birthday.

Cantu bats right, Moreland left.  So, when the post-season started against the Rays and their tough lefty, David Price, Cantu started.  He struck out three (or was it four?) times.  Wash & Hurdle had seen enough, they put their faith in Moreland for the rest of the Ranger playoff run. Moreland has started every game since, even against lefties.  He has played v well, incl even making a couple of really nice defensive plays, something he is not really known for.  His top line stats for the post season are:  .341 AVG/.386 OBP/.512 SLG (.898 OPS!) w/ three walks and one home run (last night.)

They say he even has a nickname now, "Moose".

Cliff Lee is Human

Lee was obv not sharp & the Giants pounded him all over the ballpark last night. 

I do not think the Giants will sweep, & I bet you dollars to doughnuts Lee looks much better in game 5.

But if the Rangers want to win this thing they need to win tonight.  Except for games 5 or 7, of course, the CRUCIAL games in any series are the even numbered games.  It is how you react to situations in a series that are so important:  are you applying the leather, are you keeping afloat, or are you drowning. 

Before yesterday I believed Rangers in 6.  If they lose tonight I believe it is Giants in 6. 

I do not like our chances tonight, either.  CJ got rocked last time out, was wild, is battling a blister on his pitching hand, Matt Cain is pitching so well right now. 

Plus I just suspect that the party atmosphere in the City just keeps rolling.  Giants 7-2 today.  & Giants in 6.  All the years of waiting, finally over. 

CJ, ballclub, prove me wrong, please.

Paul McCartney Wings LIVE [HQ] Venus and Mars/Rock Show/Jet

The Rangers are the 2010 American League Champions

Here are a couple of Eric Nadel's calls.  h/t BBTiA.

Where to start? Thank you those folks that sent me texts and emails.  One of my favorite sports books of all time is Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby.  Hornby is obsessed with the London football club Arsenal.  He sees every home game, lives just blocks from the stadium.  Arsenal are very good now but he suffered through many long long seasons where they were not very good at all.  The chapters are organized by games he saw live or on TV, most live.  This quote is from The King of Kenilworth Road Luton v Arsenal 31.8.87.

"With football, there is none of this randomness:  you know that on nights like the '89 Championship night, or on afternoons like the afternoon of the 1992 Wrexham disaster, you are in the thoughts of scores, maybe even hundreds, of people.  And I love that, the fact that old girlfriends and other people you have lost touch with and will probably never see again are sitting in front of their TV sets and thinking, momentarily but all at the same time, Nick, just that, and are happy or sad for me.  Nobody else gets that, only us."

ESPN made a documentary about the 1980 US Olympic Hockey team.  (The whole jingoistic angle is played a little too heavy for my taste but it is a good doc about those kids.)  And after hearing  John Sterling's very classy call when the Rangers clinched, it made me think of that doc and an interview w/ one of the Russian players who lost.  He posited that the Russians were so used to winning that it was a marvel and wonderful to see the pure unaffected joy of the Americans, something he and his teammates had not felt in a v long time.

Lastly, there is something I have been wanting to post on facebook and here for a v long time but did not (worried about jinxing the Rangers post-season run.)  I was going to post it during World Cup.  This is it:

"The only thing more stressful for me to watch than this US Men's National Team would be if the Rangers ever made it to the World Series.  And that will never happen."

Well it did.  Get ready Giants.  The Rangers fly in to SFO Monday night.

Ranger Ace, Cliff Lee, is starting to hang out with these guys now:

Bob Gibson

Christy Mathewson

Sandy Koufax

In fact, Koufax's post-season top line stats are eerily similar to Lee's right now.  Except Lee is better.  And Koufax (& Gibson & Mathewson) all pitched in low-scoring eras, to boot.

The Rangers 2010 post season record is 5-3.  Two of those three losses were bullpen meltdowns where they surrendered the lead in the eighth inning.  The Rangers have led at some point in every single game save one, the 5-2 loss to Tampa.  The Rangers have outscored the Rays & Yankees 41-21.  The Rangers have yet to be shut out  and have scored two or fewer runs just once (that above-mentioned Tampa loss.)  The Rangers' staff have thrown two combined shutouts and held the Rays & Yankees to two or fewer runs five times (all wins, natch.)

The Rangers 2010 post season winning percentage is .625.  The Rangers are scoring 5.13 runs per game.  The Rangers are allowing 2.63 runs per game.  That run differential should equal out to a .792 winning percentage, which means they should have a 6-2 post season record.  The Rangers are underperforming by one full game.  Variation from the pythagorean win expectation (especially with a super small sample size such as this one) is best explained by two things:  poor/great bullpens and plain-old, no kidding, dumb luck.  


It is better to be playing below your pythagorean win expectation because as your sample size gets larger, game by game, regression kicks in and evens out all these variations.  


But, all that being said, the Rangers simply cannot afford another bullpen meltdown.  They got away with it against Tampa (thank you, Cliff Lee) but game one against the Yankees could come back to haunt this ballclub big time if they can't get one more win up in the Bronx.  


The most runs allowed by a Ranger starter in the 2010 post season:  Three by Tommy Hunter (that 5-2 loss again) and three allowed by CJ Wilson in game one against the Yanks (also a loss.)  


