MLB Dallas

Texas Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton may have taken the former #1 pick with all the potential in the world but got involved with drugs before dropping out of baseball and re-emerging with the Reds before being traded to the Rangers and becoming a Triple Crown and MVP candidate road that we've all seen a million times before (holy run-on sentences, Batman), but that doesn't mean he doesn't do anything out of the ordinary from time to time.

Hamilton made it official yesterday when he announced that he would be participating in the Home Run Derby at Yankee Stadium over the All-Star break, but in a touching twist, he'll be bringing along an old friend with him.

Hamilton said he's asked Clay Council, a 71-year-old longtime American Legion and high school coach from North Carolina, to pitch to him.

"He's hit me hard over the years, but he's done that with most people," Council said. "He told me he'd bring me years ago if he was in the derby. I'm excited to do this."

Council said he's been to Yankee Stadium one other time, to see Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series.

You know, the more I read about Hamilton, the more I root for him. How Hallmark hasn't made a movie of the week about his life yet, I have no idea.

Milton Bradley is crazy, but in a sympathetic way. Like, he just has a temper. Lots of us have tempers. Not all of us have to restrain ourselves because we do our jobs in front of thousands of people every night. Still, the fact remains: Milton Bradley is kind of crazy.

But even he scoffs at the ball of round mound of unbound (thank you!) that is Sidney Ponson (via BBTF):

Bradley was quoted last month as saying of Ponson: "Man, that dude has some issues." Bradley took issue with that yesterday, saying he'd said only that Ponson had issues while he was a Ranger and that the two said hello before Monday night's game at the Stadium.

Bradley sort of reversed that yesterday, saying he didn't think Ponson was a bad guy. Either way, the damage is done. If Milton Bradley thinks you need to figure some things out, something is seriously wrong.

Tuesday didn't start out very well for the Texas Rangers on the injury front. Early in the day they found out that Hank Blalock, who they'd been hoping to bring off of the disabled list to use on Tuesday, bruised his hand while diving for a ball at Triple-A Oklahoma and his return to the team will be delayed another day or two because of it. A couple of days isn't that big of a deal though, I mean, at least Hank's not going to be out another 4-6 weeks with a pulled hamstring like catcher Gerald Laird is going to be.

Now, the Rangers could have stopped with the injuries right there, but you know how things are down in Texas. Everything has to be bigger, or they have to have more, so on Tuesday night the Rangers didn't stop hurting themselves. Josh Hamilton had to leave the game in the fifth inning a couple of innings after making a diving catch, and now he's day-to-day with knee inflammation.

The Rangers aren't planning on putting Hamilton on the disabled list or anything, instead hoping that a couple of days off will take care of it, but it should be pointed out that it's the same knee Hamilton had arthroscopic surgery on back in 2006. This may be a good thing for Hamilton seeing as how his batting average has been on the decline in June, so maybe the rest will do him some good.

Though considering the latest injuries to Blalock and Laird, along with the fact Milton Bradley's missed the last six games with a sore quad, I don't think the Rangers will want Josh resting too long.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups.

Philadelphia Phillies (41-29) at St. Louis Cardinals (41-29) - 2:15 PM ET

Sometimes the best matchup of the day is so obvious that it smacks you in the face. The Phils and Cards are that matchup. Sure, it helps when it's at the top of the scoreboard because it's the only N.L. game of the bunch. But with both teams being 41-29 (the Phillies are four games in first place yet the Cardinals are three and a half behind first if you can believe that), and with the series going the way it is (the Phillies winning 20-2 the first game while the Cardinals come back to win a pitcher's duel one day later), this is definitely the game of the day. It's the game of the day even if today's starter Brett Myers has stunk up the joint this season.

Good pitching is hard to come by these days -- and if you're the Rangers, merely adequate pitching is just as rare. Nevertheless, GM Jon Daniels considered Sidney Ponson such a distraction that not even Ponson's 3.88 ERA could save him from being released. That should set off a few red flags, no? Apparently not in Houston. From Jose de Jesus Ortiz of the Houston Chronicle:

[A] few Astros players asked me to strongly encourage the Astros to sign Ponson. I don't usually like to do the players' bidding, but heck, I need a blog entry. So here we go.

"We need that guy," one friend of Ponson's said. "We could use him. He's a good teammate."

Would you mind if the Astros signed Ponson? Keep in mind that he must have really, really screwed up for the Rangers to designate him for assignment. [...] But if Ed Wade or Drayton McLane or Cecil Cooper polled their clubhouse, they'd find some guys who would offer huge endorsements for Ponson as a player, a competitor and even as a person.

