Good lord! An awesome pitching battle that we didn’t choke on, give up too many late inning hits, or a home run somewhere to blow it. It’s our first win of the season in a one run game when we don’t score at least 5 runs. We’re something like 1-16 this season that way, if I remember what I heard on the radio correctly.
There’s not a whole lot that can be said about 2-1 games, other than “great pitching”, and “just enough offense”. We finally won one for our hard luck pitcher, Esteban Loaiza. Usually, he’s the one that turns in an awesome performance, and loses it late, because we couldn’t hold it, or he made one small mistake and got burnt on it. Mike Mussina, who is having a surprisingly horrible year, went the complete game for the loss, making him now 1-6. Loaiza went 7 innings, giving up just one earned run on 6 hits. Venafro & Wetteland pitched shutout relief again, and Wetteland earned another save (his 9th), giving him a lot of saves in a very short period of time. I had concerns he wouldn’t get 40 again this year, but if this pace keeps up, that won’t be a problem.
Offensively, we got a solo blast by Rafael Palmeiro, and a sac fly by Chad Curtis, scoring Jason McDonald, who has been very surprising in his time with the Rangers. My guess is that he stays when Kapler and/or Greer are ready to come back, and Scarborough Green goes back to AAA.
And to top all of this off, the way the game ended was awesome, too. Rich Amaral was attempting to steal second, and Pudge tossed him out to end the game, what a thriller!
What a game!