Rangers hitter Mitch Moreland pitched a 1-2-3 inning and was clocked at 95 mph

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Rangers first baseman/outfielder/designated hitter Mitch Moreland took the mound in a blowout loss to the Rockies last night and looked about as good as a position player can look as a pitcher.

Moreland was clocked as high as 95 miles per hour, regularly worked at 92-94 miles per hour, and tossed a 1-2-3 inning with a pair of fly outs to right field and a broken-bat ground ball.

Here’s the video from MLB.com:

[mlbvideo id=”32674329″ width=”400″ height=”224″ /]

Moreland was actually a very good pitcher in college at Mississippi State and made a couple pitching appearances in the minors. Based on how good he looked the Rangers might want to make letting him mop up a semi-regular thing just to save some wear and tear on the pitching staff.

Roger Clemens will be an analyst for ESPN on opening day

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Roger Clemens will be an analyst for ESPN when the defending World Series champion Houston Astros host the Chicago White Sox on opening day.

Clemens made four appearances on last year’s KayRod Cast with Michael Kay and Alex Rodriguez. He will be stepping in on March 30 for David Cone, who will be doing the New York Yankees opener against the San Francisco Giants on YES Network.

“Roger has been sort of a friend of ours for the last year, so to speak, he’s in. He’s been engaged, knowledgeable and really present,” said ESPN Vice President of Production Phil Orlins. “You know, whatever past may be, he’s still tremendously engaged and he really brought that every time he was with us.”

Clemens was a seven-time Cy Young winner but his career after baseball has been tainted by allegations of performance-enhancing drug use. He is a Houston native and pitched for the Astros for three seasons.

Orlins said that with the rules changes and pitch clock, it is important to have a pitcher in the booth with Karl Ravech and Eduardo Perez.

“We don’t feel like we have to have the dynamic of Eduardo with a pitcher, but we certainly think that works. Throw in the added factor of rule changes and it is better to have a batter-pitcher perspective,” Orlins said.

Orlins did not say if this would open the door for future opportunities for Clemens as an ESPN analyst.