TXNick

I agree batting Trout in front of Pujols isn't good if Trout's getting red lights.  That said giving Trout more RBI opportunities by batting second is good considering his power. We should put a speedster on base in front of him. Maybe even attempt some double steals. 

Except teams would just pitch out to Hamilton.....and he would probably swing.

I like how the color guy for the rangers tries defending the call

Tom Grieve is forever on the umpires side. There is no close call, even when they aren't close, that is not borderline. Its kind of become his thing.

As a Ranger fan I am in favor of it. More games in my time zone.

They did a groupon to sell opening day tickets.

Ummmmm.......Rangers win!!!

I don't think anybody has suggested Profar for Stanton straight up.....they would have to throw something in

Watching Lowe the past couple season he was frustrating. Could throw 100 but it was the most hittable 100 I've ever seen. He had a few stretches where he pitched really well, but I was never confident when he entered the game. Kind of how many of you felt when Walden entered games last season, or how we now feel about Jason Frasor.

Fans showed up tonight. You'd think a baseball town would sell out this game. Lots of empty seats in the upper deck.

Probably a sell out, lots of people hang out in the SRO areas even if they have seats.

And Josh is a huge reason why that many football fans started to show up to The Ballpark in Arlington. Before Josh, the stadium was 60% full.

Where would they build it downtown? West End? Deep Ellum? Where the Baylor Med Center is? I just don't see where it would have been feasible without tearing something else down first. Too many existing (tall) buildings and freeway interchanges.

 

Honestly, when I lived there in the mid-90s, I never really liked the downtown area, except the West End. It seemed like everything else catered to the business crowd, and once the workday was over, downtown was like a ghost town.

Eh, hard to say but they could have made it work and developed around it.  I was pretty young when The Ballpark in Arlington was built so I wasn't that familiar with what the layout was then. DFW is just so spread out and while putting the stadium right in the middle makes it possible for many fans to attend it made it difficult for most fans to attend. Factor in the weather and one playoff win until 2010 and its understandable to see why it took a while to get fans out.

Benji Gil looks the same.  Except for that stupid shirt.

He's only like 40. Nice guy though, I wasn't able to talk him into playing on my softball team though

From a close (Ranger fan) friend that I work with.  He believes that half of the 3.5 million fans last year were Cowboy fans...talking about how they need "2 more points to win the game".  Please don't tell us that the 3.5 million fans were ALL baseball fans.  I live in the metroplex and know it isn't the truth.  I work a bunch of Cowboy fans who have admitted to me, just this last week, that they are angry that Josh Hamilton left the team and went to a rival.  They didn't care that it was to the Angels so much as it he stayed in the division...of course, they really hate it now because he went to what they call "The Hated Angels".  The football town comments they all admit as true...but, "he shouldn't be the one saying it".  Like it matters!!

 

Suck it Rangers.  And...Harrison sucks.

You have to start somewhere.....and the average Ranger fan isn't nearly as misinformed as you would like to believe. I don't expect the casual fan to know every player on the 40 man is, but as long as they show up and cheer its a step in the right direction. I'm guessing I could go to any park on any given night and talk to countless "idiots" who don't live and breathe the stuff like we do. I remember when Angel fans thought it was a good idea to pepper the field with beach balls on a nightly basis.

Funny separating the die hard from the casual fan. Post game of out home opener I went back to my tailgate party, and play some games. When all of a sudden I flip out because none other than a former Ranger (and Angel) "great" wondered into my party. You could really separate the group by who knew who this man was:

Such as?

Lonestarball, Baseball Time in Arlington (though it has slowed down), The Newberg Report, couple other small blogs and boards but those are the big dogs.

I don't even know if that was a negative thing really.  Wasn't he just saying that the Dallas Fort Worth area is firmly a football town?  But people want to take it out of context, to fit their agenda.

 

But I don't really know or care.  I'm gonna start booing him if he doesn't stop making Trumbo look like a patient batter.

There is no taking that out of context, and even if he was saying that it is a football town....why? The Rangers averaged 42,000 a game last season, heat and all. What was the point of his comment other than to insult?

I'm not even going to say he is entirely wrong. I think the DFW has always been a baseball hotbed. Youth baseball is huge all the way up to college, and the pro game is finally starting to catch up. Winning sure helps, but the building of Cowboys stadium in Arlington has really improved transportation out to the ballpark and it is far more accessible to fans who get off work anything later than 5pm. I live in a suburb of Dallas and it used to take about an hour and a half to get to the ballpark some days. If I got off work at 5pm and then drive home to change and I'd usually make it to my seat just in time for first pitch. Expanded highways and HOV lanes and now it takes me about 45 minutes. I always have tried to imagine how big baseball would have been if they built the Ballpark downtown, but I guess I will never know.

To be fair, this is probably the best forum I have ever been on.   Hands down.  And there is no Rangers forum, at least good one.

 

I like posting here a lot more than the A's forum.  The A's forum is kind of awful.

=================================

 

Well you just made points with me:)

There are a few very good Rangers forums.

WTF was that? Washington just had a quick chat with the ump for no reason.

Maybe a slight reason.

Independent of anything else in this thread because I don't care that much about that, the idea that he quit on the Rangers is total reactionary, overly dramatic nonsense.

