A Great Day in Dallas

A Great Day in Dallas

It's a GREAT day in Dallas! Let me tell you, The Rangers win, the Mavs win... that's right, the Mavs win, clinching Home-Court throughout. Dirk and Josh aren't even going to head out on the road trip. So the Cuban-American Team (and who says the Cold-War is dead?) look to finish with a slow finish heading into the playoffs, but they look to finish HEALTHY. That's important if they want to finish the playoffs winners. I'm itching to sway of my prediction from the middle of last month when I said 66 wins is where the Mavs would finish. I'm not even sure if it was on this blog or on the Mavs Yahoo Group, but I know I definitely said it on there... it would be easy now to go higher and say 67 from that prediction, but the Mavs could quite easily drop the next two in the blink of an eye. Dampier is also banged up with a sore shoulder. 66 wins looks nicer and nicer. Still 2-3 to finish? Yes. Would it make sense to play all the guys when you don't have too? Well, they still need to stretch their muscles, per se, but they shouldn't risk playing all 48 minutes on the court, by no means. I wouldn't play even half their normal time. Let them play like a bench player and the bench players play like the starters... reverse roles. This is the first time the Mavericks have won the Western Conference - and had the best record in the NBA. I guess it finally froze over or something.

Anyway, McCarty looked good, or at least his numbers did. K.Loe's numbers didn't. I'm not sure what's going on with Kam, but I noticed Chen got to pitch the 9th. I'm not sure if that was so the Rangers could showcase him for trade value or give him some work in preperation for sending down Kam to AAA Oklahoma. I can't say that I'm excited about Kam's ERA at 11.57 right now, but I don't really want him being sent down to the minors either. In both situations that Kameron Loe has pitched, that I have seen, Loe gave up runs in which the Rangers had a large lead. He has pitched in actually three games this season, the first game against the Angels in which he pitched a perfect inning of work. The second outing was against Boston in which he gave up one run in a third of an inning; he gave up two hits and a walk (as I recall, the umpire was not consistent that day for Loe). In today's game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (I understand they want to shorten the name to just "Tampa Bay 'Rays", which has my approval), Loe pitched one full inning, giving up no walks, but three hits and two runs. The two runs happened be off a homerun slapped by Upton in the seventh.

So let's see now: two and a third innings; three games pitched; three runs scored. But you know what, I still love the guys stuff. He's going to be a dominating pitcher in this game. PERIOD.

And I'll say it again, it's a GREAT day in Dallas... Johnny Out.