Re-a-ranger-ed

So.....last night was a pretty darn good one if your team was named the Rangers, and terrible if you were a DC area sports fan. Both the O's and the Caps were clearly outplayed by their same-named foes, the O's (6-3) getting straight dismantled by Texas 19-6 and the Caps losing their playoff home opener 4-3 to New York.

Its hard to say which game I was more disappointed with, that would be like asking me to choose who I'd rather bone: Meg Ryan or Jack Nicholson (Jack Nicholson now..., or 1974?), but I think the Caps loss hurt a little more since they are actually playing for something meaningful right now. Now, you can blame this game on the refs all you want, you can talk about how the didn't call the penalty on Avery for what looked like a cross check on the Goalie, or for failing to call roughing when Mike Green was checked into the Rangers bench, but what this game really came down to was the disparity in the goal play. Coming out of the gate, this eager, young Caps team had the "eye of the Jew" and looked like they weren't going to leave without a W, raging ahead 9 shots to 1 in the game's early going. What I haven't told you, is Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist played like a human brick wall, recording 32 saves in 35 tries (Caps outshot New York 35-21). Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for Caps veteran goalie Jose Theodore. Although he has the most pimped out garage of anyone on the team, his presence in front of the net was more like a vespa parked in front of an empty 2-car. He allowed 4 goals on 21 shots, giving up the winning goal midway through the final period, hanging his head in shame all the while. It was so bad, that Head coach Bruce Boudreau is actually considering playing rookie Semeon Varlamov in game 2 (Saturday, 1PM EST) although I doubt it will come to that. Theodore has been resilient all season and one bad game doesn't justify pulling him.

That being said, there were alot of good things that came out of this game too. Despite losing the game, The Caps virtually dominated the entire game out gaining the Rangers in Shots on goal, Faceoff % and Hits (Did you see Mike Green lay out Fredrik Sjostrom, hands down the most lethal hit i've ever seen!). That Caps showed that they are capable of winning even in the most dire of times, racing back from a 2-goal deficit late in the game. They also showed that they were able to score late in a period, recording their second goal of the game with under a minute to play in the 2nd period to cut the lead to 1. We saw the depth of the team, and the way they like to spread the puck around with Ovi, Backstrom, Semin, Kozlov, Green, Fleishmann and Erskine all recording points. And we saw that they could be downright ruthless on the boards, with players in every position getting in on the hard hitting, even without Brashear on the ice. This series is still young enough to be considered jailbait, and the Caps can change the momentum heading into MSG by rebounding with a win in DC on Saturday. Not all is lost yet, this is going to be a brutal series so stay tuned to see what happens.

Equally disappointing was watching the O's squander a chance at their first series sweep of the season by getting rocked in Texas 19-6. The 19 runs scored by the Rangers was the most runs scored since August 2007 when the posted a ridiculous 30 runs against a pathetic Orioles bullpen. Again I was proven wrong with my pitching advice. I had said yesterday that the team needed to pull up Rhadamis Liz and give him another shot. Well, someone on the Orioles must be reading this blog because sure enough, Liz was back in action for the first time this season last night. Taking the mound in the 4th inning for Mark Hendrickson, Liz allowed 5 hits and 4 runs (a grand slam from Nelson Cruz) in a disasterous 4th the ended with the Rangers putting up 8 total runs. Liz's ERA is currently 36.00, good enough to take the mound on a JV softball team, but not quite what the Orioles were looking for in middle relief this season. I can only hope Rich Hill pans out, he was recently put on the 15-day DL meaning he could be ready to play soon.

Unfortunately, Melvin Mora and Alfred Simon were also put on the 15-day DL, so we are going to have to suffer through at least another week of Ty Wigginton playing 3rd. I really can't stand this guy, I would rather watch the replay of Jeffery Maher interefering with the Yankees Home Run ball in the 6th game of the 1997 ALCS than to have to watch Wigginton play anymore. I would rather have Jeffery Maher fill in at 3rd base and intentionally let go ahead runs score all season than to watch Wigginton play anymore. I have to give big ups to Ian Kinsler however, the man recorded 6 hits and hit for the cycle in doing so! Other than that I have nothing good to say about the Rangers. On the up side, we won our 3rd series in 3 tries , the first time that has happened since 1998, which is definitely impressive. Baltimore begins a 4 game series with the Red Sox starting this weekend and ending with an 11:05 1st pitch on Monday morning for "Patriot day" whatever that is. Lets try and split the series here, the Orioles always fair the worst against the Red Sox over any other team in the AL East, but the Sox are struggling right now so it could be interesting.

*Some statistics courtesy of espn.com

Thats it everyone...or the one person who is actually reading this. There's really nothing to watch tonight so enjoy the day off and maybe tune in to NBC Must See TV Thursday! Until next time...