Are you ready for some baseball?

You know what rocks? Watching the first pre-season football game and thinking, after the third penalty in the first quarter, "Get outta my way." Love the NFL, but hate exhibition football games, and this year it feels great that the pre-season isn't a necessary bridge between anything. Boston's coming to town, a half-game up on Texas in the Wild Card chase. There's some crucial mid-August baseball to be played. Scott Feldman allowed two of the first three Cleveland hitters to reach base in the first inning yesterday, one more to reach in the second, and the first two to get on safely in the third, and in the fourth, and in the fifth. He wasn't at his sharpest, but he got better as the situations got tougher, and held the Indians to nothing but a first-inning score over six frames. MUTRIHOF is now 8-1, 3.50 on the road, and 12-4, 3.90 overall. He's tied for third in the league in wins even though he didn't start a game until April 25. Check this line out: 6.2 innings, one run, one hit, no walks, 13 strikeouts. Who does it belong to? Neftali Feliz as a big leaguer. Yes: 20 outs, 13 on strikes (including a run of seven straight, tying a Nolan Ryan franchise record). Exactly 100 pitches, 71 for strikes – and not all of the 96-101 variety. He's getting his breaking ball over and his changeup, too. Seriously: no walks for the 21-year-old? No walks? We've been told that Feliz made strides this season in AAA in holding runners. Hard to know yet how accurate those reports are. The only baserunner Feliz has had to work with was lumberjack Jack Cust, who reached on an infield error in Feliz's second appearance. (The one hit Feliz has allowed was an Adam Kennedy home run.) As for Cust, he never got the chance to move off of first base, as Feliz proceeded to strike Kurt Suzuki out on four pitches and get Tommy Everidge to fly lazily to short right field on one pitch. Tell you what: If you don't have a 2009 Bound Edition, I'll discount it the rest of this month to $20 – a buck for every spectacular big league out Feliz has recorded. How can you resist this cover? Think about how many years those two former Frisco teammates in the foreground are going to be core members of the Rangers staff. Yum. Josh Hamilton: 4 for 4 yesterday, 9 for his last 10. Since I suggested on August 7 that he was on the verge of breaking out, he's hitting .520/.556/.840 in 25 at-bats. On July 10, Hank Blalock drew a four-pitch, third-inning walk off Seattle starter Brandon Morrow, completing a six-hitter sequence that inning in which the Rangers did this: walk, walk, home run, single, foulout, walk. It was Blalock's last base on balls. In his 117 at-bats since that date, he has 26 hits (.226 average), including a triple (and five doubles and five homers), 32 strikeouts, three grounded-into-double-plays, and reached-on-error. But not one single walk in those 28-plus games. Chris Davis since his option to AAA: .321/.409/.542. In 131 at-bats, he's drawn 19 walks and gone down on strikes 31 times, less frequently than Blalock. (Yes, it's AAA pitching, but I think it's key to recognize that Davis is not only walking and hitting for average and slugging, but he's making contact at an acceptable rate.) In Justin Smoak's 141 AAA at-bats, he's drawn 22 walks and fanned 31 times. A three-game hit streak (4 for 11 with three walks) has lifted his slash line to .220/.325/.340. The Rangers' season-long 10-game road trip got off to an ugly start – losing the first three games in Oakland – but the club rebounded to go 5-5 on the trip by winning series in Los Angeles and Cleveland. Solid. Is Ian Kinsler ready to be activated? That determination is up to the medical folks and the front office, and minor league rehab statistics are just about worthless, so don't fret the nine hitless plate appearances, but it might be worth noting (not from a health standpoint but for a glimpse at where his approach is) that his seven outs (supplemented by one walk and one hit-by-pitch) looked like this: strikeout, groundout to shortstop, popout to shortstop, and four flyouts to center field. Kinsler's return to action this weekend is reportedly more likely than Nelson Cruz's. ESPN's Buster Olney predicts Texas will place the prevailing claim on Oakland righthander Justin Duchscherer when the A's run him through trade waivers this month. In the 31-year-old's August 9 AAA rehab start, he threw four scoreless innings, scattering two singles and a walk while fanning three and throwing 42 of 55 pitches (76 percent) for strikes. Yesterday the A's gave him an Arizona League start, in which he blanked a squad of Giants teenagers on four singles and no walks over five frames, striking out three. Whether traded or not, he's reportedly been pronounced ready to return to a big league mound. Baseball America's Jim Callis, asked in an ESPN chat session who he'd choose among Derek Holland, Boston's Clay Buchholz, and Houston's Bud Norris, said Holland was his guy. Between Martin Perez and Boston's Casey Kelly, Callis chose Perez. In a BA survey of Texas League managers, Frisco skipper Mike Micucci was voted as the league's top manager prospect and outfielder Craig Gentry was ranked as the circuit's best baserunner. According to Callis, the bonus that Texas agreed this week to pay fifth-rounder Nick McBride, a high school righthander from North Carolina, was $325,000, nearly double MLB's recommendation for that slot and the second-highest fifth-round bonus paid in the league so far. Twenty-four of 30 fifth-round picks have signed. The media won't help you, but see if you can convince some of your buddies that three days of watching the local sportscasts show highlights of Wade Phillips's catatonically bemused dumb-face and listening to the talk shows discuss Dallas's swing-and-miss tackles and blocks and pass "coverage" and undisciplined everything is a stunningly bad choice, when they could instead watch Josh Hamilton try to keep this tear going, and Derek Holland attempt to make it two gems in a row and three of four, and Neftali Feliz take the home mound for the first time. Time to find out if the Rangers, who have won six of their last seven series, can make it seven of eight, pitting Kevin Millwood against Boston's Jon Lester tonight, Derek Holland against Brad Penny on Saturday, and Dustin Nippert against Junichi Tazawa on Sunday. If they succeed in doing so, the Rangers will hold down the American League Wild Card spot going into four at home against Minnesota next week. =========================================================== To join the free Newberg Report mailing list so you can get e-mail deliveries of every edition of the newsletter, daily minor league game recaps, and frequent Newberg Report News Flashes, go to www.newbergreport.com and click the "Mailing List" link on the top menu bar. (c) Jamey Newberg http://www.newbergreport.com Twitter @newbergreport If you want to be removed from this list, please e-mail me at newbergreport@sbcglobal.net