Texas Rangers

G99: It's the Taylor Tegarden show as Rangers win 1-0

admin — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:27:00 +0000

That headline is really unfair to Vicente Padilla, Eddie Guardado, & CJ Wilson, but I think most people will remember Taylor Teagarden most in this game.

Heck, Taylor got his first caught stealing throw in the majors. He got his first major league hit, which also happened to be a home run. Said home run was also the lone run in this game, and broke up a perfect game bid at the time by Minnesota starter Scott Baker. How cool was all that? It was quite a moment, and he didn't visibly smile enough for my tastes. :)

Baker certainly personified the concept of "hard luck loss" in this one - no doubt.

This looked like the Vicente Padilla we've been seeing all season - going after guys, and not nibbling. His last two outings before this one were the ones where he was presumably hurt, and it's nice to see him bounce back to his old 2008 self when coming off the DL. Hopefully he stays that way.

Despite the win, I'm a bit surprised at how underwhelming our offense was in this series in Minnesota. For all three games COMBINED we had a total of just three runs (one was zero, too) and eleven hits. Blech. It's like we went to sleep. That was a horrendous performance. If it wasn't for our pitching on Sunday, we would have been swept out of Minnesota, and quite frankly, the way we were hitting, we probably deserved that.

Having said all of that, it was quite nice to see Taylor Teagarden have such a cool day. Makes you wonder if that's it for him for awhile, given our catcher heavy situation right now.

G98: Rangers stink it up, lose big, 14-2 to Twins

admin — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 02:27:00 +0000

Ugh. The only good moment of this game was Chris Davis' home run.

I know it's only two games out of the break, but after last night and tonight combined, does anyone else feel like it's April again?

G97: Rangers underwhelm in second half opener; lose 6-0

admin — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 22:15:00 +0000

First off, I wanted to make a comment about the MLB Game Recap for this game. For the last few seasons, I've been linking to the recaps on the official mlb site. This year they've gotten a lot better, with video and pictures, and recaps from both sides. They've been a serious improvement. There's technically three recaps for each game. The ones that are slanted for the home and visiting team comprise two, and then there's a third that covers the "general MLB recap", which also includes the other two. Anyway, for the general MLB one, someone is writing what I would perceive as "comedic headlines", where it's things like "Texas Two Step stops such and such team". But the one for this game really struck me as odd, mostly because it seems bizarre. The phrase was "Perky pitching powers three-hit derby". Perky? Perky? What exactly is "perky pitching"? That really seems odd to me.

Thing is, this little diatribe I wrote about the word "perky" is more than what can really be said about the actual game. I think most Rangers fans were riding high off of Josh Hamilton's HR Derby performance. Ian Kinsler's 25 game hitting streak was ready to be extended, and most Rangers fans I think were feeling good about the team. Unfortunately, we ran into Twins pitcher Glen Perkins. He tossed a gem against the Rangers, going six innings, allowing no runs and just three hits. Those hits were a double (Byrd), and two singles (Young, Bradley). Perkins only went six innings and 98 pitches, though. I thought he probably could have gone longer, but you can't argue that he would have done better than the bullpen guys who followed. The three Twins relievers each pitched a single perfect inning. You can't beat that.

Millwood was not good. 6.1 innings, eleven hits, one walk for five earned runs. Bleh.

But the bottom line was the Twins pitching shut us down totally, and handed us our first shutout of the season. Hats off to Perkins and crew for a well pitched game.

PitchFX On Eric Hurley: Pitch Location And Results

admin — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 23:42:00 +0000

Eric Hurley allowed homers at a 4.4% rate in 75 AAA innings, nearly double the league average. In four MLB starts, his homer rate is 3.2%, better but still sub-par. The book on Hurley is his tendency to work high in the zone (or his inability to work low, if you prefer) results in too many fly balls, hence too many homers and other hard-hit balls.

