Yesterday afternoon was Anthony Ranaudo’s first start with the Rangers and lets just say it did not go well at all. He last 1.2 innings, giving up 6 runs, and picking up the loss in what turned into a 10-2 shellacking by the Angels. He threw 62 pitches to get 5 outs. His problem was that he would get ahead of the hitters, but could not put them away. He has good stuff, but not great execution. As the pitcher he has to have an idea of how to get a guy out. Lets take the Erick Aybar at-bat that led off the game. He quickly got ahead of Aybar 1-2 just throwing fastballs, but it took him another 5 pitches to record the out. He tried to just get him out with his fastball, but Aybar kept fouling it off. In the at-bat he threw 6 fastballs, 1 curveball, and 1 slider. He did record the out on a flyball to center field. It was like that in the two innings he pitched. It is something that he is definitely going to need to work on. I doubt he will be back next week when the spot in the rotation comes up. He definitely put the Rangers behind the 8 ball and it led to the Rangers losing the game and dropping their record to 4-6.

Not a lot else happened in this game. The lineup that Banister likes to use against left-handers predictably stunk as did the team against Hector Santiago. Santiago gave up 1 run in his 7 innings of work to improve his record the last two seasons in Arlington to 4-0. The problem the Rangers have when they try to trout out the lineup with a lot of right-handers is that Deshields is not a major league hitter, Smolinksi is not hitting well enough this early in the season, and the lineup functions better with Choo and Moreland in it than not in it. At least that is what my eyes tell me watching the game.

I am sure the team is thankful that now they get a full day off for the first time this season. 4-6 is not too bad considering they had to go on the road for a 4 game series in Oakland and then come home and lose their staff ace after one inning. I would have liked to have seen them do better than 2-4 on the homestand. The game that they should have won was the extra inning affair against the Astros on Sunday. They had numerous opportunities and just could not bring it home. Now they go out on the road for an 8 game roadie against the Mariners, Diamondbacks, and Angels. Now game today and they will be back on Friday night at 9:05.