Tagged: Felix Hernandez

Good series win against a very good team

Let me start by saying that beating the American League-champion Texas Rangers 2 out of 3 like we did this weekend is not an easy thing to do.  That team can hit; I mean wow do they have a potent lineup.

Yesterday was a good day off because we finally won a homestand. It’s always good to get a day off at home as well, or at least most of the day before we flew out here to LA. Now we gotta hope that we continue to play the way we have on the road. We get Ervin Santana and then Jered Weaver tomorrow, so it’s not going to be easy. The Angels are always a tough team to play, and you expect it to be even tougher when they are in the division race like they are now.

After these quick 2 games, we get another day off in Seattle before we get to see that good Mariners pitching.  Luckily for us, I think we miss King Felix.  As for our guys, I’m very happy with the way Tyler Flowers has stepped up.  Alex Rios has also been playing better as of late, and that’s a very good thing to see. Alejandro de Aza and Brent Lillibridge continue to play awesome baseball and bring great energy to the ballpark every day. It’s time for us to make up some ground before we see Detroit again; all we can do is hope for the best.

Yesterday I was watching “Intentional Talk” on the MLB Network and it’s a very cool show. First time I have ever seen it, and I was very impressed , so if you get a chance check out Kevin Millar and Chris Rose. They do a great job with the show.

I will write again in a couple days, hopefully after we take this two-game set.  Also, it’s about time for me to answer some more of your questions.  Make sure you submit them through the website, and I will get to as many as I can.

— Ozzie

Switching focus from the Tigers to Mariners

Well … the weekend series against Detroit didn’t go as well as we hoped. Detroit is a very good team, but with that being said, we just didn’t hit well enough with runners on base, especially against good pitching. We had Justin Verlander on the ropes a couple of times and just couldn’t get to him. Gotta give them a lot of credit though — they are a good team. I wanted to see how we responded after Miguel Cabrera beat us in the late innings. Tough to get down about that because he does that to everyone.

I’m very happy the guys were able to forget about the weekend and switch focus to the Mariners and get a much needed win last night. John Danks pitched a great game and finally got a win. He is too good to have the record he does, and I know he will be just fine. We get King Felix tonight, so we will see what happens. In any case, I expect our guys to keep battling because this year is far from over. We still have a large window to make some noise.

It was very unfortunate to see Jake Peavy go down again, but luckily, we have a five-man rotation now that has been set up. I fully expect some of our guys to pick up the slack, though, as we are in June now and the All-Star Break isn’t that far away. Hopefully, we can gain some more ground before the break and put ourselves in a position to compete ion the second half.

Also, I have to give it to the fans — we had a great crowd of more than 30,000 against the Tigers this weekend. That’s what I like to see!!

And for those of you that follow me on Twitter, you know I got the chance to go to the Chicago Board of Trade yesterday morning and wow, what an experience. Those traders are nuts! But the energy in that room was incredible, and I really enjoyed my time there. I’m not sure you will ever see me in a trading pit again, but at least I have the jacket for next time I’m there. What do you think, how do I look?

At the Chicago Board of Trade