And The Beat Goes On: April 15th

Some quick stuff out there this morning, as we play the anticipation game in advance of Neftali Feliz's second major league start this afternoon:

● Jeff Wilson writes about Yu Darvish's shaky but improved effort yesterday, which saw Darvish allow quite a few baserunners but escape with minimal damage on the scoreboard, and, more importantly, advanced the acclimatization process along, with the added benefit of Robbie Ross nailing down his first major league victory in relief. For what it's worth, Saturday's game signified only the fifth time in Rangers history that Texas yielded 19 or more baserunners while allowing two or fewer runs -- and only the sixth time that Texas yielded that many baserunners while allowing one or fewer earned runs. Sometimes living dangerously pays off.

● Evan Grant writes that Yu Darvish tinkered around with his windup yet again on Saturday, as he opted to bring his hands only up to chin level during his initial motion rather than bringing them up over his head. Darvish, however, said that he's constantly tweaking his windup, so there's that. 

● Jeff Wilson's notes include some discussion of 25th man Brandon Snyder, who contributed three hits in yesterday's winning effort in the stead of a hurting Mitch Moreland (abscessed tooth), and preview Neftali Feliz's second major league start this afternoon. T.R. Sullivan's notes include a look ahead at what figures to be a pretty telling early-season stretch for Texas, as the Red Sox, Tigers, Yankees, and Rays all loom on the horizon after today's series finale.

● Richard Durrett reports that Yoshinori Tateyama has been recalled from the disabled list and assigned to Triple-A Round Rock, where he'll presumably function as the team's go-to insurance policy in the event that some middle-relief holes should develop. Given the early-season quality of the bullpen at large, though, and given that the big question marks (Mark Lowe, Koji Uehara, and Robbie Ross) have all been positive contributors, and given that Tateyama isn't really lighting anyone up in the minors, it's probably going to take a bout of elbow tendiniits or some such for Tateyama to grab some major league innings again.

Jurickson Profar went 3-for-4 with a home run last night for Double-A Frisco. Drew Davison throws down a feature on Profar and Mike Olt.