Kenny Rogers did his usual surrender of a run or two in the first inning, but was brilliant after that. In fact, the whole game was a pitcher’s duel, not terribly a lot going on for either side In fact, the game score remained 2-1 in favor of Texas until the bottom of the ninth when Cordero blew his second save of the season. Annoying, but I didn’t feel like we were going to lose – just had a good feeling by this point. I did feel bad for Kenny, he should be 11-2 now, and the two no decisions he had this week were both on blown saves by Cordero – his only two.
In the top of the 11th, Hank Blalock jacked a two run home run to win the game (in fact, our other two runs came on a two run HR by Barajas). That’s how it ended. A 4-2 win over the Marlins.
So we swept the defending World Champions on their turf. After losing all three to the Reds, I have to say this is very encouraging. We could have rather easily been 6-0 on this road trip, we played well against the Reds, just not well enough. Against the Marlins, we found the ways to win, and we come back home just one half a game out of first. At this point last year, we were 21.5 games out. What a turnaround.
The other thing for me personally is that since I’m from Philadelphia, having Florida lose all three games here puts the Phillies in first place, and drops the Marlins to second – \o/ :)