Frank Francisco Has Sore Shoulder; Not Considered Serious

BOSTON - Frank Francisco was unavailable Friday night because his oft-injured right shoulder felt stiff, perhaps due to cool weather, before the Rangers game with Boston.

Though Francisco has a long history of arm troubles and missed two weeks already this season with biceps tendonitis, the Rangers don’t believe the injury to be serious. Manager Ron Washington said the disabled list is not a concern at this point. After pitching the ninth on Wednesday and briefly warming up Thursday, Francisco couldn’t get loose before Friday’s game. The Rangers made a game-time decision to not use him. They stuck with that even after Francisco called the dugout in the ninth inning with Boston rallying. The answer was a firm no.

“We weren’t going to let him try to get loose,” said Washington, who allowed RHP Darren O’Day to work his way through a ninth-inning jam in the Rangers’ 5-1 win. “You’ve got to take everything into account. He said he didn’t feel very good before the game, so that was it.”

Said Francisco: “I told them I wanted to go. They told me they needed to make sure they’d be able to have me in September.”

More on Francisco coming up in our game coverage.

Post-Game Show: Rangers 5, Red Sox 1

Three Up, Three Down from Fenway Park where the Rangers beat Boston 5-1 Friday night:

Three Up
• Kevin Millwood pitches seven-plus innings and is charged with no earned runs. More good news if you are thinking about October: Millwood is 4-1 with a career ERA of 2.90 in Fenway.
• Chris Davis should start playing “The Thong Song,” in the Rangers clubhouse. Since switching BVDs, he’s 6-for-16. And besides, Chad Curtis is no longer around to object.
• The Rangers enter the final two games of the road trip simply needing one win to clinch a .500 record for the journey to New York and Boston. Exactly where they’d like to be.

Three Down
• Where is Frank Francisco?
• Jarrod Saltalamacchia had two more strikeouts and now has 28 in his last 50 at-bats.
• We are really picking nits here: 1B Chris Davis was charged with his first error of the season for trying to scoop a ball he didn’t need to scoop.

The Depot: Rangers Live Game Blog, News And Notes

5:02: Home Run Pool is open. And here’s something to read by the pool regarding the Vicente Padilla Waivers Affair. Also, there are some notes on Tom Hicks’ philosophy regarding business operations while the team is up for sale and club’s interest – or lack thereof – in Tom Glavine. More notes expected in the notebook before the end of the game.

5:09: Also on David Ortiz, whose troubles at the plate have some wondering if the Red Sox might be interested in Hank Blalock, I’ll offer this: The Red Sox may get a final feel on whether Ortiz’s skills are declining or if its just a slump during this weekend. Ortiz was slumping badly at the start of last season when the Rangers came to town.  He hit a grand slame in his first game against Texas pitching and went on to bat .385 with five homers and 22 RBIs in 39 at-bats against the Rangers.  He’s a .300 career hitter against Texas with 20 homers in 297 at-bats. Perhaps the Red Sox are waiting to see if the Rangers’ arms awaken Big Papi’s bat before they do anything with him.

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Vicente Padilla On Waivers: Post-Mortem Post

BOSTON - The waiver period on Vicente Padilla came in with a bang Wednesday and went out with barely a whimper Friday afternoon.

For whatever reason – his salary, his stuff or his erratic behavior – nobody claimed him.

But that seemed to be a foregone conclusion from the moment we broke the story Wednesday afternoon.

So why do it in the first place?

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Another Round Of Blind Home Run Derby (Now With Lineup!)

UPDATED WITH ACTUAL LINEUP

This way, those of you at work, can submit your selections right now.

While I don’t have the lineup yet, I can tell you that DH-OF Andruw Jones is 15-for-45 with six homers in his career against Boston RHP Brad Penny and INF Omar Vizquel is 10-for-33 with one homer. Also of significance: 3B Michael Young is 5-for-7 against Penny, but has never homered.

