Elvis would have scored from second on that grounder.

I can chime in on this. I tried the Samoas bar and it was pretty, pretty, pretty good. Not quite the actual cookie but during the off season it makes a fine substitute.

If I was ever to play catcher for actual baseball, I believe I would wear two cups, kind of how Carruso wears two sunglasses. You can't be too cautious.

This one never fails to deliver. Today they are discussing "Name your dick after a movie."

Giant

Night off

On Saturday, there was a guy in the stands at Anaheim that was "MINIVISH." I liked him a lot better than the kid that was Mini-Wash. Chris Myers didn't understand why anyone would want to have his picture made with someone that looked like a player.

Also, they showed a graphic on the teevee of Josh's month by month batting average. Shit balls of fire. He is doing worse than I thought.

Won't be this year, but next year Wash needs to consider moving Gentry to leadoff. He's really improved his plate skills this year as reflected in his OBP of .406 and his speed is beyond question.

Kinsler can drop back to 3rd or 5th contingent on what happens with Josh. An OBP of .336 is not cutting it as a leadoff. It's time for Young to give up the 5th spot.

Craig Gentry GP AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
2012 Regular Season 76 163 20 56 10 2 1 20 11 25 9 4 .344 .406 .448 .853


Ian Kinsler GP AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
2012 Regular Season 92 392 67 107 27 3 11 46 34 53 15 6 .273 .336 .441 .777

Colby out for the year.

Cookie talk is dead.

Mrs. bigboy snarkily asked me tonight, "So now what are you going to complain about during games?"

Well Grieve still sucks. Or you could complain about the product on the field. They looked good last night, but it was Boston, so it doesn't count.

So the front office finally listened to the fans and got rid of Cookie Talk, but they couldn't admit their mistake and rehire Lewin? I still can't believe a team that made the WS 2 years running has one of the worst TV teams in the nation.

What exactly do these two things have to do with each other? The White Sox won it all a few years ago and they still have THE worst TV guy in all of sports. Players want to come to a winning franchise. TV guys go wherever they can get work.

I agree that broadcasters don't usually beat down the door of any team to get hired (maybe a select few), but a large market team like the Rangers (or "us" as Greive says) shouldn't have any trouble scrounging up some top level talent to call the games. It's even more frustrating that they had someone in Lewin and just unceremoniously dumped him.

The front office says they're putting a big focus on the "fan experience" (which they have at the ballpark), but the experience of watching a game on FSSW sucks.

Maybe they finally will now that they've realized people watching want baseball talk not sewing circle topics. Though if they had a sense of humor, they'd air a shitload of cookie commercials between innings.

Lewin = meh. To me he's about the same as Barnett or Busby.

Barnett's on par with Rhads. Has no idea when to get excited, has no idea when a ball is well hit until it lands. He does know the rules, so I guess he has that on Rhads.

Lewin was fantastic. Had great calls. Loved his pop culture references that left TAG wondering what he was talking about.

Buzz is ok. Can't stand his generic '60s radio voice though.

You might want to tap the brakes on saying cookie talk went away because the fans spoke up. I was at the game and didn't hear the on air explanation, but from everything I read on Twitter, I gathered that this was more about the shear volume of items coming in and not having enough time to acknowledge the senders during the game.

Lewin's big fault with me is he couldn't acknowledge when the other team made a nice play. He'd lose his shit if the Rangers did it, but anything the other team did was routine and ho-hum. He didn't truly appreciate the game.

If you're going to complain about Buzz's 1920s radio voice then I'm going to complain about Lewin's faggy nasally voice. Everytime I hear him talk I feel like I'm watching some liberal arts college student broadcast of womens field hockey.

If Buzz would lose the voice, I think he'd be a good color guy. He was in the '80s with Bob Carpenter and he's pretty good with Nadel. He doesn't get to do much analyzing with Grieve's expert analysis of whether every pitch was in the pitch box. Buzz knows the game. I'd love to drink some whiskey with him.

I wish I could find that homer call of the week volleyball championship student radio call. That = Lewin.

That said he's 100 times better than Rags and a 1000 times better than the ESPN crew last night. They showed highlights of Rick Sutcliffe in the celebrity softball game during allstar weekend.

"Aggresive"

Kills me every time I hear it.

Bob says chill the eff out.

Who gives a shit what that Brewers fan thinks?

So Cole Hamels reupped with Phi. Speculation is the Rangers are now targeting Zack Greinke, Josh Johnson, and perhaps Matt Garza. I didn't really think Hamels was coming here but those other names don't excite me, especially if it takes Olt to get one of them.

If they're going to give up Olt, I would much rather it be for Johnson or Garza since they're locked up through next year. From a win now viewpoint, I wouldn't mind them getting Cliff Lee back, but it will be horrendously costly as far as prospects go and that contract is awful.

Mike Olt = Justin Smoak

Actually that's probably not fair because Olt is raking it in the minors way more than Smoak ever did. I just think the success rate of prospects is lower than what most people think. People didn't want to give up Smoak and he's back in AAA. I don't mind Cliff Lee's money. They were going to pay him that anyway. I just hate the thought of giving up players to get him when they've already done that once.

Greinke's head worries me. He's already said he doesn't want to pitch in NY or Boston because of the pressure.

I didn't agree w signing Lee to a long term deal and certainly don't agree with picking that contract up a year and a half later. I suppose if he leads them to only one WS win then it was all worth it, but damn that's a lot of future money.

Every WS winner in the big spending era has had a bad contract on their team. Minnesota, KC and Pitt don't win anymore. I'd rather the Rangers take some chances than be safe. Players in their 20s dont become available often, so you have to overpay for later years to get the first couple of years. There is no salary cap. Signing someone big doesn't have to affect the rest of their operations. I'm not saying Cliff Lee is the answer either. I do think of all the pitchers mentioned/rumored, he helps the most the next two years.

Johnson would be a smart move. I hope it's Greinke instead since he offers a greater chance of sucking at a key moment.

Josh Johnson actually has a 3.1 WAR this year. I didn't think it was that good. Cliff Lee is at 2.3 and Greinke is at 3.8.

But he also only pitched 9 games last year and was shut down early the year before not to mention he had tommy john surgery in 2008 after only 14 games.

Would it really be that bad if the Rangers picked up a stupid money contract like Lee's? Other than MY's (which goes away sooner rather than later), name a stupid money contract that they're stuck with. I would use that same rationale for why it wouldn't be the end of the world if they gave Josh a stupid ass contract.

Newberg's rumor summary email this afternoon threw out James Shields and Jeremy Hellickson as possible Rangers targets. Meh. I wouldn't mind either of them pitching here, but I don't know that they're huge upgrades over Ogando/Feliz/Feldman, assuming that any of them can sustain a stint in the rotation for the rest of the year.

And we already have that covered with Mike Young.

2 errors in game 6...