Saturday, October 15, 2011 – 5:19pm

TYLER, TX (KETK) – —
Loyal Texas Rangers fans have been awarded once again with a baseball team that World Series aspirations, and World Series talent.

The Texas Rangers will look to close out the Detroit Tigers in game six tonight in Arlington, and fans here in East Texas couldn’t be more excited.

The incident began with a Saturday morning domestic disturbance
call just outside the southeastern Lubbock city limits. Sheriff
Kelly Rowe tells the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
(http://bit.ly/otMhxG) that a brief foot chase ended with a
struggle to subdue the suspect before the stun guns were used.

After he was placed in a patrol car, the man tried to escape and
was again subdued. Rowe says the man died a short time later.

Row says he doesn’t know what force or method was used to subdue the man, whose identity was being withheld.
—
Information from: Lubbock Avalanche-Journal,
http://www.lubbockonline.com

June 7, 2011

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Left-handed pitcher Mike Mason was selected by the Texas Rangers in the 23^rd round with the 714^th overall pick on day two of the Major League Baseball First Year Player Draft. 

Mason joins fellow southpaw Greg Williams on the Rangers draft board in 2011 and marks the third Thundering Herd player drafted by an American League West squad thus far.  Rhett Stafford was picked by the Oakland Athletics a round prior to Mason.

Mason served as the Saturday starter for Marshall over the past two seasons and produced a breakout year in 2011.  The lefty finished his junior campaign with an even 3-3 record, firing a team-best 78.1 innings with 65 strikeouts.  He surpassed the 100-strikeout plateau for his career and collected 157 over the past three years with the Herd.

The lefty collected four quality starts as a junior, including a dominating performance against Houston.  In the no decision, the Maumee, Ohio native tied a career-high with 7.1 innings, giving up two earned runs, while fanning eight and not walking a batter.  Last season, Mason fanned ten batters against Southern Miss, which eventually won the 2010 Conference USA Tournament Championship.

Mason marks the second of three players drafted off the 2011 Marshall squad that was not selected by a MLB team out of high school.

June 7, 2011

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Left-handed pitcher Mike Mason was selected by the Texas Rangers in the 23^rd round with the 714^th overall pick on day two of the Major League Baseball First Year Player Draft. 

Mason joins fellow southpaw Greg Williams on the Rangers draft board in 2011 and marks the third Thundering Herd player drafted by an American League West squad thus far.  Rhett Stafford was picked by the Oakland Athletics a round prior to Mason.

Mason served as the Saturday starter for Marshall over the past two seasons and produced a breakout year in 2011.  The lefty finished his junior campaign with an even 3-3 record, firing a team-best 78.1 innings with 65 strikeouts.  He surpassed the 100-strikeout plateau for his career and collected 157 over the past three years with the Herd.

The lefty collected four quality starts as a junior, including a dominating performance against Houston.  In the no decision, the Maumee, Ohio native tied a career-high with 7.1 innings, giving up two earned runs, while fanning eight and not walking a batter.  Last season, Mason fanned ten batters against Southern Miss, which eventually won the 2010 Conference USA Tournament Championship.

Mason marks the second of three players drafted off the 2011 Marshall squad that was not selected by a MLB team out of high school.

BALTIMORE (AP) — The Baltimore Orioles are already short-handed, and after Friday night’s game against Texas was postponed by rain manager Buck Showalter also had to worry about running out of relief pitchers over the weekend.

The teams will play a traditional doubleheader on Saturday starting at 4:30 p.m.

Shortstop J.J. Hardy (sore left rib cage) wasn’t in the lineup Friday, and second baseman Brian Roberts wouldn’t have played if the game went of as scheduled. Roberts experienced severe stomach pains and was taken to the hospital for tests.

The pitching staff is also thin. Starters Brian Matusz and Justin Duchscherer are on the disabled list, and Showalter was concerned about taxing his bullpen in Saturday’s doubleheader.

“You always have to think about down the road, the next day and the next day,” he said. “If we play 18 innings (Saturday), that’s a lot of baseball to pitch. And one of the things about being home, you know you’re going to pitch nine innings.”

But the day off will give Hardy a chance to bounce back from his injury. He was a late scratch Thursday against Detroit and omitted from the starting lineup on Friday.

“I’ve never had anything like it,” Hardy said. “But being able to throw, being able to run around not feel pain, I feel like it can’t be that big a deal. So, I’m hoping to be in this series at some point.”

Showalter will start rookie left-hander Zach Britton in the opener and Jake Arrieta in the second game. Britton was scheduled to start on Friday night for the Orioles, who are off to a 5-1 start.

Colby Lewis will start the opener for Texas and Matt Harrison will pitch in the nightcap.

The Rangers had a scheduled day off on Thursday, and the rainout enabled them to remain undefeated heading into the weekend.

“I wish I could get excited about that,” manager Ron Washington said. “I’d much rather play, but since we can’t, we’ll go two tomorrow.”

The players didn’t seem to mind. Minutes after the postponement became official, Ian Kinsler and six other Rangers slid on the tarp.

Texas came to town after going 6-0 on a homestand against Boston and Seattle. If the Rangers can win the opener Saturday, they will match the best start in franchise history (7-0 in 1996).

A steady rainshower hit the area early in the day and never really let up. The scheduled 7:05 p.m. start was delayed for about an hour before the game was finally postponed.

“Everybody did everything possible to try to play,” Showalter said. “It just started moving a lot slower and settling in. You’re going to have periods of 10 minutes when it’s not raining very hard and then it comes back again. Plus, you don’t want the fans to sit in that stuff, either.”