Irresponsible. Outside of being a Texas Rangers fan, I have to say it's irresponsible for an umpire to call a batter out on that pitch in a 3-2 baseball game. Chris Davis did not strike out last night.
I always hear outsiders of a team where something like that happens say something to the effect of "Well, it they wouldn't have done 'A' then 'B' at the end wouldn't have mattered, so it's your own fault."
Wrong. Missed opportunities earlier in the game is no excuse for a Triple-A umpire up to the big leagues ending a close ball game on what is at best a borderline call and in all reality was ball four. So frustrating.
Tommy Hunter had a rough first inning. The Twins hit the ball hard off of him and scored 3 runs, but he held them to 3 hits and no runs for the next 6. Disappointing that he had to come out on the losing end. Coming in after him was prospect Pedro Strop who looked really good. Struck out Mauer, popped up Morneau and got Kubel to ground out. That's Minnesota's three best hitters right there.
Strop showed a nasty splitter when he got Mauer to strike out. Hopefully he can pitch just half as good as he did the rest of the way...it would go a long way to taking pressure off of Neftali Feliz.
I'm still frustrated with the bats right now. Outside of Young, no one has been consistent. Josh has hit the ball well this month, but he's having a major power outage. 2 home runs in the last two months.
Scotty Feldman is on the hump tonight. Texas could really use six or seven innings from Scott tonight.
Other notes: Tommy Mendonca has been promoted to High-A Bakersfield. Mendonca, a Chris Davis clone if I ever saw one, was shredding pitchers at Spokane, but also struck out at a ridiculous rate. Hopefully he can remedy the swiss cheese in his swing. Still, it's encouraging that the Rangers would think highly enough of him to promote him after only 49 professional games.
Brandon McCarthy pitched well at OKC on Thursday. 6 innings, 2 hits, 3 walks and 7 strikeouts. Nippert and McCarthy should be the two pitchers going for the Rangers in the double-header against Toronto, and it may be a significant test to see who will take hold of the fifth spot in the rotation. Nippert has struggled of late, so BMac may come in and take his rotation spot back after being out since May with a fracture in his shoulder.
Also, Justin Smoak finally homered again for OKC. His combined numbers at all minor league levels this year are .289 avg, .410 OBP, 12 HR, 21 2B, 57 RBI. Averaged out to a 162 game schedule and his numbers are .289/.410/18HR/32 2B/88 RBI. Not a bad year for Smoak. You'd certainly take that every year if he could produce it at the major league level, but the great thing about Smoak is that he projects to be even better than that.
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