13-3 record as of 4/22/2012! We are first in the division by 5.5 games from Oakland. We are first in all of baseball! Way to go Rangers!

Not a lot to say this week besides the Rangers are amazing. Their starting pitching is phenomenal, their bullpen, when needed, is excellent, defense is great. Their bats could pick it up a bit, as we have had most of our games won by just a run or two, and our bats really are better than that. 

The big news of the week is that Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez is retiring tomorrow in a ceremony before the game. He will be pitching the first pitch. He debuted with the Texas Rangers in 1991, and played his last game last year. In almost all of his seasons he hit above a .300 batting average, as was a great catcher. He actually picked off runners stealing 2nd 46.1% of the time!! He will for sure go down in the Rangers Hall of Fame. We will have to see about the baseball HOF. He has been linked to Steroids by Jose Canseco, but never by the Baseball Commissioner's League. For more on Pudge, visit the following link. 

Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez and his career

This week the Rangers played the Mariners at home in which the won went 3-1. This is expected as Seattle isn't so awesome. It just helped make us better in our division. 

Then they went to play the Twins in a ballpark where they have a losing record since the park opened two years ago. I've never liked watching them play in that park, because they never do well. It's a pitchers park, and the Rangers are hitters....were hitters. Now that we can pitch, they swept and went 3-0. 

Then they went to Detroit to play in Comerica and against the Comerica curse. They second game was postponed to rain, and played a double header Saturday. The only game I really questioned was the second game of Verlander (one of the best pitchers in baseball), and Feliz (3rd game ever pitched.) On baseball that games goes to Verlander easy. What is impressive is that while the Rangers did lose, We had two on in the 9th with one out and one run behind. We had a chance to win that game, we just didn't. I've never been so OK with losing. We won in extra innings today to make up for it, making our record 3-1 over the series. 

Next Up: 3 games against the Yankees, a day off, and then 3 games against Tampa Bay all at home. Look for Hamilton and Young to continue to be part of the top 5 hitters in baseball, which the Rangers as a pitching team being number 2 overall. Exciting stuff going into the end of April!!