Texas Rangers vs Los Angeles Angels – Preview – Live Thread

Feb 17, 2014; Surprise, AZ, USA; Texas Rangers pitcher

during team practice at Surprise Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Spring training action continues today as the Texas Rangers play the hated Los Angeles Angels in Tempe, Arizona at the Diablo Stadium.   Yu Darvish will take to the mound today against the Angels Tyler Skaggs.

Darvish looks to continue ride on the success of his first outing of Cactus League play.  After being a little shaky in the bullpen and intra-squad game, and for Darvish, shaky is still great for some other pitchers, he found his stuff in game one of Cactus League play against the Kansas City Royals and recorded 4 quick strike outs.  Darvish only pitched in 2 innings, but threw 29 pitches / 23 of which were for strikes.

While that game wasn’t the best defensively, the Rangers had 5 errors, Darvish did do enough to capture the win with the Rangers winning 11-7.

Yu Darvish stats: ERA 0.00/ Record 1-0/ 4 strike outs

The Rangers will also use the following pitchers today

Coming soon

The Texas Rangers lineup

• Shin-Soo Choo LF
• Josh Wilson 2B
• Alex Rios RF
• Mitch Moreland 1B
• Kevin Kouzmanoff 3B
• Jurickson Profar DH
• Robinson Chirinos C
• Luis Sardinas SS
• Leonys Martin CF

The Angels star center fielder and Rangers fan favorite Josh Hamilton will not be in the lineup today.  And just kidding about the fan favorite, thought I’d give you a laugh.  At least Ian Kinsler is distracting from how much people dislike Josh.  Hamilton recently suffered a strained left calf muscle.  He’s been on crutches, but he should be off of them soon.  No word though when he’ll resume baseball activities.

Tyler Skaggs stats: ERA -.–/ Record 0-0/ 0 strike outs

The Los Angeles Angels will also use the following pitchers today

• LHPs – Clay Rapada, Buddy Boshers
• RHPs- Joe Smith, Fernando Salas, Kohn, Brandon Lyon-Johnson, Alverez, Benrosian, Carpenter

The Los Angeles Angels lineup

• Kole Calhoun RF
• Mike Trout CF
• Albert Pujols 1B
• Raul Ibanez DH
• David Freese 3b
• Howie Kendrick 2b
• Erick Aybar SS
• Chris Iannetta C
• J.B. Shuck LF

Instant replay: Also, today will be the first game for the Rangers where they’ll see the update replay rules.  The new rules basically will allow managers to challenge almost any play except for strikes, balls, interference and obstruction.  Basically about 90 percent of all players are reviewable.

With the new rules, both teams will be able to have someone one their club monitoring the video of the game and will be able to communciate with the manager whether the play should be challenge or not.

How will it work:  Managers will get one challenge they can use.  If the manager uses the challenge in the first 6 innings and wins it, he’ll receive another challenge.  After the 6th inning, only the umpires will be able to review a play.   This will definitively add a new level of strategy to the game for managers.

Today’s game will be available via webcast on MLB.TV – MLB at-bat.  Be sure to add comments to this post to be part of the conversion.

Thank you Alex.  Game will be televised on Fox Sports 1 / DTV channel 219.