The club continues to play good the last week or so. This game had a lot of things, except great starting pitching. Ours was OK, theirs wasn’t good at all. Rick Helling looked positively Loaizaish in this game. He didn’t have anything going, he couldn’t strike people out, and was generally sloppy. Quite frankly, it’s amazing he didn’t give up more than he did. Detroit’s starter, Brian Moehler, was a pitcher that the Rangers always had problems with in the past – not tonight. We put up an eight spot in the third inning – which was the main offense of the game. That was our largest single inning output of the season so far, and it’s always nice to see things like that in person. We probably would have had more, but Jerry Narron waved Raffy around third, and he was way WAY out – not even close. That out was the end of the inning.
However, those weren’t the only fireworks of the evening. In the 7th, Tim Crabtree came on, and was pitching to Juan Gonzalez. His first pitch was pretty inside – and Juan extremely over-reacted. He jabbered and pointed at the mound, took a step towards the mound, then Bill Haselman got in front of him, and then both of them started shouting at each other. At this point, both dugouts and both bullpens emptied. That’s about all that happened. Both him and Crabree stayed in the game – to some EXTREME booing from the stands. I felt that all the goodwill that was created by Juan the previous night with his helmet waiving, and the cheers were wiped out. Juan eventually made an out that inning, and it was one of the loudest cheers I’d heard for an out in a long time.
One other thing. I was at this game, and had written down the lineups – and then a minute before the game started, I noticed 3 or 4 people had changed. So, I made the changes, and noticed Segui wasn’t there. I thought something might be up, so I had my wife get out the small portable radio I have in our “Baseball bag”, and started listening. Eric Nadel said Segui was scratched 12 minutes before the start of the game – which really led to me thinking he was gone. It wasn’t till about the 6th inning or so that they announced Segui had been traded for Ricky Ledee. I announced that rather loudly in my section, and it got quite a reaction from the folks around me – I was apparently the only person who was listening on the radio, in addition to watching the game. :)
Gabe Kapler kept his hitting streak alive – I think he’ll be the new #5 hitter in the lineup now with Pudge out, and Segui traded. Was a nice balanced offensive night. Every starter had at least one hit, and everyone except Raffy scored at least one run. In addition, everyone except Alicea drove in a run, too!
Overall, was a great game to watch in person. Always nice when your team wins, and the added flavor of Juan in the other uniform (despite the fracas in the seventh) made it for a really enjoyable game.