Series Preview in Blog: Texas Rangers (7/18-7/20)
Posted by Big Mak on Friday, July 18th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Coming out of the break the Twins get the Rangers for three games at home. The Rangers are currently 50-46 in third place in the West (7.5 back of LA). That's pretty good considering they started the year 7-16. Their season turned around from that horrific start after winning two of three against the Twins. Texas has been an even 25-25 on the road, while the Twins are 32-18 at home.
As the Rangers are close to contending and close to falling out of the race, there's a lot of speculation on who they should drop, pick up, or keep. The Rangers have long been known as a team that relies on offense without any pitching. That hasn't changed at all this year. A look at the top performers includes a lot of offense and no pitching whatsoever.
One of those top performers has no doubt been Milton Bradley, described in the previous link as a "sabermetric deity". "Jake Taylor" Bradley was the starting DH for the AL All-Star team and wrote a short entry for the NY Times baseball blog about the pride he felt being chosen (even if it did interrupt his dominoes game with Eddie Guardado). It obviously meant a lot to him, he was quoted as saying, "If they had said, to make the team you have to shine the shoes, I would have shined the shoes."
Probable Pitchers
Kevin Millwood v. Glen Perkins
Millwood has been described as "boring" and he certainly doesn't have an overpowering pitch, but that entry has a link to this, which describes all his pitches in excruciating detail.
Eric Hurley v. Livan Hernandez
Now that's a pitching matchup! Apparently this guy isn't all that excited. Hurley got called up in June and made four starts before going on the DL with a strained hamstring after collecting his first win (and the congratulations that came with it). In his four starts this season, Hurley has amassed a 5.0 VORP which is the highest of any Texas starting pitcher.
Vicente Padilla v. Scott Baker
Padilla is also coming off the DL, he hasn't pitched in two weeks. He had a 4.97 ERA with a 1.69 WHIP coming into his last start against the Twins. Of course he pitched a complete game shutout and has gone 8-3 since then (although his ERA is 4.60 ERA and a 1.37 WHIP indicate that might be a function of the 7.1 R/G the Texas offense has scored for him).
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Is anyone frightened, or at least morbidly curious, as to how Livan is going to handle that offense?
Maybe if he blows up, we'll get the F-Bomb promoted to Minneapolis.
Aha, there's the possible silver lining.
Livan has faced Texas twice this year, to ugly results
I am going to that Saturday game (Delmon Young Bobblehead Day!!!). thats not going to be pretty
I did a little more snooping on the Lone Star Ball site. They are discussing trading Hank Blalock to the Twins. For Francisco Liriano. Heh.
I'm going to the game tonight with Andrew prime. Hoping Perk isn't serving up the Grand Slam special, if you know what I mean. Oh wait, that's Embers, isn't it?
He was pitching last game I saw, too. I wonder if the guy who had a "Marcus Thames is not good" sign will be back with a "Josh Hamilton is not good" sign.
Millwood's 2008 BABIP against righties is over .400? See the splits Fangraph for him. Yikes. Time to make some contact I guess.