McCarthyisms: Brandon McCarthy’s Blog Post

Warning: If you are looking for hi-jinks and other hilarity, this is probably not the right blog post for you. Rangers RHP Brandon McCarthy has agreed to write an occasional post/answer questions/offer a diary-type look at the life of a young pitcher. For his first entry, McCarthy chose to answer the question of a reader. If you’ve got questions for McCarthy or a suggested topic, send them to me. I’ll forward on to him.

Do hitters ever look “afraid” to face you in the box?  Are any hitters especially intimidating or do you just completely ignore the hitter?

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Roster Moves: Kris Benson To DL; Darren O’Day Claimed

While we were busy researching the All-Earth Day team, the Rangers snuck a few roster moves into their game notes. Ah, what’s a day of Rangers baseball without roster moves. We’ve got our third change to the bullpen in the first 13 games of the season and the first starter to go on the DL. Who had RHP Kris Benson in that pool?

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Green Day: The All-Earth Team

Earth Day has to be my favorite of all the planet-based holidays. I tried to get into Jupiter Day once, but the parade really wasn’t much fun. So, today, in celebration of Earth Day, I brought in a bunch of old press releases for the recycling bin. Let’s see, what else I did. Hmmm. That’s about it.

But I have an excuse, I spent all morning putting together the All-Earth Day baseball team. Without further adieu:

Manager: Dallas Green
C: Steve Lake or Dave Valle
1B: Shawn Green
2B: Glen Beckert
3B: Brooks Robinson
SS: Khalil Greene
OF: Jason Bay
OF: Mickey Rivers
OF: Jim Greengrass
DH: Todd Greene
SP: Mark “The Bird” Fidrych
SP: Ken Hill
SP: Frank Mountain
RP: Jose Mesa
RP: Doug Creek
RP: Kent Greenfield

NFL Draft Junkie: Episode 4 – Safeties

I wanted to get back into the NFL Draft picture today, with the Spurs-Mavs allowing us a day to catch our breath.

There are some very interesting things going on in the NFL world this week as the current state of the economy combined with the feeling league-wide that the rookie salaries have gone insane have caused many, many teams to attempt to trade down. Trouble is, if you are going to trade down you are going to need a partner and that is what is troubling many teams.

I have been collecting various informational items that I will be using for our NFL Draft coverage on the Ticket on Saturday, and figured some of you would find this useful as well:

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Good Talk: Frisco’s Kasey Kiker Responds To Meeting

D-tails – Boxscore: Frisco 1, Arkansas 0 (13 innings);  MJH’s pitch-by-pitch breakdown of Kiker’s outing.

FRISCO – Kasey Kiker’s last start resulted in him – and the entire Frisco pitching staff – getting roasted. His start on Tuesday nearly got him toasted. With champagne.

Though he ended up with no decision in the RoughRiders’ 1-0 13-inning win over Arkansas, Kiker was perfect through four innings and took a no-hitter to the sixth. When he left after seven, he had allowed only a single and two walks in quite possibly the best start of his professional career.

It was a stark contrast from his last outing, last Thursday. In that 11-9 loss to Springfield, Kiker allowed four walks and hit three batters in five innings. His teammates continued the walk-a-thon, eventually allowing a total of 14 free bases on walks and hit batters.

And the next day, pitching coach Joe Slusarski sat the entire staff down for a little talk.

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After Further Review…Oops.

When doing radio, a big mistake that can be made is to repeat something you heard from somebody else.  It is best to A) have your own opinions that you have hand-crafted after careful consideration and B) when hearing something from someone else, it should always be checked for accuracy.

I perhaps failed on both counts this week, when I heard someone I respect claim that Derek Holland struggles at every level after promotion.  I assumed that the person I heard had it right, so I said it on my show yesterday without checking the facts.

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The Morning After: Rangers 5, Blue Jays 4

D-tails – Boxscore: Rangers 5, Blue Jays 4; Rangers beat Roy Halladay

Watching RHP Brandon McCarthy work his way towards a second consecutive quality start and his first road win since July 31, 2007, I couldn’t help but think of two words: Rick. Helling.

Like Helling, McCarthy is a flyball pitcher with what appears to be a fairly straight, average fastball. That wouldn’t seem to be the recipe for success with the Rangers. Nevertheless, Helling won 61 games over his final four seasons with the Rangers and pitched 215 or more innings in each of those seasons.

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Road To Arlington: Rangers Minor League Report (4/22) — With A Full Breakdown Of Kasey Kiker’s Gem

FRISCO — As good as the box score line looks, Kasey Kiker’s seven shutout frames against Arkansas on Tuesday looked even better from the stands. Not necessarily because Kiker’s stuff was so great — it was at times; overall it was just good — but because of his mound presence and approach.

Locked in a pitchers dual with the Angels’ top prospect, Midlothian native RHP Jordan Walden (a 2006 draft-and-follow who signed for a seven-figure first-round bonus), Kiker delivered a big-league performance, locating his fastball in and out, changing speeds and throwing any of his three pitches for strikes in any count. He was thoroughly unpredictable.

Though his curve was off-and-on most of the afternoon (and he started to hang it in the last couple of innings), he set it up very well and managed to drop it in for strikes at very opportune times. His change was much, much better than expected. Big subtraction and great arm action. He’s much more confident in that pitch than I had imagined.

What stood out more than anything for me was his competitiveness and confidence. Kiker is clearly on the cocky side of confident, and he made that work for him on Tuesday. It was very much a “get ball, throw ball” approach and a clinic on the value of being in command of the pace of the ballgame.

After the jump, I’ll give you the pitch-by-pitch breakdown of Kiker’s dominant performance as well as recaps of yesterday’s games played by the other three Rangers minor league affiliates.

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