After last night’s fiasco, I was glad to come home, and not have to worry about getting to the game. :)
Anyway, about the game. When I heard Burkett was starting this game, I figured it’d be a slugfest. Burkett has been really ineffective as a starter this season (he’s done fairly decent in the pen), and I figured this would be no different. Wow – he was such a surprise, pitching 6 totally solid innings. He looked like the Burkett of old, when we first signed him a few years ago. If he pitched like this all the time, we wouldn’t need to be trading for a pitcher next month. In fact, I felt really bad for Burkett, as he was out there at the start of the 7th, and there was a rain delay after he had worked an 0-2 count to the first batter. When the rain came, the Rangers were running off the field, and the tarp guys were already at work. Burkett was still standing there, like he didn’t want to stop. I genuinely felt bad for the guy, I wanted him to keep going. Still, it was an awesome performance for a guy who quite possibly could be pitching in his final season.
Our offense got going early, scoring all five of our runs in the first two innings. Surprisingly, the A pitcher stayed in there after that, and settled down. After the second, we really didn’t get much else going offensively, which always worries me. We could have had more, though as Ben Grieve made a catch right against the left field wall, which appeared to have deflected off the wall first before he caught it when viewed on TV replay. Raffy was all the way to third, and was an easy double play. We should have had a few more there, but we got away with the same play in Boston last week when Ruben Mateo did more or less the same exact thing.
Our relief pitching continued it’s dominance, and I have to say that with the one exception of the home run ball Burkett gave up in the 6th, our pitching was masterful. I wish we had this kind of stuff every time out from Burkett, we’d be in much better shape than we already are in.
On to the Kingdome to shut that stupid thing down!