I will avoid the cliche here about scoring this many runs on July 4th and the word fireworks, thank you very much.
A couple of games ago I started my commentary with Bombs away! I should have saved that for this game. We had 6 home runs this game (Soriano, Blalock, Mench x2, & Teixeira x2) as we did that one. However, two of them were history making. We had two grand slams in this game. One was by Teixeira in the 9th inning, and the other was by Hank Blalock. The Rangers have never had a two grand slam game ever before. Hank’s slam was also a pinch hit grand slam as well, so it was a lot sweeter.
On the other side of the coin, when this game started, with a pitching matchup of Joaquin Benoit & Andy Pettite, I figure we’d lose 18-3, not win by that. Benoit went 6 innings, giving up two runs on 5 hits (1BB, 5K). A kind of outing that you’d normally like from your pitcher, but Benoit continues to tease. His next start will probably be 2.2IP with 7ER.
We took back the Silver boot with this absolute destruction of a game against the Astros. Now we just need to put it back together again.
My wife and I ended up going out to Frisco on Sunday night, we had tickets to the Roughriders game. There was this very cool thing during the 7th inning stretch where they had everyone blow up these balloons, and at the end of God Bless America, everyone let them fly into the air – it was a very funny, and rather cool sight – I wished I had my camera with me, would have made for a great picture. One other fun thing was between the top and bottom of the firsts, the Frisco mascot drove around the warning track on a vehicle throwing tshirts into the stands. When his vehicle passed the Riders bullpen in left, the players out there dumped a gatorade tub full of water on the Mascot, and because the Mascot’s outfit is essentially a giant towel/sponge, he was instantly waterlogged – the players in the pen were laughing their asses off. :)
Had fun out there, and we got a great pitching performance by Kameron Loe, and Laynce Nix had an RBI hit in a rehab assignment – that he had to come out of early after diving for a ball. :(
Oh yeah – we had five all stars named to the All Star game this evening. Soriano was voted in. We had Francisco Cordero & Kenny Rogers named from our pitching staff, and the players/Torre brought along Hank Blalock & Mike Young. We’ve never had five before. We had 4 in 1999 (Raffy, Pudge, Zimmerman, Wetteland, 1998 (Juan, Pudge, Wetteland, Sele), and 1989 (Ryan, Russell, Franco, Sierra). I really would have hoped that Blalock could have started the thing, but at least he’s there. I’m happy. For the record the guys I voted for almost regularly in this year’s all star balloting were:
AL:
C – Pudge (voted in)
1B – Mark Teixeira
2B – Alfonso Soriano (voted in)
3B – Hank Blalock (reserve choice)
SS – Mike Young (reserve choice)
OF – Manny Ramirez (voted in)
OF – Carlos Beltran (player vote, but can’t play due to league switch to NL)
OF – Vladimir Gurerrero (voted in)
NL:
C – Mike Liberthal
1B – Jim Thome (reserve choice)
2B – Jeff Kent (voted in – I was voting for Marcus Giles, but he got hurt)
3B – Mike Lowell (reserve choice)
SS – Adam Everett
OF – Barry Bonds (voted in)
OF – Ken Griffey Jr (voted in)
OF – Scott Podsednik
Being that I grew up in Philly, and lived there for over 20 years, that’s why I have a few “homer” votes for Phillies in my NL ballots. There’s also no way in hell I’d ever vote for J.D. Drew or Scott Rolen. Not a chance. Why? Let’s just say it’s a “Philly thing”.
And for the 32nd man voting, I’m voting for:
AL: Paul Konerko
NL: Bobby Abreu