MVN - Most Valuable Network

Sweep Dreams: Padilla Goes Seven Strong In Rangers Win

As FSN Southwest engineers scrambled frantically around their Houston base of operations, attempting to repair a “server problem” that had knocked Thursday evening’s Texas Rangers telecast off the air (and, in lieu of other available programming, necessitated an emergency re-airing of the legendary 1990 Buster Douglas/Mike Tyson heavyweight championship fight), Vicente Padilla was busy tuning up for what was destined to become his finest start of the young 2008 season.

As a nasty squall line of tornadic thunderstorms began to envelop points north and west of the greater Dallas/Fort Worth area, sending local radio and television outlets into a veritable frenzy, Vicente Padilla began dealing to a productive Toronto Blue Jays lineup that came into the day having compiled 81 runs in just 15 games - good for the third-most runs scored in all of baseball.

And by the time Thursday’s Rangers telecast suddenly lit up televisions throughout north Texas, some 40 minutes after Roy Halladay’s first pitch to second baseman Ian Kinsler, Vicente Padilla had already taken control of the opposition through his explosive trademark low-to-mid 90’s fastball, featuring the devastating, hypnotic movement that had once so entranced the Rangers brain trust - and that, after a lengthy 2007 hiatus, appears to have returned for good.

The Rangers bullpen, both physically and emotionally drained after being forced to deal eight innings during the previous evening’s 14-inning victory and desperate for some type - heck, any type - of reprieve, was singlehandedly saved by Padilla’s dirty seven-inning, 112-pitch effort, during the course of which the 30-year-old Nicaraguan surrendered just a single earned run on seven hits and a walk.

Padilla’s 110th and 111th pitches of the night were clocked by MLB.com’s proprietary Pitch f/x system at 94 and 93 MPH, respectively. Though it can certainly be argued that Jamey Wright’s equally sharp turbo sinker and C.J. Wilson’s ridiculous fastball (which seems to be incrementally gaining just a bit more late life each time he assumes the mound) are just as valuable to this ball club, there’s nothing quite like a bull whose velocity and command is virtually identical from start to finish.

Wright and Wilson, of course, tossed two shutout innings to cap Padilla’s brilliant effort, lowering their ERAs on the season to 0.93 and, well, 0.00, respectively. The pair of dynamic relievers have combined to allow just a single earned run in 17.2 innings this season. Filthy.

Meanwhile, Roy Halladay’s second complete game against Texas in a week yielded far less palatable results than the first time around.

After a superb one-run, six-hit outing against the Rangers last Saturday, Halladay was touched for four runs on 11 hits on Thursday, including three singles from Ian Kinsler and three doubles from David Murphy, and a pair of vital lead-padding RBI singles from the oft-maligned Gerald Laird, helping to secure a precious 4-1 victory and a two-game series sweep of the Blue Jays:

“I think this was the best game we’ve played this season,” said [David] Murphy. “It started with Padilla. He kept the ball in the zone and kept them off balance. And that was huge.”

Unfortunately, Jason Botts, coming off a 2-for-4, three-RBI game on Wednesday, and German Duran, still on cloud nine after being informed by Oklahoma RedHawks manager Bobby Jones late Wednesday night that he would make his Major League debut the next day, combined to go 0-for-7 with five strikeouts.

Still, the news wasn’t all bad: Duran played a flawless, mistake-free game at third base - and in a very professional, businesslike manner, I might add.

Besides, is there really all that much shame in striking out three times to Roy Halladay?

* * * * *

I was forced to shelve a full-length “Thursday Afternoon Rangers Notes” segment due to time constraints, but here are a few of the items I did manage to run through:

● Anybody else notice the striking resemblance between last night’s win probability chart and an electrocardiogram?

● Forbes Magazine has issued their 2008 MLB club valuations, and to the surprise of absolutely nobody, the New York Yankees again top the rankings at $1.306 billion; the Texas Rangers, comparatively, sit at $412 million (16th out of 30 teams), up 12.88% from last year’s $365 million valuation. Tom Hicks originally bought the club for $250 million in 1998.

Much more detailed financial information is available here for your continued perusal.

● Baseball Prospectus’s Kevin Goldstein latest “Future Shock” segment - which focuses solely on top prospects who are off to disappointing starts - isn’t particularly complimentary of right-hander Eric Hurley, whom Goldstein ranked as baseball’s 49th best prospect in late January:

Hurley’s never been hugely dominant at the upper levels, and that’s continued this year. While the right-hander has recorded 17 strikeouts over 14 innings in his first three starts for Triple-A Oklahoma, he’s also been knocked around for 24 hits, including three home runs. His stock was down a bit last year as it was, with many projections from from a No. 2 starter to more of a No. 3, and so far this year, he’s still moving in the wrong direction.

Hurley has yet to survive longer than five innings in any of the three starts he has made with the RedHawks thus far this season; the strikeout totals are impressive, but everything else has been something of a mess. Still think he’ll be fine long-term, but his ETA may require a revision backwards at this rate.

● Since it has become incredibly obvious by this point that I’m never going to get around to completing the second installment of “The Texas Rangers Top 10: Stories Of 2007″ series (Part I available here), and since I sincerely doubt anybody still cares, here were the top five stories from that series (without the accompanying extensive write-ups):

• #5 - Texas 30, Baltimore 3 - August 22nd, 2007
• #4 - The Natural Comes To Arlington - December 21st, 2007
• #3 - Rangers Mop Up The June Draft - June 7th, 2007
• #2 - Michael Young’s Extension - March 1st, 2007
• #1 - The Teixeira Trade - July 30th, 2007

Note to self: start finishing what you begin.

● Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports that third baseman Hank Blalock (stiff lower back) is expected to miss Friday evening’s contest against the Boston Red Sox, and could miss the entire weekend slate of games.

I’m going to assume that this has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with what happened at a stoplight just outside of Surprise, Arizona on March 3rd, but it’s nonetheless something to keep filed away in the back of your mind.

● Brandon McCarthy’s recovery from a severe bout of right forearm inflammation appears to be progressing as hoped; the 24-year-old hurler was reportedly cleared by the Rangers’ medical staff on Thursday to continue expanding his throwing program, and is likely a week or so away from being able to take the mound for the first time since being shut down in early March.

I’ll continue to stick by my pre-season prediction that he won’t throw more than 50 innings for the Rangers in 2008. But you have no idea just how wrong I want to be about this.

● Finally, remember Armando Galarraga, the enigmatic right-hander whom the Rangers dealt to the Detroit Tigers back on February 4th in exchange for outfielder Michael Hernandez so as to remedy the 40-man roster dilemma? Turns out Galarraga tossed 6.2 impressive innings of one-hit baseball against the Cleveland Indians last night.

And though it was never explicitly reported in this space, the Rangers have since cut ties with Hernandez; the 24-year-old Oklahoma State alum is now property of the New York Mets.

What a waste.

* * * * *

Onwards to Boston: home of the Bull and Finch Pub, Patriots’ Day, and the Texas Rangers’ first 10:05 AM game since who-knows-when.

Baseball - the one true antidote to a nasty case of the Mondays.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 9:54 pm and is filed under The Season. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.