Happy birthday to organizational soldier and cup of coffee drinker Danny Ardoin, who turns 34 today.

Ardoin is a catcher who spent much of 2002, and all of 2003 and 2004, in the Rangers' system, mostly with the Redhawks.  He was called up briefly in 2004, when the Rangers were casting about to try to find a non-embarrassing backup catcher after Gerald Laird was sidelined with a sprained thumb, but played in only 6 games, getting 8 at bats. 

Ardoin's, and Ken Huckaby's, struggles resulted in Gerald Laird coming back and playing hurt (and not very well) in the second half of the season, which led to the whole winterball dispute between him and the organization...

Ardoin went on to spend some time up with the Rockies and Orioles afterwards, and is currently on the Dodgers' active roster.

Evan Grant says he needs newsletter questions. 

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Okay, there's been a fair amount of discussion about the Mathis/Ramirez collision at home plate last night, and whether or not that was a dirty play, so I'm putting up a poll...

Cast your vote...

As someone who has been cautiously optimistic about Luis Mendoza's ability to contribute to the Rangers, I was pretty disappointed in yesterday's outing.  That was an absolute disaster, with Mendoza simply having zero command of his pitches, and he would have been shelled if he'd pitched like that in Oklahoma or Frisco, much less Texas.

I do think, though, that bumping Mendoza from the rotation in favor of Dustin Nippert (who was outstanding yesterday, and showed why the Rangers wanted him in the organization) or Matt Harrison is premature.  Simply put, if you are trying to rebuild and figure out what you've got with your young pitching, you don't boot a guy from the rotation after two rough starts.

No question, if he pitches like he did yesterday, he's not a major leaguer.  If he commands his pitches -- particularly his fastball and slider -- like he did in his last few outings out of the bullpen, though, he can be a quality major league starter.  I think it is worth taking a little more time to see how he bounces back and to see if he can fix his command issues.

Richard Durrett says the Rangers felt they showed resiliance in coming back and making a game out of it, after being down 8 early.  He also says Milton Bradley yelled from the dugout at Jeff Mathis after that big 8th inning collision between Mathis and Max Ramirez.  I still think the way Mathis came in was borderline dirty, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him knocked down at some point in this series.

Matt Harrison starts today, although it is still up in the air what roster move will be made to make room for him.  Meanwhile, the Rangers still don't know who will pitch tomorrow, although it apparently won't be Vicente Padilla.

Jeff Wilson has some updates on some injured guys...Hank Blalock hit in the cage and expects to go on a rehab assignment over the All Star Break, Gerald Laird hit in the cage for the first time since suffering the hamstring injury, and Thomas Diamond got a cortisone shot in his foot, which will allow him to delay surgery on the bone spur in his foot until after the season. 

Wilson also mentions that Jon Daniels is having "very cordial" talks with Dustin Bledsoe, who advises Justin Smoak and Robbie Ross, and expects that they'll work something out with those guys.

And Jean-Jacques Taylor says the Rangers did the right thing in keeping Ron Washington around.

Tres.

new thread

Per Richard Durrett, Eric Hurley is still having issues with his hamstring, so the Rangers will call up Matt Harrison to get the start (and make his major league debut) tomorrow.

No word yet on how the Rangers will make room for him, but you'd have to figure that either Warner Madrigal gets sent down or Vicente Padilla goes to the d.l.