I've always kinda thought that the error on the pitcher that leads to a run should be earned... kinda waffled back and forth on the issue..
A few things..
1. If you missed George W. Bush in the booth with the radio guys... you missed one hell of a half inning. Bush genuinely loves the Rangers, baseball, and all things Texas. Every time a Texas player came up to bat or made a play in the field, he knew where they were born.. where they were from.. or where they played college ball. They also got into stories about how George W. filled in one game back in the 90's with Mark Holtz. He was genuintely excited about the game. He is one hell of a guy. It was an absolute pleasure hearing the guy on the radio. He had a great sense of humor.. great self depricating sense of humor. He was talking about how he had met Elvis Andrus and mentioned that Andrus had a better grasp of the English language than he himself had. Then compared to his weakness with speaking the English language to a pitcher finding a weakness in a batter's swing. The half inning was a thing of beauty. Thannkfully the Rangers scored 4 runs in the inning allowing GW's time in the booth to be longer than it otherwise would have been.
2. I don't think Josh and tom remarked too much on the play that Elvis made up the middle because they don't want to tromp all over Michael Young and what he did at the position. If they start saying "Now that's a play that the Rangers wouldn't have been able to make last year..".. well, it could rub Young the wrong way if it got back to him.
3. Damn, didn't Elvis look good? He made that play up the middle look easy. There's no way MYoung makes that play last year. And yeah, he looked comfortable at the plate.
4. Isn't it nice seeing opposite field hits from Andrus and Salty (especially from the right side)?
5. It's also nice to see Blalock hitting the ball with authority off of the lefty.
6. Millwood was sharp. He had command of all of his pitches. But honestly, the difference between him giving up 1 run and giving up 3 runs as he might have last year or the year before was the defense. The defense made any number of nice plays that they might not have made last year.. I've already mentioned Elvis making a nice play. They turned a difficult DP and MY made a couple of plays at third base that they might not have made last year. Like I said. Millwood was in control. However, that could have easily been 8 hits on the board for the Indians to go along with 3 runs if the defense didn't make some plays that weren't necessarily routine.
7. I heard Bob and dan griping about the platoon situation.. wanting to know why Blalock was starting.. why Salty was starting.. Well, I suppose Washington pushed the right buttons for one game at least. In fairness to Hank, he hit the ball ok against lefties last year when in the lineup.
8. Before the season started, I told a friend that I expected a bit less from Kinsler this year simply because he couldn't possibly be as good as he was at the plate again... Hopefully he'll prove me wrong.
9. But, I also told the same friend to be a bit wary of pitchers that have a phenomenal year after a posting some pretty mediocre seasons. He sarcastically asked me if I liked the Millwood vs Lee matchup. Well, my answer for that one held true at least for one game.
10. I love this game.
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