Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Young finding his stride



Rangers win 2nd straight in Oakland

Chris Young with another solid start, despite allowing base runners


"That's why you feel good about him in the future," manager Buck Showalter said. "He doesn't melt down out there."

The result was this: Young (3-2) has allowed two runs in his last 15 1/3 innings. When things turned sour, Young, a Highland Park graduate, said he pitched better. In the first inning, he made 31 pitches but wiggled out of a bases-loaded jam.


Chris Young may be figuring things out. His third solid start in a row, and he looks to have a certain command of his surroundings when he gets in a jam. Let’s look at the Quality Starts for each of the Rangers starters. Quality Starts are defined as 6 innings or more, and 3 earned runs or fewer…

Young: 6 starts, 2 quality starts (4/28, 5/3)
Rogers: 6 starts, 5 quality starts (4/6, 4/11, 4/21, 4/27, 5/2)
Drese: 6 starts, 2 quality starts (4/5, 4/15)
Park: 5 starts, 3 quality starts (4/13, 4/23, 4/29)
Astacio: 5 starts, 3 quality starts (4/9, 4/14, 4/19)

Team: 28 starts, 15 quality starts

The first thing that jumps out at you is how money Kenny Rogers continues to be. Then, the fact that Drese’s last 3 starts have all been rough, as have Astacio’s last few. But don’t look now, Park and Young have been pretty strong their last few turns. Park gets the ball again this afternoon.

And as a staff, over 50% quality starts? Love it.

Links:

Junior calls Jimmie Johnson an idiot, blames him for wreck …class…

Have a nice summer, Sacramento

Cowboys establish depth at RB ...

Yankees victim of Hijacking

Star-Telegram’s Soccer Insider

London Times on Liverpool’s win


Whatever they go on to achieve under José Mourinho, Chelsea and their billionaire owner learnt last night that there are some things money cannot buy. Four famous Scousers once sang that it can’t buy you love, but add to that the type of passion that was required to propel Liverpool into their first European Cup final since 1985. Mourinho had shaken his head when asked whether the Kop could be the opposition’s twelfth man, but instead they proved to be Liverpool’s ninth, tenth and eleventh, inspiring players such as Djimi Traoré and Igor Biscan to play like the immortals that they might now become.

The legitimacy of Luis García’s fourth-minute goal was fiercely questioned by Chelsea’s players, but above all it was a sense of local pride, embodied on the pitch by Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard, that tipped the scales in Liverpool’s favour. They might not be good enough to triumph in the final on May 25, when their opponents will almost certainly be AC Milan, but their mere presence in Istanbul will be enough to restore much of the pride that the club have lost in the years since their ill-fated previous European Cup final.

In reality, win or lose, Istanbul will be the end of the road for some of these Liverpool players, men such as Jerzy Dudek and Milan Baros, whose efforts for much of this season have convinced Rafael Benítez that they need to be replaced. It might not even signify the start of something, given that the 33-point gap that separates them from Chelsea in the Barclays Premiership will be difficult to bridge, but even if it proves to be nothing more than a glorious one-off, it will be savoured by the supporters.


Does Gerrard stay?

Did Liverpool’s goal go in? Click here to see …I still don’t know…

Favre annoyed at Javon Walker’s holdout

100k4VanGundy.com

Drew Carey, soccer fan

Listen to Jeff Gordon’s scanner sound here ….

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but the strength of the Rangers so far is their Starting Pitching!! I also can't believe that our hitting has been so suspect and untimely. Surely we'll snap out of this before Anaheim (I refuse to call them LA), gets up by 10 games.

By the way: Jason Giambi is currently hitting .217 & has 3 HR's. Hmmmmmm.

Anonymous said...

Soriano continues to be horrible with runners in scoring position. He strikes out to much to hit in the one hole and cant drive in enough runs to hit in the five hole(even though he had 2 RBIs last night). What is his best spot in the lineup?

Anonymous said...

Bob,
regarding your link to Earnhardt Jr. calling Jimmie Johnson an idiot for causing the wreck at Dega, Jr isn't the only one saying JJ had lots to do with the Talladega wreck. Tony Stewart, and Greg Biffle also say JJ is somewhat wreckless.

This all may be true or not. But I challenge anyone to drive 190 mph for 4 hours and only be 2 inches apart and then come and say it is an easy sport and boring to watch.

Lew

Anonymous said...

It's not a sport and it's boring to watch.

There. Said.

Anonymous said...

Here, here, Jared! I second that.

Anonymous said...

http://iats-coe2.missouri.edu/~whistlet/mark/priceless.jpg

Priceless indeed!

Anonymous said...

I really don't care what you think is boring. It's the second most watched sport on TV and I like it. Deal with it.

Anonymous said...

NASCAR is not a sport. The car and the engineers have the biggest influence on the outcome of the race. The driver is secondary, like horse racing. Which is a sport for the horse, but not the jockey. I like horse racing, but it is not a sport. I don't care much for go fast, turn left, NASCAR. If you want real quality racing, watch F1.

BTW, the 100k4JVG site is GAY! Give it up Houston (and Norm). The reason he got hit for $100k is because he refused to give up his supposed official source. That is the big issue, not complaining about officiating.

Seacrest out!

Anonymous said...

Nascar- gay
Soccer- gay
JVG- gay
Norm- gay

Anonymous said...

Well,
Anyone who is a fan of Seacrest must watch American Idol as a sport.
I watch F1 also, but I thnk Nascar is better. But that's the good thing about this country, everyone can like what they want. And of course it would take some anonymous to say eveything is gay. Perhaps they don't want to come out of their closet.

Anonymous said...

nascar = gay.

Drive fast, turn left, hit wall. wow.

And do you have numbers to back up your 2nd most watched sport? If you are talking about people in the stands, maybe, but TV, no way.