With PitchFX, we can examine the relationship between his pitch location and opponents’ success at the plate. In this case, I’m focusing solely on balls hit into play (including homers), of which there are 75. One was a bunt single, and two have no pitch data, leaving 72 balls for study.

Caveat: Hurley hasn’t pitched enough to generate respectable sample sizes. I’m doing this exercise because I think it’s interesting, but how he’s performed so far doesn’t necessarily portend his future.

The split between high and low pitches is exactly 36:36. As shown in the graph, a few hitters have hit a ball into play on a pitch higher than the top of the strike zone, while no hitter has done so on a pitch below the bottom of the zone.

1. What type of pitch is crossing the plate high or low?

As expected, most of the high pitches are fastballs, and the low pitches contain a heavier proportion of sliders.

Pitch Height	FA	SL	CH
< 2.6'	50%	39%	9%
> 2.6'	69%	19%	11%

2. Are high pitches resulting in more fly balls?

Yes. The vertical midrange of the strike zone of hitters faced by Hurley is 2.52 feet. At 2.60 feet is a pretty strong delineation in fly ball tendency:

Pitch Height	Grounder	Line Drive	OF Fly	IF Fly
< 2.6'	33%	31%	33%	3%
> 2.6'	11%	14%	64%	11%

The ratio for all pitches is 22% grounders, 22% line drives, 48% outfield flies, and 8% infield flies.

3. Are high pitches resulting in more hits?

More home runs, yes (two on high strikes, one low). More hits, no. Opponents are batting a meager .194 when making contact on high strikes and a robust .389 on low strikes. The corresponding slugging percentages are .389 and .667.

What’s hurting Hurley most so far is a 31% line drive rate on low pitches. Opponents are batting .727 and slugging 1.000 on those liners, which sounds absurdly high but is actually near the average for the league.

Conversely, opponents are also hitting only .130 (3-for-23) on fly balls on high pitches. He’s also generated four infield flies (nearly as surely an out as a strikeout) on high pitches, only one on a low pitch.

So, Hurley should ditch the slider and concentrate on heat up in the zone where it’s safe.

Just kidding. Hurley can’t expect to turn 87% of high-strike flies into outs in the long run. Several pitchers (for example, Scott Kazmir, Rich Harden, Scott Baker, Jered Weaver) are succeeding with very low ground ball rates, but they also have extremely high strikeout rates (Kazmir, Harden) or are no worse than above-average both in walks and Ks (Baker, Weaver).

At present, Hurley has a respectable walk rate (7.4%) but a below-average strikeout rate (12.6%), and 70% of his balls in play have been liners or outfield flies. Despite his 3.57 ERA, that’s a pretty toxic brew. He’ll need some combination of more strikeouts and more grounders to succeed in the long run.

India Out of World Cup

admin — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 01:42:00 +0000

India is out of this World Cup. They got thrashed by Sri Lanka. Another rubbish execution from the Indian cricketers (Bunch of extremely paid idiots). Tendulkar, with all his experience, again out on a duck in perhaps his last world cup. Sehwag tried his best, Yuvraj Singh, run out. Dhoni, was out on the first ball he faced in the match what more can be said about him. Dravid, tried to stay at the crease, but wickets kept falling at the other end. After his dismissal, our tail-enders incapable to manage the Lankans bowling attack. Harbhajan tried his best with unbeaten 17. Indians were finally bowled out for 185 and were sent packing back home. The “Men in Blue”. Shouldn’t they be called “Men with no shame”? What a bunch of losers. Very unsatisfying performance by India.

Some one has told rightly that

“There should be a policy in place to take a cut out of their advertising contracts for every game they lose, and use the money collected to encourage other games. The players should be asked to cover the expenses for every tour they lose.”

This could be the last world cup for Ganguly, Dravid and Sachin. So I would like to thank them for all the great moments and memories they have given us.

Three Quins in England Under 18s team

admin — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 16:43:00 +0000

Congratulations to Sebastian Stegmann, Joseph Marler and Tom Sargeant, who have all been named in the England Under 18s team for the game ag...