I'm not optimistic about the Rangers winning tonight.  I think Hunter is in for a rough night.  But if the Rangers can beat up on Burnett also and make it a shootout, we might have a shot.  


Baseball is beautiful.  Baseball is pain.  

OUCH!

Well, that was a punch in the gut, hunh? That hurt like hell and would suggest to most people the whole frickin' thing is over.  Start talking about how the franchise is pointed in the right direction, "The Rangers finally won a playoff series," and so on, well, we all know the drill, right? 

This thing is not over.  I fully expect the Rangers to win today and even if they do not they are still in this thing.  Despite massive negativity all around me from my family & fiancee, as 'butthurt' as I feel today, I am going to soldier on as if this is still a working operation, a viability, b/c I truly think it is.  It is the Julian Massa in me.  

Go Rangers!

Baseball Time in Arlington

Is a fantastic blog, w/ in-depth serious writing aboot my woebegone franchise.  This is a fab article about the late Mark Holtz & Eric Nadel.  I'm one of those kids who fell asleep to their voices every Summer.  


There's a lot of Ranger fans choking up and getting emotional just about now.  If CJ keeps pitching the way he did & w/ Cliff Lee going twice it is possible, not likely, but possible the Rangers could be beat the damn Yankees and end up in the World Series.  


Wow.  

For once the Baseball Goddess,

That teasing Siren, has deigned to shine her light on my Texas Rangers, to let me in to that beautiful palace of which I had ne'er in these 35 years ever been allowed to enter.

I think the hubris of some of the Tampa players, mocking our celebration symbols, pissed her off.

&, natch, it helps we had this guy:

Bring on the damn Yankees

This is my

Plea to the Rangers tonight.  I stole this idea from another poster at Lone Star Ball.  h/t to Conjunction there.

I am a nervous wreck.  I do not think the Rangers win this ballgame.  But they do have Cliff Lee going tonight & CJ Wilson is expected to pitch in case Cliff gets in to any kind of trouble.


It will be hard to watch, full stop.

Baseball Is A Cruel

Mistress.  It is up to Tommy "Big Game" Hunter today.  A young kid, whose real numbers underneath the top line stats suggest he has been v lucky so far.  He will have to pitch the game of his life.  If this goes back to Tampa I think the Rangers will be toast.

I Am In Shock (Rangers)

This kind of stuff just does not happen to the Texas Rangers.  I am being led through a door that has always been shut to me.  I am not there yet.  And that door might v well be slammed in my face this weekend because baseball is a beautiful, seductive, yet v cruel bitch, who has tortured thousands of her fans for o'er a century now.

It is up to hard-luck Colby Lewis today.  And David Murphy is back.  The Rangers finally have their best lineup ready to go today.  Let's do it Rangers, let's go through that door.

Under the Radar

That is why the Rangers got Cliff Lee.  But he cannot pitch every game.  CJ Wilson needs to keep his composure, don't battle with the umpires, keep the walks low, limit the stolen bases, (I like Molina's snap throws to first yesterday.  He was never doing that this season.)  And pitch a good game. 

It is great Doctor No pitched a no-hitter.  Keeps the budding Ranger storyline firmly under the radar. 

Let's get it done today, Rangers, keep exorcising them playoff and Trop demons.  (And no offense to your v fine ballclub Rays fans, but that place you play in stinks.  Yuck, what an awful place to see baseball.  Maybe that is why they have struggled w/ attendance.)

Hit-and-run victim was quiet and dependable, co-workers say - St. Petersburg Times

Hit-and-run victim was quiet and dependable, co-workers say - St. Petersburg Times

The RNC has an enthusiasm gap of its own

The RNC has an enthusiasm gap of its own

Please

Everyone check out Susan Faludi's new essay in Harper's.  Absolute must read.

Well, (OU/Texas, Part Deux)

I was right about the point differential, and pretty close on the over/under but I got the schools wrong.

The Sooners survive.  You gotta feel for the kid who muffed the punt.  This has been a tragic, awful week for the UT campus.  (& I absolutely do not support conceal carry on our campuses.  Ever.)  


For the 'Horns it just gets tougher.  They get a week off to prepare for a trip to Lincoln.  The Cornhuskers are a much better team than the Sooners at this point of the season, so it is going to be v tough for the 'Horns, and they could be looking at a four or five loss season.

As for the Sooners, I will see their next game, in Norman, against Iowa State.  It is the first time I have seen the Sooners live in over thirty years.  It will be great fun and I will post some pictures. I am still underwhelmed by this 2010 team, though.  I keep waiting for them to be exposed.  Heck, I thought UT was going to expose them.  They could get it together and finish like monsters, like they did two years ago.  I hope they do.  But Landry Jones is still scary and their defense struggles with good offenses.  (Baylor hung half a hundred on Kansas yesterday.  That OU at Baylor game could be interesting.)  The Sooners do have Tech at home.  But they finish at College Station and Stillwater.  Those will be v tough games for a school that has struggled mightily on the road the last few years.

Meanwhile, Josh Hamilton is back.  We'll find oot today if we face Tampa or New York.  Playoffs start Weds.

And check this oot:  If the Padres and Braves win today then the Padres and Giants will meet in a 1 game playoff for the West title and the loser of that game would then face the Braves on Tuesday to decide who gets the Wild Card.  Crazy.

No country for Zuckerbergs

No country for Zuckerbergs