Yes, that's right: "Ponson" and "good teammate" were used in the same sentence, and apparently not in an ironic manner. Is he worth the risk?

Professional fat man Sidney Ponson somehow possesses a 4-1 record with a 3.88 ERA this season. So why did the Rangers, a team so desperate for pitching that it signed him in the first place, let him loose?

The team is citing chemistry issues. As Mr. Lackey pointed out, it was easy to see this coming, but it's just as easy for me to predict that he'll be on another major-league roster within a month.

Sidney Ponson is horrible.

Today's Dugout is after the jump.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (38-24) at Oakland Athletics (33-28) - 9:05 PM ET

Not that your L.A. Angels of A. were in any real trouble anyway with Vladimir Guerrero and Scot Shields suffering nagging injuries. But even through that, the Angels have won their last six games, and did so with Guerrero back in the lineup last night (Shields seems to be on his way back soon) in their 3-1 win over Oakland, who's now four and a half games back of the Halos in the A.L. West.

Oakland's been just as hot, following up a four game losing streak by winning four in a row before last night's loss. But the way the Angels have been going, the swingin' A's had better do some swinging before the Angels make a mockery of this division.

Through nine starts this year, Sidney Ponson was cruising with a 3.88 ERA and a nice little 4-1 record. I'm not a Rangers fan, but I can imagine that they probably considered that start to be way too good to be true. That's exactly what it was. Today the Rangers cut Ponson, despite his great start with the team. This is what John Daniels had to tell the Dallas Morning News:

"He had disrespectful and adverse reactions to situations that were unbecoming of a teammate," Daniels said. "We want guys who want to be here. We're trying to put together a team here, and based on some comments and reactions, he didn't want to be part of that. That's not something we're going to tolerate."

Wait ... the guy who once punched an Aruban judge and has a history of DUIs isn't a great teammate? What did Jon Daniels expect? Apparently this dispute is over his pitching schedule, though the situation has been boiling for a while. It all seems mindlessly inane for everyone involved but since we're talking about both Sidney Ponson and the Texas Rangers, I guess mindlessly inane is par for the course. The official roster move here is a DFA, which means the Rangers have ten days to trade or release him. I'm guessing there won't be a lot of willing trade partners for this one.

Tip o' the cap to fellow 'Hauser Bruce Ciskie on this one.

We've been wondering where all the long term contracts have gone lately. After Hanley Ramirez signed on the dotted line, there didn't seem to be a lot left to go around. But one guy who may hit that jackpot is Josh Hamilton. It seemed like an impossible dream just a few short years ago with Hamilton's career and life in a downward spiral, so his turnaround and the start to his season culminating in a huge deal is one of baseball's great stories.

But according to SI.com's Jon Heyman, it may not happen so quickly:

Josh Hamilton's negotiations for a long-term deal may be held up a little by his decision to switch agents during negotiations that appeared to be progressing. Hamilton, a born-again Christian after returning from bouts with his drug addiction, explained to friends that he wanted to be with a Christian stable, so he switched agents from Matt Sosnick to Michael Moye as he seemed to be closing in on a long contract.

Unless Hamilton ruptures an achilles or tears an ACL in the week or so that it takes for the logistics of switching agents, this shouldn't make too much of a big deal. But the interesting tidbit is that Moye also represents Josh Beckett ... and Beckett was being dangled to the Rangers right before his trade to Boston, so if there's a feeling from the Rangers that Moye used the Rangers to drive up the price of a trade before turning to Boston, then there could be a problem. But that was two and a half years ago, and surely I'm reaching ... and just as surely the Rangers must understand that these kind of things happen all the time, right?

So yeah, smart money's on this thing getting done.

As I mentioned earlier this morning, the Rangers had a very strong month of May and are starting to look like a team that the Angels should start paying attention to out west. The problem in Arlington right now is that though May went very well, June is already off to a bad start.

First the team finds out that they're going to be without Hank Blalock for a month thanks to wrist surgery, and now they've learned they're going to be without the ace of their staff for at least one start.

Texas right-hander Vicente Padilla left the team on Sunday, returning to his native Nicaragua to attend to what manager Ron Washington termed "a family personal matter."

Padilla was scheduled to start Monday night for the Rangers against the Cleveland Indians. Washington said rookie Doug Mathis will be moved up a day in the rotation to replace Padilla.

The Rangers wouldn't comment on what the family matter was, so I've no idea how serious the situation is or how long Padilla will be gone. There could have been a death in the family, someone may be sick, or perhaps somebody has been kidnapped. Whatever's going on, I hope everybody in Padilla's family is safe.

If Vicente is gone for a while, the Rangers plan on calling up A.J. Murray from Oklahoma to take his spot in the rotation.