Big Bad.

Way to go, Big Bad Angels' loss is Rangers' gain Keep on impalin' Remember the pall cast over the Rangers fan base when the club elected to let Ivan Rodriguez move on, not even offering him arbitration, sending a message through the press that his unique skill set had begun to erode and he was never very good at working with young pitchers anyway, and the 31-year-old proceeded to instantly lead a Marlins club led by a young rotation to a World Series title? Remember the hurt? Imagine how much worse it would have been if Pudge had jumped from Texas to Oakland and done it. I'm not predicting a Rangers title in mid-May, but it has to be pretty crummy for Angels fans to see their perennial MVP candidate, Vladimir Guerrero, tuning the league up at a .328/.361/.527 rate (while his replacement, Hideki Matsui, sits at .226/.307/.371 under roughly the same contract) for a team they're chasing in the division. With no draft pick compensation to patch the wound since Los Angeles didn't offer him arbitration. The Guerrero-Matsui swap for Los Angeles may not sink to the level of Steve Nash-Erick Dampier (another local roster shift with the club spinning its departing star's alleged signs of decline), but given the Angels' lousy start, and Guerrero's insanely awesome one, I bet it's a handy point of depression for the Los Angeles faithful. I'm sure I had as much fun watching Josh Hamilton hit in 2008 as I do watching Guerrero now, but I wouldn't swear to it. Incidentally: Hamilton through 34 games in his storybook 2008 season: .292/.346/.533. He'd struck out 20 times in 137 at-bats. Guerrero, at the abovementioned .328/.361/.527 slash rate through 34 games played, has fanned 13 times in 131 at-bats. Having won yesterday's game, getting fantastic work out of C.J. Wilson and Frankie Francisco (17 strikes in 20 pitches, all four batters punched out) and Elvis Andrus (a big bag of awesomeness, though with the requisite once-a-game brainlock of a player who occasionally does act his age), I'm going to go ahead and question a decision, not because I want to rant and rave about its insanity, but rather to ask what I'm missing. Bottom of the ninth. Game locked at 1-1. David Murphy singles with one out. Justin Smoak singles him to third base. Max Ramirez and Julio Borbon are set to hit. A run ends it. Ron Washington sends Craig Gentry out to run for Smoak. I didn't understand the move and, really, despite hearing a couple attempts to reason it out, still don't. Here's why: 1. The obvious: The Smoak/Gentry run doesn't matter. If Murphy scores, the game is over. If, say, Murphy is cut down at the plate on an infield grounder, putting Smoak on second and Ramirez at first with two outs, fine – put Gentry in for Smoak at that point if you want. I can see that. 2. If the idea is that Gentry is going to steal second base to take away the double play opportunity (which they obviously didn't plan, as Ramirez took three straight balls without Gentry moving), I'd argue that would have been bad managing. If he gets thrown out, you've eliminated the chance to win the game with a fly ball. 3. I'd have been surprised to see Washington put on a hit-and-run at any point in the Ramirez at-bat. It's not what the game asked you to do in that situation. Not with the walkoff run at third. 4. If the idea is that Gentry is swift enough to beat out the front end of a double play, that makes no sense to me, either. If the force play is going to be that close (again, assuming no hit-and-run), that probably means a slow-developing play, which means even if the A's get the force, they're never going to complete the pair, and the game ends as Murphy crosses the plate. Stated another way, if Oakland is able to double up Ramirez, it wouldn't matter whether Vince Coleman or Bengie Molina was the runner on base unless he was put in motion – and Texas was not going to put Gentry in motion. It ended up not mattering much that Smoak was lost for the game (Ryan Garko popped out in the 11th but did make a nice 3-6 play in the top of the 10th), but it might have, and it sure would have been nice to keep Gentry's availability alive for a spot when his speed tool would have been truly usable. Am I missing something? Garko (3 for 33, all singles) is reportedly about to lose his roster spot to Joaquin Arias, a move that was signaled once the Rangers began to play Arias at first base during his rehab stint with Oklahoma City. Gentry is expected to be optioned back to AAA with