Carpe Datum

A New Lefty Pitching Prospect

First Round Ranger Draftee in 2021

The Rangers are always going to need pitching, and our son Daniel is going to be a big, strapping athlete someday, I'm sure. He seems to favor his left hand a bit, but he's only 11 months so it may be too early to tell. I figure I can get him throwing off a mound in three or four years, and he'll be on his way. I'm actually surprised he can hold a major league baseball with one hand already, let alone throw the thing.

Meanwhile, the Ranger win streak ended yesterday with a 1-0 home loss to the Astros (you get precious few 1-0 games at the Ballpark at Arlington, let me tell you). Maybe they can start up another streak now that they're headed to Seattle. Still, Anaheim and Oakland lost yesterday, so the Rangers are 2.5 and 2 games up on those two, respectively. With a half decent road trip, they'll still be in first place at the All-Star Break, which is still amazing to type.

I'm also very happy that Rick Helling is starting to pitch better. Two back-to-back good starts now in AAA ball. He threw 7 innings and allowed 8 hits, 2 walks and 1 earned run on Sunday. A few more like that and the Rangers will have no choice to make him the next call-up. I just hope he doesn't have to wait until rosters expand in September to get on the team. With 15 straight game days coming up for the Rangers, they might have to call Helling up for a spot start. I'm starting to feel like Charlie Brown and his Joe Schlabotnik fan club with Rick Helling, but I guess we all have our causes, don't we?

In other news Billmon has a fantastic and detailed discussion of the how the "ultra-liberal" New York Times is once again taking dictation from Cheney, Rumsfeld and the whole "Office of Special Projects" crew that sold them the WMD-in-Iraq bill of goods prior to the war, only this time, they're trying to sell a meaningful Iraq - Al Qaeda collaboration. This is the same paper that is also passing around the story, again, about how rich the Kerrys are. Front page stuff, that. Oh yeah. With liberal friends like these, who needs enemies?

On the torture front, Michael Froomkin puts the latest news in context about just how high up the food chain the torture orders go. As Atrios would say, though, it doesn't have anything to do with a 30-year-old failed real estate deal, so why should the "liberal" media pursue it, right?

Oh, and The Poor Man has a funny transcript of a poker game with Dick Cheney. The more you follow the news, the more you'll like it.

Posted by Observer at June 28, 2004 06:57 AM