Rain. Lots of it. It rained for the first three innings or so, and then it rained from the 7th onwards. There was no rain in the middle, but it was pretty ugly. I ended up sitting in the last row of the upper deck behind home plate, I wasn’t in the mood to sit in the rain, even though I had an umbrella with me.
This was a good back and forth game. There was no real dominant pitching here, in fact, there was some awful pitching today (Frank Francisco). The rest was just OK. We had a 2-0 lead, then 2-1, then 2-2, and we went up, they went up, it went on that way until the bottom of the sixth when we were up 7-3. I was feeling pretty good about the game, but that’s when Francisco came in and laid a big stinking one on the field. The game was tied 7-7 at that point. I was glad we weren’t behind, but not thrilled at having given up the lead.
The Hammer, who lead the offense with a 4 for 5 day, scoring three times, and having 2 RBI’s hit a game winning solo home run into the Rangers bullpen off brief former Ranger Dan Miceli to win it. Cordero got his 22nd save. Speaking of former Rangers and home runs, our old friend Mike Lamb had a solo home run in the game. I’m glad he’s doing well in Houston, I just hope the Beltran trade doesn’t end up jacking with Mike’s time, given all the position shifts they’ve had.
Anyway we’re now 8 in a row, and are 13 games over 500. Right now only the Yankees have a better record than us in the AL, and only one team in the NL has a better record – the Cardinals. Who would have thought it? Hell, Tampa Bay is now one game over 500 and in third place in their division. Bizarre things are afoot in 2004.