Chickens on the Run: Rangers vs. Angels

Rangers vs. Angels

I'm sick of these Angels. Sick. I should have not looked into the numbers last night to see how bad the situation was, so when we fell apart, it would have been a little more surprising. We all know Vlad is going to get on base. I just don't understand why the pitchers just don't plunk him and save themselves an earned run and a few pitches, at the very least. But that's just me. I'd pitch him SO inside, his nose hairs would be twitching.

Brandon Patrick McCarthy is pitching for the Rangers this afternoon. He's 6 foot 7 and 23 years old. My sister is older than him. I guess that is OK. For his career, he has only pitched 151 and 2/3 innings, putting together a 4.39 ERA. During the day, he had a 4.03 ERA last year, with a 1-2 record. His record on the road was 1-3 with a 5.20 ERA. Last season he pitched in 3 games against the Angels, 7 innings in all, getting no record but had a 5.14 ERA. He gave up 5 hits and four walks and four earned runs.

Players to watch out for this afternoon:

Vlad the Rangers Destroyer: 3 for 9 (2 homeruns, 3 RBIs, 4 strike-outs) vs. McCarthy
Orlando Cabrera: 3 for 7 vs. McCarthy
Chone Figgins: 2 for 6 vs. McCarthy

Overall, the current Angel roster is batting 12 for 51 against McCarthy (a .235 average) with only 6 walks and 12 strikeouts. There are only two homeruns against him, both by Vlad, and five RBIs (3 by Vlad, 2 by Kotchman). One outstanding trait by McCarty is that he learns from his mistakes. Case in point: Vlad did not hit his two homeruns off of McCarthy last season. In fact, Vlad's homerun's were solo shots in the 2005 season, and the third RBI was in April of 2006.

Now, onto the team with "a city to be named later."

Ervin Ramon Santana is pitching for the Angels. He's 6 foot 2 and 24 years of age. He's pitched 337 2/3 big league innings, giving up 320 big league hits, 38 going past the wall. He's told 117 batters to just go straight on to first without hitting the ball, so he's a pretty nice guy. In case you are wondering, that's about one every three innings or so. Batters can expect to hit a healthy .251 against him, which isn't terribly bad, I guess. I'll check in a moment to see what the current Ranger roster does in comparison to what everyone has done thus far against him. That should be interesting to see. He has a 4.42 ERA on his short career and averages 97.9 pitches per inning. His record is rather nice, sporting a 28-16 and a WHIP of 1.29 (Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched) is fairly average. Keep in mind, he's still young (age 24), so this WHIP most likely will go down as he hits his peak age, or that's what the Angels are putting their stock in, anyway. He could be a bust. And he could blow out his arm punching a couple of camera-men. It could happen... maybe throw a chair or two into a crowd of fans? Maybe that's only Rangers pitchers. Anyway, Santana has given up 179 runs thus far and struck out 240.

Last season, Santana was 7-2 during the day with a 4.30 ERA. At home, he was even better than the road, sporting a 10-2 mark and a 3.02 ERA. Against the Rangers last season, he went 1-1 with a 6.00 ERA over 18 innings (three starts) giving up 19 hits, 13 runs (12 earned), 3 homeruns, seven walks, and striking out 10. He has started five games in the month of April, with only tow decisions (2-0). He has a 3.73 ERA and opponents hit .237 against him in April.

Ervin Santana should be scared. The Rangers have a lot of successful hitters on thier roster who can do some damage against him. As a team, the current roster is batting .344 (33 for 96) and has six homeruns (two by Sammy Sosa, two by Mark Teixeira, one by Michael Young, and one by Hank Blalock). The Rangers also have 23 RbIs with these four guys. Heres a list of players to watch this afternoon:

Michael Young: 11 for 22 (1 homerun, 4 RBIs)
Hank Blalock: 7 for 21 (1 triple, 1 homerun, 6 RBIs)
Mark Teixeira: 6 for 17 (2 homeruns, 9 RBIs)
Sammy Sosa: 4 for 6 (2 homeruns, 4 RBIs)

I know it might be a little early to start listing his stats, but I think he will be a bit of a challenge today for Santana, and a reason for his early "pullage", per se... consider what he has done already against Santana: