Scott Feldman has tonight's game for the Rangers. He's primarily a sinker ball pitcher who mixes in a curve ball, a cutter, and very occassionally a change up. He has trouble throwing strikes and, consequently, is liberal with the walks. He doesn't have big strike out numbers (his season high is five in six and one-third of an inning.) Lefties and righties hit him pretty evenly. His problem has been inconsistency. He's done well against the tough offense offered by the White Sox but lasted only three innings (giving up eight runs) to the Angels. He's kept the Yankees in check (I know that the Yankee offense has had trouble scoring runs this season but you would think that they could do something against this guy) but struggled against the Mariners. So who knows what you'll end up getting. Last season they saw him once (in relief), he went two and two-thirds of an inning, gave up no hits, walked only one, and struck out two.
Luis Mendoza has the start on Wednesday. On April 18, Mendoza made a start against Boston. He lasted only three innings. He gave up seven runs on five hits. He has a decent sinking fastball, a cutter, a slider, a change up, and a curve ball. He doesn't walk too many batters but he does get hit pretty hard.
The last pitcher of the series is Vicente Padilla. Padilla throws a fastball, a cutter, and a change up. He throws strikes and gets a lot of called strikes. He does give up a good number of hits, though. Righties have a difficult time against him.
If the Rangers can't beat you with their pitching (it would seem like they couldn't), then their plan must be to out-slug you-which is something they could do. They have big bats in Milton Bradley and Josh Hamilton. They have slightly smaller (but still really good) bats in Ian Kinsler and Chris Davis. Ian Kinsler is the most likely player to steal a base. As a team, they are somewhat error prone. Both David Murphy and Hank Blalock are on the DL (Blalock could be looking to come back quite soon.)
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