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Weekend In Review

As the Rangers headed into their Biggest Series Of The Season v. 12.0, Michael Young was scorching hot and riding a 13-game hitting streak. But after going 3-6 with a homer in the opener, Young cooled off, managing just one hit in nine at bats over the final two games.

It was a bad weekend for Hammys as well. Andruw Jones acknowledged that his is not at 100 percent after he was thrown out Thursday in Oakland trying to stretch a 360-foot RBI single into a double. He went 0-8 over the weekend against the Angels. Josh Hamilton admitted that photos taken of him in a bar in January were real. He managed a 2-4 outing after verifying the pictures, but the Rangers lost the game and he was the only Texas player not to record a base hit Sunday.

Then came the news that Vicente Padilla was released and C.J. Wilson was demoted to 8th inning duty in favor of Frank Francisco. All of this seemed to come at just the wrong time for Texas, who was in need of at least two wins in L.A. to stay close in the division race.

But none of it mattered, at least not yesterday, because Derek Holland is pretty good.

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Cowboys ’08 – Week 15 vs New York Giants

Here is Week 15/Game 14 in our review of the 2008 Dallas Cowboy season.

Today, we feature the one win from December, 2008, for the Dallas Cowboys.  Oddly, this was the craziest week of all as we heard this week of Terrell Owens and Jason Witten having to be seperated during practice and we heard of the meetings between the WRs and Jason Garrett and a series of other chaotic scenarios.  It was truly a surreal week in Dallas.

They ended up winning this game with some level of relative ease, but the door was about to slam on any and all playoff scenarios the following few weeks.

From December 14, 2008, Cowboys and Giants from Sunday Night Football at Texas Stadium:

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MGM: Josh, Spider, Tiger, and Vince

“Machine Gun Mondays” is back, but don’t go falling in love with it all over again because it is on borrowed time.  Once the regular season begins for the Cowboys (September 13 at Tampa Bay) you know that Monday morning means the morning-after game notes from the Cowboys, but for now….for a few more Mondays, let’s take a trip around a wild sports weekend, shall we?

I think the story to rock all stories this weekend was the Josh Hamilton developments from his night in January as he clearly and sadly fell off the wagon. I must tell you that this story bothers me quite a bit on a number of levels, not the least of which being that many of us have vouched for him dozens of times as being “authentic” with his story in a world of stories that are not authentic. Alas, He is human, and he definitely is chased by his demons on a daily basis.

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Flying Dutchman: Derek Holland Clips Angels As Rangers Move Into Tie For Wild Card Lead

• Post-Game Show (with new format)

ANAHEIM, Calif. – The live fastball made LHP Derek Holland a great prospect. The secondary stuff is what can make him a great major leauger.

On Sunday, 12 starts into his major league career, Holland demonstrated his understanding of that. He plowed fastballs right by the AL West-leading Los Angeles Angels for as long as they were willing to sit there and watch them. And when they started gearing up to swing early, Holland trusted his slider and changeup to help him take advantage of the Angels’ eagerness.

The result was a masterpiece. On the way to a 7-0 complete game win that moved the Rangers within 3.5 games of the Angels and into a tie for the wild card lead, Holland took a no-hitter to the sixth inning. When Maicer Izturis broke it up with a solid single up the middle, the 22-year-0ld Holland stayed calm and struck out Erick Aybar to end the inning. Holland needed just 96 pitches to become the youngest lefty in Rangers history to throw a shutout. His pitch total was the third-lowest in a shutout by a Rangers pitcher since pitch-count stats were first officially recorded in 1988.

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Road To Arlington: Rangers Farm Report (8/9)

Triple-A: Oklahoma City 2 @ Fresno 1

SS Joaquin Arias led off the game with a single and RF Dustin Majewski followed with a two-run bomb…and that’s all the RedHawks would get, or need.

RHP Guillermo Moscoso (4-3; 1.89) allowed one run on six hits and a walk, punching out three in 6.1 innnings and LHP Pirate Murray (3.10 ERA), Willie Eyre (2.52) and RHP Warner Madrigal (1.69) blanked the Grizzlies the rest of the way.

3B Chris Davis (.320 / .397 / .508) gave OKC it’s only multi-hit performance, going 2-for-4 with a pair of whiffs.

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