Dammit – why are we winning against the White Sox? Stop that! I do not want to be helping the Indians. Because we’ve beaten Chicago the last two nights, their lead is now only 6.5 games. Should be 8.5, if it wasn’t for our winning. :(
This was one of those games where both my wife and I expected a big Ranger loss, mostly because of who was pitching this night – Dead Arm Oliver. It took 3+ innings for dead arm to give up a run. In fact, it was his only run. He pitched 6 innings, and probably would have gone further, but his pitch count was way up there. A rather interesting surprise there – I doubt anyone expected Dead Arm to pitch well at all. However, let’s see if it happens a few times in a row – remember that dazzling start he had in rehab at AAA, just to be followed by the pasting he got at Tulsa. :) Jonathan Johnson went two innings to get the win in relief, and Wetteland got a save, although he lived up to his reputation of not making it easy at all.
Offensively, we didn’t have much else – we only scored two – and neither was an easy run. One in the 5th on a Scott Sheldon double, scoring Ledee. The other was in the top of the 9th on a Chad Curtis single, scoring Frank Catalnotto.
It was nice to get the win, but it was not nice to get it against the White Sox. I also found it interesting (although I can’t say why) that two “names” from earlier in Ranger history were playing in the same game, Ruben Sierra & Harold Baines.