Marty Lurie Talks San Francisco Giants Baseball
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Daily Dish April 22, 2002 Lack of hustle costs Rangers

Rafael Palmiero will be a Hall of Famer some day, but Sunday he dogged it running out a fly ball that Seattle’s Mark McLemore dropped on the warning track, costing the Rangers a big 8th inning rally.The Rangers lost the game to the Mariners 5-3 Sunday and now head home to play Toronto. Injuries have plagued this team since opening day. With Pudge Rodriguez out for 4-6 weeks, a back up catcher to Bill Hasselman is a necessity. Things are so bad in Texas that Mike Lamb, an infielder may catch Kenny Rogers on Wednesday. Jerry Narron may go with this experiment because Rogers can call his own game and he holds runners very effectively.

Dan Micelli is on his way out of Texas after walking in the winning run Saturday night. Narron’s strategy was to walk Ichiro with first and second occupied, loading the bases, Micelli then walked in the winning run.

Nice ending.

Things are so bad on the Texas pitching staff, that Rob Bell or Steve Woodard are possible candidates to join the rotation. Where have they been this season?

Baseball is a funny game.

Cleveland wins ten in a row, now has lost six straight. They won four consecutive games against lefty starters before falling to tonight’s starter Mark Buehrle last week in Chicago.

The Sox come into Jacobs Field with former Indian, Kenny Lofton leading the way. Lofton wore out his welcome in Cleveland last year, and had trouble marketing himself over the winter because of the rap placed upon him by Cleveland managemant. Over the hill and a bad influence in the clubhouse was the word from the front office.

Well, Lofton hooked on with Chicago for a mere one million dollar salary and has been the teams MVP so far. I bet the fans cheer him tonight.

Trying to put the skids on the Tribe losing streak is Danys Baez. The Cuban born righty, new to starting this season, has thrown 275 pitches in 14.6 innings of work. Far too many to be effective against good hitting teams. Figure good pitchers throw about 12-15 pitches per inning and you get the idea.

Cleveland has had only one starter go into the seventh inning (Bartolo Colon) in its past twelve games. Eventually, this will catch up with their effective pen.

The Sox keep hitting, scoring eight runs in the first off Jose Lima and company, then hanging on to win 11-8. This team hits every day.

Chicago’s Bobby Howry is slowly working his way back into being an effective 8th inning man. If he would just stick with his two power pitches instead of trying to throw four different ones, he would be just fine.

Seattle entertains the Angels tonight. Mariner third baseman Jeff Cirillo tied the all time record for consecutive errorless games by a thirdbaseman, and then was promptly charged with an error in his next game, when he misplayed a back hand chance.

Funny game.

Ryan Franklin gets a start tomorrow night for Seattle. The Angels will see Jamie Moyer tonight and Lou Piniella doesn’t want John Halama, a soft tosser like Moyer following him to the mound in the next game. Thus, Frankin starts his first game, after over 300 relief appearances.

Seattle has to be wary of all the bull pen work in the early season. For a team as good as the Mariners, it’s alarming how often their starting pitchers don’t get past the sixth inning.

The Angels are beginning to hit a little more often. Lefties seem to hold their own against Seattle and Scott Schoenweiss, a lefty, goes tonght for the Halos.

Funny how this division has already divided itself. After watching the first three weeks of play, I have a very difficult time imagining that Texas or Anaheim could come close to Oakland or Seattle.

My new favorite hurler, Paul Byrd goes for KC tonight. After, Johnny Damon and the rest of the Red Sox annihilated the Royals over the weekend, Detroit should be a welcome relief.

Lefty Mark Redman goes for the Tigers. The Royals have scored two runs in 26.3 innings against lefty starters this season. Of course, they faced Buehrle, CC Sabathia, and Eric Milton in those games, but it does set up an interesting challenge for KC.

Knowing how volatile Larry Bowa can be, I’m waiting for something major to happen in Philadelphia as the Phils are off to a 7-12 start.

Something will happen soon in Philly and it won’t be pretty.

Pittsburgh, Montreal, San Francisco, and Arizona would be in the NL playoffs if they started today. In the AL, it would be Seattle, Minnestoa, Chicago and Boston.

Now, that would be a story.

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