I have to say, I gave up on this game twice. First time was in the first inning after we went down 4 to nothing. Chris Young seems to have hit a wall, and it showed in this game, he gave up a walk, a single, and two home runs in the first to be down 4, and then down 5 after a single came around to score in the second. I’ve dropped Chris Young from all my fantasy teams, he doesn’t seem very solid at the moment, but neither do any of our pitchers (besides Rogers, but he’s benched by Selig).
I tuned back in again after the third inning, just in time to see us bop three home runs to tie the game at 5-5. One of which was the first home run by Tex as a right hander. Looked an awful lot like the one he in the the All Star game, too. Then in the top of the fifth, we go up 6-5 on an Alfonso Soriano home run. Feeling good again. Not very confident, mind you, but good, as we’d taken the lead. Doug Brocail did a good job holding the O’s down, as did Gryboski. It stayed that way for awhile, when in the bottom of the 8th the Orioles managed to push across a run against Brian Shouse to tie it. Still feeling good. Kam Loe came in and finished off Shouse’s inning. So we’re tied after 8. Soriano singles, then steals second and third. After Hidalgo walked, Mark DeRosa stepped up and delivered a hit to the left field wall, that got stuck underneath the padding which allowed Hidalgo to score from first. That put us up two. I was feeling really good.
Then in the bottom of the ninth, Matthews botched a play and allowed Sosa to reach, setting the stage for Javy Lopez to homer to left, tying the game. That’s the second time I gave up on the game. I got so mad when he hit that HR that I turned off the TV. However, I couldn’t stay away long, after a couple of minutes of Super Monkey Ball on my Xbox, I came back to the game, figuring I’d get mad again.
After an uneventful top of the 10th inning, Sammy Sosa reached again on a fielding error (this time DeRosa). Uh-oh. Getting ready to give up again, but I didn’t. