behind the dugout

A few Ranger ramblings

By john • Apr 6th, 2008 • Category: carl edwards, doug dascenzo, gerald laird, kevin millwood, texas motor speedway, texas rangers, vicente padilla

Last night Kevin Millwood pitched the first complete game by a Ranger pitcher since 2006. His 8 inning outing allowing 12 hits and 2 runs in a loss against the Angels was still encoring to me. Millwood threw 102 pitches in the contest and it would be great to see the Ranger starters not have to put so much pressure on the pen this season.

Vicente Padilla followed up the outing with a solid start of his own as the Rangers won their first road series of the year. Something they did not do till late May last season.

Another good sign was that Gerald Laird put on quite a shot at the plate. He not one but 2 home runs and finished the game 4/5 with 6 RBI and 3 runs scored. He also threw out a guy. I’d give him the star of the game. This was just his second multi-homer game of his career it also marked a career high with the 6 RBI.

Hopefully he can continue this up till the break and the Rangers can pawn him off on another team for some much needed pitching help.

I’m still not sure they can compete in the west but at least this gives me another week of hope.

Finally, Chad from Baseball in Fort Wayne recently took the time to profile former Chicago Cub and Texas Ranger (and one of my personal favorites) Doug Dascenzo. For those out of the minor league loop Dascenzo is serving his second season as the manager of the Fort Wayne Wizards.

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Carl Edwards also got to do a blackflip today as he captured a win at the Texas Motor Speedway in todays NASCAR race.