Actually, neither Jones nor Vizquel is playing. Little surprised about Jones, but manager Ron Washington said he is planning to play Jones against LHP Jon Lester on Saturday and I guess he didn’t want Hank Blalock sitting on consecutive days. Blalock is 3-for-7 (all singles) against Penny. So here’s the lineup:

2B Ian Kinsler, 3B Michael Young DH Hank Blalock, RF Nelson Cruz, LF David Murphy, CF Marlon Byrd, 1B Chris Davis, C Jarrod Saltalamacchia, SS Elvis Andrus and pitching for the Rangers … RHP Kevin Millwood.

From The Rangers Beat: Friday Notes

BOSTON – With the MLB draft coming up next week, the signing period for Latin American players beginning next month and the trading deadline arriving at the end of July, the questions surrounding a team for sale are often about finances.

Rangers owner Tom Hicks, however, said that his search for significant investment – even if it means selling majority ownership in the team – will not impact his management’s team ability to acquire talent.

“It’s business as usual,” Hicks wrote in an email this week about how the club might be impacted by the uncertain future of ownership.

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Padilla Waiver Watch

With the deadline for clubs to place a waiver claim on Vicente Padilla having passed just a few minutes ago, it appears that Padilla remains property of the Texas Rangers.

Rangers GM Jon Daniels said the club would make no comments about whether a player was placed on waivers or cleared.

Assuming he cleared, the Rangers now have the option of assigning Padilla to the minor leagues and should they do so, Padilla would have the option of refusing the assignment and taking free agency. More likely, however, Padilla will simply stay in the Rangers rotation.

UPDATE: More than an hour after the deadline has passed, I believe it is safe to assume Padilla has cleared waivers. The Rangers are listing him as their probable starter for Sunday’s game at Boston. Daniels declined to comment on whether this week’s move has prompted interest from other clubs. Atlanta, however, is reportedly looking to upgrade its starting pitching and has been researching Boston RHP Brad Penny. – Evan Grant

Viral Video: Beau Jones

You know about Elvis Andrus, Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Matt Harrison. Maybe you’ve heard of Neftali Feliz. But what do you know about “The Other Guy” the Rangers got from Atlanta in the Mark Teixeira deal? Meet Beau Jones, left-handed reliever for Double-A Frisco.

As always, many thanks to Ted Price, producer, director and star of Rangers Podcast in Arlington for the video work. The latest Rangers Podcast in Arlington features the usual co-stars of Jamey Newberg of the Newberg Report and Adam Morris of Lone Star Ball

Ask Sports Sturm: Baseball Items of Interest

Today’s feature is all baseball related, and I believe the final item in particular will be very useful for most fans to clip and save if you believe in doing that sort of thing…

Item #1: Hey Bob, you mentioned your trip to Fenway, and I was curious which parks you have been to and what was your favorite? – Tommy

Tommy, I am just the kind of guy to remember every park I have ever been to, I believe, so let me list them in the order I attended them – as memory serves: 1) Country Stadium, Milwaukee, 2) Metrodome – Minneapolis 3) Busch Stadium – St Louis, 4) Royals Stadium – Kansas City, 5) New Comiskey, Chicago, 6) Camden Yards, Baltimore, 7) Fulton-County Stadium, Atlanta, 8 ) Yankees Stadium, New York, 9) Ballpark in Arlington – Texas, 10) Wrigley Field, Chicago, 11) Coors Field, Denver, 12) Pac-Bell Park, San Francisco, 13) Miller Park, Milwaukee 14) Minute Maid Park, Houston, 15) Dodgers Stadium, Los Angeles, 16) Angels Stadium, Anaheim, 17) Joe Robbie Stadium, Miami, 18) Qualcomm Stadium, San Diego.

So 19 is tomorrow. And more importantly, with Dan McDowell stuck at 17, I open up a big 2-stadium lead.

My Favorite? How about top 5 in no particular order: Camden Yards, Yankee Stadium, Dodgers Stadium, Pac-Bell Park, and Wrigley Field. But the Padres and Rockies experiences were awesome, too.

The true test for favorite stadium experience will be this weekend, when I finally get to Fenway, and can cross that off my sports-dork bucket list.

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Road To Arlington: Rangers Minor League Report (6/5)

There was one rainout, but the pitching staffs of the other three minor league clubs combined to surrender just one run all night and that was in the 10th inning. Twenty-seven shutout innings.

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