 

It's the type of poorly crafted inflammatory narrative that pretty much drives sports talk radio because that is a much more interesting story than "Josh Hamilton is really, really struggling to hit baseballs right now"

 

And I would be saying that whether he was playing for the Angels now or not

That is fair enough. Again this is just one biased Ranger fans opinion on the subject. Personally having seen him play many many games through success and struggles one thing you could always count on about Josh was that he gave his all. It was almost to a fault...him crashing into walls and wrecking his body....but I respect that. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way and took the good with the bad. Then about halfway through last season it all started to change. He didn't run balls out like used to, his play in the outfield ust seemed lazy. Balls he would usually get to he would let hit and pick them up off the wall. His plate discipline has always been pretty bad, but even at the plate he just seemed like he didn't care. Do I have any hard evidence that says he didn't care and gave up? No. I did see a lot of uninspired play though. Just speaking from what I saw first hand and what I have heard.

I don't how saying that Josh Hamilton saying ridiculous things will be something you come to expect is "trolling". Just a biased ranger fans opinion of a player who I became very familiar with over the past seasons.

As for being bitter, sure. I just don't appreciate a player who gives up on his team then insults their fans.

Lol what a load of crap

Haha, you will hear the ridiculous stuff that comes out of his mouth soon enough. The guy is a nut case.

I was at the game and I booed Hamilton....I also cheered when he struck out.......and again when he struck out.

If the Rangers had wanted to kepp Hamilton they could have thrown money at him and done so. They didn't, he is an injury risk, not a great clubhouse guy, and a headcase. He had an amazing first half of last season, but some switch flipped and he was done. He didn't even seem to care that he was struggling though. Lazy in the outfield, pathetic ABs, being very secretive about his issues in the media until he ultimately said that it was just god punishing him for sneaking a dip.

The whole situation was frustrating because we knew his potential. We have seen him do incredible things. His August 13, 2010 game against the Red Sox was the best individual performance I have ever seen from a player. He hit four HRs in a single game. On the flip side, he would turn into Manny Rameriz on defense. He would non-chalantly go up to bat with a toothpick in his mouth and miss three straight pitches by a total of 6 feet smile and walk back to the dugout. He quit on the rangers not the other way around.

As far as the baseball town thing goes. It was a statement made to ruffle feathers and it was a statement made with the sole intention of getting himself booed. He could have chose to leave on good terms, get an ad in the paper say thanks for the memories and for most fans that would have been enough. He wanted the attention, he wanted the spotlight and he got it. He will play in Texas close to 50 more times in his career so there is plenty of time for this to develop hopefully into a non-story.

My opinion on whether or not this is a "baseball town"....not really, but its getting there. There are a lot of diehards such as myself, but if I had to lable it a sports town it would be football. That said we put about 3.5 million fans in the stands last year and its hard to argue that we don't care about our baseball team.

This is the reason he was called out last year by everyone from Washington to Nolan Ryan for giving away ABs. Its almost like he plans it in his head before he goes to bat that he will flail wildly at te first three pitches regardless of location. God told him to swing, good or bad its part of his plan.

Hamilton 0-3 3Ks 1 HBP

Darn, he didn't have his best stuff tonight. Still he is a lot of fun to watch.

Yeah. Why did he make fewer attempts? Seems capable of being a perennial 30+ SB guy at SS while providing excellent D

Hamilton saw a grand total of 6 pitches last season....not much opportunity to run.

I think it's funny you believe Washington will use a platoon.  He will stick to one guy starting there no matter what. Guarantee it.

I don't think it will be a straight platoon, Martin will get the majority ABs, but I think it will be about a 70-30 split based largely on matchups.

When I lived in DFW, I always used to show up and buy a few tickets from scalpers in front of the ball park. That could be a last resort..?

They have made scalping illeagal in the city of Arlington. Not saying it doesn't still happen but its not nearly as easy to do.

I think rotation wise the Rangers have potential to be very very good. Now there are question marks, but I think Harrison is a quality 2, Darvish could very well be in the Cy Young mix, Ogando and Holland have potential out the wazoo and we should be getting back Colby Lewis back in enough time where he can make a positive impact. Depth is a big issue, an injury or two and we could be in trouble. Kirkman, Grimm, Tepesch, Perez(when healthy) aren't exactly blue chip prospects. Perez is the best of the lot and his stock has fallen over the past few seasons. Cody Buckel is still a year away most likely.

The bullpen right now is my main area of concern. It remains to be seen what will come of Soria, and if Feliz can help out when he gets back(albeit most likely in August) but they should help steady the ship. Frasor terrifies me, Scheppers waffles between lights out and lit up. Lowe I think can be effective if used effectively but knowing Wash that is unlikely. The only two I have full confidence in are Ross and Nathan, with Ortiz looking like he will be good to have around. JD has a pretty solid record of being able to asemble a worthwhile pen though, so I am confident they will get it sorted out.

As far as the lineup is concerned I think they will score plenty. The play of the CF platoon is important, as well as a make or break year from Mitch Moreland, but I think they will score enough to keep them in most games. Getting Hamilton out of CF is huge for our defense, Martin and Gentry are both plus fielders, and our infield defense is among the best in baseball.