Nelson Cruz returning, so I suppose the idea is that Arias gives Washington the pinch-runner that Gentry's departure was taking away from the bench. It wouldn't have bothered me to see Gentry stick (so Hamilton wouldn't have to patrol center every day) and Borbon optioned. Getting Borbon right is a big key for this season. He drew only his second walk yesterday (113 plate appearances), an obviously unacceptable rate for any regular but obscenely so for a player whose game is predicated on reaching base and then doing damage. The only Rangers regular seeing fewer pitches per plate appearance than Borbon is Guerrero. Chris Davis had a better rate. So did Taylor Teagarden. And Arias. Last year's good-looking Borbon spray chart has given way this season to lots of lazy volleys to the left fielder. I'm not out on Borbon. Far from it. But he's got to get right, and I'd have been OK if today's ticket to Oklahoma City were given to him rather than to Gentry. As for Garko, he was a low-risk (low-salaried) add that didn't work out, one that wouldn't have been necessary had Mike Lowell passed his December physical and come to Texas for Ramirez. Ironically, the way Ramirez has been swinging the bat the last few days, he's been giving the Rangers the kind of occasional production from the right side that they were looking to Garko for. Smoak's home run on Wednesday night was his fourth, which gave him the lead among American League rookies – even though Smoak has been around for barely more than half his club's games. The Rangers' home run barrage that night was just the fourth time in what is now 35 games that the club has gone deep more than once. Last year's offense had 21 multi-homer games in its first 35. Take it further: last year through 35 games, the Rangers were hitting .279/.335/.500, with 201 runs, 77 doubles, 62 home runs, 101 walks, and 288 strikeouts. This year: .259/.328/.394, 165 runs, 53 doubles, 32 home runs, 117 walks, and 244 strikeouts. Texas isn't hitting as well and isn't slugging as much, though a better walk rate (and a lower strikeout rate that suggests, even if not conclusively, that a handful of deep-count pitches that might been flailed at last season are now being taken) has the club reaching base nearly as often. And yet the records and positions in the standings between the two seasons through 35 games are about the same (21-14 and 1.5 games up in 2009, 20-15 and two games up now). The biggest reason the dropoff in offense hasn't resulted in a dropoff overall is obvious: The pitching got a lot better last season. But it's taken another huge step forward this year. Last year's team ERA through 35 games was 4.74. This year's is 3.57 (the starters are at 2.96 over the last 13 games, with nine quality starts). Opponents were hitting .262 last year, .242 this year. Walks are up slightly this year (119 to 137), but the increase is not as dramatic as team strikeouts (188 to 258). Home runs are down (43 to 36). He doesn't get all the credit (plenty should go to ownership, the front office, coaches and scouts, and the pitchers themselves), but Mike Maddux has been a top 5 acquisition during the Jon Daniels regime. I thought about Maddux as Ben Sheets, his prize pupil in their six years together in Milwaukee, and Wilson, his renovated ace, absolutely locked horns for more than six-and-a-half innings. Winning instincts aside, Maddux had to be proud. Wilson wasn't as efficient or as sharp as he was in Friday's complete game, but that just underscores what kind of pitcher he's become, limiting the A's to one run over seven innings of work despite not bringing his best stuff to the mound. That's seven straight quality starts for Wilson, a Rangers franchise record for the start of a season. He's also thrown 69.1 consecutive homerless innings at Rangers Ballpark, another club record. In fact, he's allowed only four extra-base hits (all doubles) all season. Remember the guy who, eight months ago, you'd hiss at as soon as he trotted in from the bullpen and delivered ball one to a hitter crow-hopping out of the way of his first-pitch fastball? Today, if you squint your eyes and try to envision Game One on October 5, isn't Wilson the guy whose hand you want the ball in as soon as the Anthem ends? By the way, if you're not catching Wilson's weekly radio segment with Ben & Skin on ESPN Radio (103.3 FM), Tuesday mornings at 11:40, you're doing it wrong. And whether you're doing it right or wrong, you deserve to listen to