Doesn’t Chad Gaudin have a nappy beard/goatee thingy?

@TD: Kind of hard to equate, because I’ve been asking the same question much of the day. Chris Perez was an upper-level closer-type pitcher. I’m not sure the Rangers had that kind of pitcher in their system. Maybe you could say Neftali Feliz since he’s now in the bullpen, but that would be undervaluing Feliz. Think there wasn’t a real match based on what the Indian were looking for.

Is it really ever necessary to have dogs at the ballpark?

Is Tegarden still sick? We are running Salty ragged.

tummy dropped a bit seeing adruw in right.

@Rangers Fan: Dogs are always welcome at my park. Teagarden feeling better, but after some vomiting yesterday (hey, you asked), think the Rangers want to make sure he’s hydrated again before sending him to mound. He’ll almost certainly catch Vicente Padilla on Monday.

Poor dogs….it’s too hot!

What TD and James asked.

Hank is not an everyday player. I don’t care what he says.

Sweet notes…thanks.

Here is another note: Chris Davis has 2 more HR’s and 9 less RBI’s than Mark DeRosa. Don’t know what that means, but just realized it.

Do you think they have to buy an extra ticket for the dog?

Kinsler needs to be more patient.

Knox gets all road games off.He needs to suck it up and fight thru it.

@evan: you will be my hero if you make that happen.

CD’s full-season numbers– bleh. I’ve convinced myself not to get too hung up on him: he plays nice D and is unlikely to be here more than another season. Our ready-made replacement for him is, well, ready.

@Little O: You have to give the man credit; he is an exceptionally good sport about the very cheesy job he has, which is essentially asking this: “Hey, where you from?” “OK, now yell for us!”

Caption: Evan finally scores a date.

if steak asked me out, i’d say yes.

@DECLAN: I bet Justin Smoak will never strike out either!

@TD: he will, just unlikely on a major-league record pace…or even 196 over 151 games.

@Little O: You want Eric? For what a chat?

Caption- I found the head, where’s the angus?

@TD: Davis’ full-season body of work, as objectively presented by Evan– an OPS just abover .800 and almost 200 K’s.

Neither is good for a major league 1B. We now have enough data on him to reasonably suggest that he’s reaching “he is what he is” territory.

You bet the Rangers are brass are expecting more from Smoak.

ATD: “…you can’t rule it out…”

No kidding. That is not a relevant point.

BTW, your Hunter vs Holland red herring– we’re discussing season-long performance, not single games.

@DECLAN:
he will, just unlikely on a major-league record pace

TOUCHE

If the Rangers have the line-up in the future that allows them to keep CD in the 8 hole with decent power numbers and plus defense, then great.

The problem with the lineup is when you have players like Salty, AJ, Blalock, even Kinsler– low-ish OPS and plenty of Ks– along side CD. Productionb over time will suffer. We’ve seen it.

@TD- a K, where the ball is not at all put in play, is in fact different than a groundout, flyout, or foulout.

Would rather have CD in lineup than AJ or Hank any day.

Least with CD you know he will get better. He did have a 35 game hit streak in minors.

Oh dear goodness….are we having yet another Chris Davis debate? Is there anything else to say?? And am I ridiculous in thinking an 80& OBP is good? Even if you don’t like Davis, surely you can see there are no other options, right?

Just flipped over to the Frisco game- is the attendance usually that bad or is it just like that when the Rangers are home?

Very reasonable view of Davis there Evan

@Rangers Fan: You’re still right…..

I am so tired of Jones and Blalock. They are as good as they’re getting. There’s no upside. And now Hank’s complaining. He should be sat on the bench and not let up.

Nadel is having more surgery?!?!?!

With Jennings come in, i guess the guy on 1st will score now.

Caption: Bessie. She’s what’s for dinner.

Keep with Hunter for the 5th spot!

WILL WORK FOR RUNS.

“Davis’ full-season body of work, as objectively presented by Evan– an OPS just abover .800 and almost 200 K’s.

Neither is good for a major league 1B. We now have enough data on him to reasonably suggest that he’s reaching “he is what he is” territory.”

You want to know why teams don’t want to rebuild, why Tom Hicks fought rebuilding so long and hard, why Drayton McLane still tries to put it off?

Because of attitudes like the one expressed above.

Chris Davis turned 23 a month before the season started. About half of the full season’s of ABs in the majors that we were talking about were put up when he was the same age Justin Smoak is now.

Chris Davis is still a young player, and yet, just 90 days removed from his 23rd birthday, we have people proclaiming that “he is what he is” and already wanting to move on to the next shiny bauble in the minor league system.

