Rangers beat Mariners 5-4

From Jim Reeves at the FWST:

If you're keeping score, in the past two years, the Rangers have traded Alfonso Soriano, Chris Young, Adrian Gonzalez, Francisco Cordero and Teixeira and will not have a single player on their opening day 25-man roster to show for it. You have every right to wonder how much better this team would look if those five players were still here.

Pretty amazing, huh. And as far as our rebuilding plan, I hate it, but I'll explain in future posts.

Back to the game. Still giving up the extra base hit? Yes. Another Young error and two by Kinsler. Hamilton, who gets tonights pass because of his impressive, game winning jack off of Putz, misplayed a ball hit by Ichiro and let it fall in front of him. He more than made up for it later with a couple nice grabs.

Laird impressed me again. This time with a nice bunt that put him on second base. Did he really have 10 bunt singles last year? If salty is truly the phenom everyone keeps saying, why are we holding him while his stock drops. We've got plenty of catchers that can play a back up role in the bigs. Sell high!

Last highlight, Wilkerson going 0 for 5 and leaving 6 men on base. Good luck Mariners.

I've also seen some blog debate about whether the M's are the favorite to win the West. I kind of think so. Their rotation is deep and their line-up is fairly strong. I'd go with the Angels if their arms were healthy, but their top two starters are hurting and that may be enough for another team to keep up.

Good luck to my hometown boy Jason Jennings. Take it to 'em and represent that M town. 160 to go.