the Wilson intro that Ben Rogers recorded, a lot of times: http://songtwit.com/2u8 Wilson was called for a balk that didn't count in yesterday's fourth inning. It was nullified by the single Jake Fox hit to center on the pitch, a rule that I would have appreciated the home plate umpire in the 1987 Waxahachie Tournament knowing when he wiped off my two-run homer in the first inning of a game we ended up losing to Fort Worth Southwest, 5-0. He ruled "no pitch," called me back to the plate, sent our leadoff hitter Steve Whitlow from first base to second, and tossed our coach out of the game. Lefthander Matt Harrison threw on flat ground Wednesday and reported no residual problems from the biceps tendinitis that forced him to the disabled list. I'm a day early, but Happy 22nd Birthday to Hickory outfielder Miguel Velazquez, my favorite position player in the Rangers farm system right now. Velazquez (.331/.403/.583) has the highest OPS (.985) among all hitters suiting up for one of the 14 teams in the South Atlantic League. After I'd seen Velzaquez in camp this March, I wrote: "Had him at number 25 in the book, and the number two outfielder in the system, and the number four breakout candidate among hitters. Too low, in every case." I moved him from 25 to 8 when I re-ranked the system's prospects on March 26. If I did a new ranking today, I'd have him higher than that. Oklahoma City lefthander Michael Kirkman was number five on Baseball America's Hot Sheet last week. The Rangers named its minor league award winners for the month of April: lefthander Derek Holland (Pitcher of the Month), first baseman/outfielder Chad Tracy (Player of the Month), catcher Jose Felix (Defender of the Month), and lefthander Zach Phillips (Relief Pitcher of the Month, a new award). Bakersfield righthander Cody Eppley, age 24, has yet to allow a run in 18 relief innings this year, scattering nine hits (one double) and one walk while fanning 24. Of his 30 outs on balls put in play, 25 have come on the ground, only five in the air. Hank Blalock (.349/.405/.505 for AAA Durham) has an out clause approaching sometime in the next week, and he reportedly intends to exercise it if Tampa Bay doesn't activate him by that time (or within 48 hours of his notice to opt out). Two interesting notes: (1) Blalock is destroying International League lefties (.500/.538/.833); and (2) in 26 games, he's DH'd twice and played defensively the other 24 times – all at third base. The Mariners and White Sox and A's are among the teams rumored to have some level of interest. There are some rumors, both locally and nationally, that Texas might be a match with the struggling White Sox on catcher A.J. Pierzynski (who gains 10-and-5 rights on June 14, enabling him to veto any trade). Not sure I'm in love with that idea. The Yankees recalled outfielder Greg Golson again. Kansas City designated righthander Josh Rupe for assignment. The Mets released pinch-hitter Frank Catalanotto. Kansas City fired manager Trey Hillman and replaced him with Ned Yost, at least on an interim basis. Iowa Cubs righthander Thomas Diamond has a 2.17 ERA in seven starts for the AAA club. The Newark Bears of the independent Atlantic League signed righthander Hector Carrasco. It was pointed out last night that only nine of the Rangers' next 53 games are against teams who now have winning records, an almost unbelievable number. That stretch, incidentally, ends with the All-Star Break, and if the ownership situation is resolved by then, imagine the mid-to-late-July possibilities for improving the roster if this club maintains its division lead, or at least has it in reach. Texas got out of town yesterday afternoon with six wins out of seven on the homestand and 12 of 16 overall, boarding a plane for Canada right after a 12-inning survival that knocked the A's two games back. I'm not sure if Ben Rogers makes it a personal rule to write songs only for players who are regular guests on the Ben & Skin Show, but if he's willing to swing with authority at a pitch out of the zone, he's got three days – after which Los Angeles comes to Arlington – to put one together for former Angel Vladimir Guerrero, who never struck out a minotaur-like unicorn with the head of Barry Bonds but has surely done many things equally awesome with those bare hands, that nuclear-war-ravaged helmet, and all that Big Badness. =========================================================== 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