Game Report: Royals 4, Rangers 1

Posted on March 13th, 2009 6:32pm by Evan Grant
Filed under Game Recap, Texas Rangers

Kansas City’s Ross Gload (off Vicente Padilla) and John Buck (off Frank Francisco) each hit two run homers Friday afternoon to lead the Royals to the win a split-squad game at Surprise Stadium. While the Rangers sent most of their regular position players to a split-squad game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, most of the pitchers who appeared Friday were big leaguers. The Rangers now trail their camp-mates three games to two in the best-of-nine spring training matchup. There are two games left in Arizona and two in Texas.

The good: RHP Warner Madrigal, bidding for a spot as a middle or semi-setup man, continues to impress. He had his third consecutive easy outing, throwing just 11 pitches in a perfect inning. Madrigal also made a nice fielding play while on the run. He scooped up Ross Gload’s hard grounder and sprinted to first base for the unassisted out.

The bad: After watching Andruw Jones strike out Thursday, a couple of scouts asked about his eyesight because their perception was that he was not recognizing any pitches. Jones dismissed the notion he needed Lasik or any other procedure, but did go 0-for-3 with a pair of strikeouts Friday. His batting average dropped back to .258. The Rangers could have as little as a week to decide whether to add Jones to the major legue roster or let him take free agency.

The apathetic:  Seems the good folks of the Northwest Valley are getting a little tired of Rangers-Royals. In the spring opener, the teams drew 5,367 fans to the 10,714-seat stadium. They’ve average 3,590 fans for the four games since and that was up after a crowd of 4,105 on Friday. The teams play next on March 28 and then in the final Arizona game on April 2.

On deck: The Rangers travel to Glendale to face the Chicago White Sox at 3:05 CDT. Eric Nadel and Steve Busby will broadcast on KRLD-1080 AM. LHP Matt Harrison starts for the Rangers.

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4 Comments to “Game Report: Royals 4, Rangers 1”
  • Fai Mao @ March 13th, 2009 at 6:53 pm

    You don’t have many Snow-Birds from KC and Dallas.

    If the Rangers shared a facility with the Twins, Tigers or Blue Jays you’d see bigger crowds

  • bioaggie @ March 13th, 2009 at 9:36 pm

    Seems like Jones’ struggles would prompt him to try just about anything to improve, including Lasik surgery.

  • Tom B @ March 14th, 2009 at 2:14 am

    I’m not convinced that what ails Jones visually can be improved with corrective lens or surgery. Just seeing some of his reactions on balls hit his way he gets a “Slow Jump” on the ball. That might be more depth perception than any correction. He doesn’t field long balls, when I’ve observed, like a Gold Glove fielding Center Fielder. If so, He is DOA. Also, one with same cannot pickup pitch speed differential.
    He wouldn’t be able to recognize an 87 mph pitch from a 93 mph pitch.

  • tincup @ March 14th, 2009 at 11:11 am

    The key to attendance is better performance during the year and a little, just a little hype in the off-season. Anticipation is great in sports, espeically baseball. There are some studs in AZ on the Rangers roster. The key is “if” we improve our pitching. We do and we’re golden! I like Padilla, Feldman and Harrison coming into this year. Feldman and Harrison are going to be a huge surprise to the league with their effectiveness. Harrison may even win 15-18 games this year. Defensively we will be better with Andrus at SS with Cruz in RF and Murphy in LF. We’re stronger up the middle from backstop to CF and the corners have improved considerably with Davis and Young. Hamilton is going to dominate in the middle of this lineup. He was just trying to get through the year last year and now he knows he fits. If we figure out the BP we could win 90 games and fight for the Playoffs. Now that is hype. You got to love it.