Let’s see, lots of strange stuff in this game.. 13 innings, a balk, a streaker in the field, Juan Gonzalez ejected for arguing balls and strikers, a Ranger reliever being tied for the team lead in wins with 6, a Wetteland blown save, and 6 different players batting in the 7 runs we scored (Raffy was the only person with two).
Quite a bizarre game. Took four and a half hours, and we finally pulled it out. I thought we were dead in the bottom of the ninth, but we got away with a double play that, to my eyes on TV, lookd like something we shouldn’t have gotten. There was a strike-em-out throw-em-out double play, but it appeared the Royce Clayton pushed the Dodger runner off second and then tagged him out. We got the call, which is good, because right after that, John Wetteland gave up a solo home run to tie the game. Call hadn’t gotten our way, we would have lost there (there’s a picture of this below in the photos section). A couple other interesting things was that Goodwin had three stolen bases, Mike Munoz got his first save as a Ranger, and the Rangers left fourteen men on base!
Mike Morgan came off the disabled list (pushing Kolb back to AAA), and pitched well in the first two innings, throwing a total of 18 pitches for the two innings. Total of 8 for for first four outs of the game. However, that was about it. He didn’t survive the fourth. For a change, our relief pitching wasn’t godlike. Was enough to keep us in the game, though, and was by all accounts still good.
A thought occurred to me last night, if Morgan is still with us next year, it’s entirely possible that he will be a teammate that wasn’t born yet when Morgan made his first major league appearance in 1978. This morning, I looked through the Media Guide, and saw that this isn’t true, but it’s fairly close. Unless some really young kid comes up next year, the most realistic to Morgan would be Ruben Mateo, who was born on Feb 10, 1978 (Morgan’s first appearance was June 11, 1978). Ruben Mateo was only 1 day short of four months old when Mike Morgan first appeared. Yikes!
There’s also Cesar King, who was born on Feb 28, 1978, but I doubt he’ll get to the majors with Texas, he’s too good to be a backup. Carlos Pena is actually younger (May 17, 1978), but I doubt he’ll be up next year, and I don’t see Morgan being with us beyond 2000 (if he even gets there).
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
I had trouble getting the KRLD version of the game on RealAudio last night so I spent most of the game listening to the Dodgers’ XTRA team of Vince Skully and Ross Porter. It was actually quite nice as both announcers – especially Skully – had nice things to say about all the Rangers. Skully is as good as it gets behind the mike and his knowledge of the game is nothing short of astounding.
It was the same story as has been the last few days for Texas. Rafael Palmeiro was once again the hero as he drove in a run with two outs in the 13th inning to give Texas a win.
On the pitching side – and it sounds like a broken record – Jeff Zimmerman pitched 2 scoreless innings to pick up his 6th win with no losses. John Wetteland however blew a save (just his second blown save of the year) in the 9th when light-hitter EY (Eric Young) hit a solo homer.
I would be amiss if I didn’t mention the extremely valuable pitching effort of Danny Patterson, who provided 3+ innings of scoreless relief after starter Mike Morgan faltered in the middle innings.
Patterson, who most think will be sent down when Mike Simms is ready, may have changed a few minds with his last two efforts, both being long, effective outings.