Farewell dinner for Andre Vos - 16th April 2007

admin — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 12:28:00 +0000

One off dinner to celebrate the former Quins and Springbok captain's outstanding career being held next month.

Second half fight back sees Quins down Irish in A League

admin — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 11:45:00 +0000

Second half tries from Adam Thompstone and Danny Care, both converted by Andrew Mehrtens resulted in NEC Harlequins defeating London Irish 1...

Standing in the mud...

admin — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 15:19:00 +0000

Well, an ugly game in ugly weather for an ugly Monday.

The first consecutive losses in 2002. Losing to the Colts didn't sting so much. Everyone knows how good of a team they are. Losing to the Jets on the other hand just plain sucks.

Apparently, there's a version of the Patriots with Rodney Harrison and a version without, and the two aren't remotely similar. I think if Harrison had played the entire Colts game, we would have won.

The Jets game is much harder to analyze. Things just fell apart.

In Red Sox world, Foulke is gone (no suprise there), Timlin is back for another year (stock up on the hunting t-shirts and pepto bismol) and if we pay $20 million to negotiate with Matsuzaka, I will kill someone.

Silver linings?

admin — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 15:13:00 +0000

Turning the ball over four times and still coming within a touchdown of beating the Indianoplis Colts? Not what I wanted out of Sunday night, but I'll take it.

The Patriots got cute on offense, instead of kicking the Colts' teeth in, which is what they needed to do.

The Patriots vs. Manning, Round 8

admin — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 15:25:00 +0000

Well, it's time for that showdown at Gillette again. The Colts are coming to town. After last year's emberassing loss to Peyton and co. it's time for a little redemption. I'm much more confident going into the game about the Patriots chances. Last year the Patriots were lost defensively. Our secondary in particular was a mess. This year, Harrison is back and the defense is looking much more like the Patriots defense that we're used to.

That said, they better be ready to lay some wood when it's game time. Also, we seem to be a much more balanced team than the Colts, who are still finding their running game, and similarly have had problems against the run. I'd take even money that Belichick flips the passing/running ratio from last week and show a completely different look from the spread offense that was being run.

I'm confident that our offense will score against the Colts, it's just a matter of the defense getting to Manning and keeping him from hurting the Patriots too bad.

November is where the metal meets the meat for the Patriots. They're going to have to beat either the Colts or the Bears to show that they're ready for another run at the Superbowl. I expect the usual wizadry from The Hooded One to see us through this trying time.

Obey your master.

admin — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 21:10:00 +0000

I particularly like the shots of Brady and Belichick to "Obey your master."

Monday Night Massacre...

admin — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 16:44:00 +0000

Funny comment last night during the pre-game show. The MNF crew (who make me long for John Madden at this point) are discussing the Vikings defense. I believe Kornheiser said something akin to "The Vikings are going to try and take away the running game and put the ball in Tom Brady's hands."

Good plan.

On the opening drive the Patriots then march down the field and into the end zone while only running the ball once ,a quick handoff to Maroney that got stopped behind the line. Brady went six for six for 94 yards.

430 Yards, 4 Touchdowns in the air, 25 First downs.

All in all, a great game by the Patriots. Tom Brady looked like Tom Brady, Laurence Maroney is looking better and better everytime we see him and the defense played like the defense we know and love.

The only worrying thing was the number of penalties committed at the start of the game, but they hardly mattered.

And for the record, there were some terrible calls made against the Vikings.

How awesome was Bill Belichick's hoodie with cut off hood and sleeves?

(Photo Courtesy of Yahoo! Sports)

Bring on the Colts.

Denver Harlequins Make US National Team

admin — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 18:05:00 +0000

Two members of the Denver Harlequins, Jason Regier and Chance Sumner, were selected for the US National Wheelchair Rugby Team. Jason and Chance join the ten other members of the US National team. This team will travel to New Zealand in September to take part in the 2006 Wheelchair Rugby World Championships. Here they will [...]