Clint Hurdle Named Rangers Hitting Coach
As you know by now, Clint Hurdle has been named the Rangers new hitting coach. One of the good things about being a blog writer is that there is not pressure to break the news (which must be a lot of pressure given the rush to report the Hurdle hiring Tuesday before he was even offered the position according to the Rangers). It also allows time to take a different angle than the mainstream media (MSM), which is currently in the works and will be up sometime this weekend. In the meantime here are some links to MSM articles on the hiring. As was reported in many sources (not sure who was first, sorry for not giving proper credit)

Hiring a Hitting Coach
On Monday, the Rangers interviewed four candidates to replace Rudy Jaramillo as the teams hitting coach for the 2010 season. Jaramillo, as you probably know, chose not to sign up for a one year deal with Texas and ended up with a huge three year deal from the Cubs. The Rangers made a short list of potential replacements and met with Rusty Greer, Thad Bosley, Gerald Perry and Clint Hurdle. Of the four only Rusty Greer has no experience as a big league hitting instructor. All four were major league hitters with Greer’s career being the most impressive. Let’s take a look at some of the resume highlights of each. Well, since this is a Ranger blog, Rusty Greer probably doesn’t ne

WS Game 4: Pivotal Game Goes NYY Way
I don’t think it could be any more clear how badly the Phillies needed to win game three. They needed Cole Hamels to be the better pitcher and they needed to use Jayson Werth’s two home runs in a win, just as they had ridden Chase Utley’s two home runs to a win in Game 1. The game three victory gave the Yankees a 2-1 lead in the series with their ace C.C. Sabathia going to the hill. Sure the Phillies had beaten Sabathia in game one, but only by way of the heroic effort put forth by Cliff Lee. This time it was Joe Blanton opposing Sabathia. More importantly, keeping with the theme this week, did good hitting or good pitching win? Sabathia essentially gave a carbon

WS Game 3
A leadoff home run in the second for the Phillies and five batters later a bases loaded walk followed by a sac fly had me thinking it was going to be a long night for Andy Pettitte. Pettitte struck out Chase Utley for the second time in as many innings, ending the threat. That was the turning point in the game. The Yankees wouldn’t score until the fourth, but Pettitte (despite having thrown 50 pitches in the first two innings) refound a groove and would not allow another hit until he was leading 6-3. Jayson Werth’s homer in the sixth narrowed the gap to 6-4 and that was as close as Philly would get. So with an 8-5 final, hitting is taking the stage, right? Maybe. Alex

MLB Franchise of the Decade
Dallas Morning News baseball writer Evan Grant posed the question on his blog as to which team should be considered MLB team of the decade. Without hesitation, my answer was that the Yankees were that team. The Red Sox are the only team with two championships in this decade, but those were also the only two years they made it to the World Series and Boston has been thoroughly dominated by the Yankees in division titles. The Yankees are making their fourth World Series appearance this decade (no other team more than twice) and they made their ninth playoff appearance this y