The Texas Rangers opened up the 2014 season at Arlington with a loss to Philadelphia. Not really familiar with the Ranger squad, we threw our #1 vs. theirs. Can’t go wrong with that right? So tonight’s matchup featured Yu Darvish against Philly ace Cole Hamels.
From just being a fan of the game, you know that Yu Darvish is a pretty good pitcher. But when you play with them on the Show, that’s where you separate the men from the boys. When Darvish is on, he’s on… When he’s not, well he’s not and he’s really bad. Tonight he was on for the first 3 innings just mowing down Philly hitters. Then an E1 caused a run to score and he lost complete command before regaining it for the last 2 innings of his outing. He went 7 strong innings, allowed only 5 hits and 1 walk to 7 strikeouts. Not a bad evening by any measure.
The game went to hell though when the bullpen came in and blew the game wide open… That much was to be expected. But making the 2014 Phillies look like the 2008 Phillies was a no go… Howard raked, Utley raked, Rollins raked… hell, even Cesar Hernandez (who?) raked.
Needless to say, the Rangers looked like absolute garbage. They scored 1 run, hit a ton of roll over ground balls that Utley and Rollins were too old to get to
and they hit maybe 1 or 2 balls hard all game.
And all because we couldn't touch Cole Hamels and a string of no-name, generic face relievers…
By dynasty rules I will be playing once every 6 games so we’ll have to wait till our road-trip up to Boston to see if we can get on track.
THIS WEEK IN REVIEW:
Rangers: 1-5 (sweep to Phillies, 1 out of 3 against Tampa)