If a prospect doesn’t come up and immediately dominate, fans are ready to write him off. And if a prospect does come up and immediately dominate — like Davis did — but then struggles, well, fans decide the league has figured him out and are ready to write him off.

haha. i like the way this dc cat thinks.

@Evan- I’m an old man, but an old baseball man (coach/player). I appreciate that you bring some reality to the youngsters. This is a building year. I tip my hat to Hunter (and I’m a black belt, 70 lbs lighter than he, who used to teach judo).

With the mindset of half these people seattle should have got rid of King Felix long ago cause he wasn’t good the first few years.

A one hitter from Chad Gaudin….REALLY. Not laughing or feeling good anymore. This WILL be the worst series loss…CRAP.

Ok…going to try and keep the faith here….

if cj’s pitching now, does that mean frankie would be in for the 9th if there’s a save chance? or would the guitar hero stick it out?

Or to put it in ranger terms trying to hurry and get better is why Danks threw a shutout for CWS today instead of for rangers.

@All: I periodically like to remind about how great it is for everyone to have opinions and how great you are for expressing them in a most civilized manner.

Right now, Davis is somewhere along where Carlos Pena was after his first 150 games (.238/.318/.445, 23 HR, 67 RBI, 139 Ks). Pena eventually developed into a significant power threat and a steady everyday first baseman. But it took longer than any one team was willing to give. Will Davis be another Pena? Or will he make the adjustment and be a guy like Ryan Howard? It can’t be determined at age 23.

@Ernie: You make excellent points. The 7th is the first time the Rangers would absolutely NEED a fifth starter if they wanted to push everybody back as far as possible due to Thursday’s off day, but because of that off day they can re-arrange the rotation anyway they want. They’ve got Padilla, Feldman and Millwood going against the Angels this week. I’m sure they’d like to set it up so as many of those guys as possible would pitch against the Angels in Anaheim, too.

@Evan: In regards to the Jones entry…so Jones is hitting less than Davis but people still call for him to start over Davis? Please explain that rational.

i just heard the air deflate from the stadium…

Yes…CJ has been lights out. Right now, I feel more comfortable with him in there than Frankie.

WOW!

I want to see someone go crazy. Take a bat to the gatorade jug. Throw things. I don’t care. Shake something up!

@TD: Can’t get to the average right now, but can tell you the Mariners lead the AL in sac bunts/flies. And 3.06 percent of their outs have come on sacrifices (57 of 1,860). Not sure what that means. By the way, the Rangers are not last in the AL with their 39 sac bunts/flies. That belongs to Baltimore with 27. And there are four other teams with fewer sac bunts/flies than the Rangers.

@EVAN: Thanks.

I like Davis, but I seem to remember he’s a Boras guy, so when the light comes on and he’s tearing it up, it’ll all be about “testing the FA market”.

Ecks really chokes up on that bat.

Smoak = boras the antichrist.

DC, you better stop. you’re giving the antichrist a bad name by linking him with boras.

Way to go MY to bad 2 strikeouts are coming next.

TERRIBLE.

We could end this week in 3rd place, easily!

Jones should be released and Borbon brought up. Almost forgot send Hank with him.

well, um, we can at least say at least it was a quick game!

True Becca but a loss.

In all honesty, do we think anything will happen with Blalock or Jones? No..they’ll continue to get at-bats and suck it up with the occasional homerun that gives them a brief reprieve.

Just read thru the tread. AJM was spot on.
AG was spot on. Pena and Gonzales wre given up on by Rangers–as was Haffner.
Let’s let one develop.

The lineup needs an overhall bigtime. Young presses in the three hole. Move him back to two where he is comfortable. Put Vizquel(rotate him defensively with the three non-firstbasemen in the infield while they dh) leadoff, and Kinsler 3 hole. Murphy 4, Cruz 5, Salty 6, Byrd 7, Davis 8, and Andrus 9. If that doesnt do the trick, bring up Bourbon. At the very least it will give our infielder’s partial days off in the heat of the summer.

@AJM: you nailed it.
@MikeE: I was at the game with my dog (Bernard). For each person and dog, you get 3 seats. So, yes, Bernard had his own seat all night. And it really didn’t seem very hot. The section where I was was shady and there was a nice breeze. Also, they had people walking around in the stands checking to make sure that the dogs were OK. They were even handing out bottles of cold water for the dogs. I didn’t need it because I had packed plenty of ice water and snacks for Bernard, but I did think that it was a really nice touch.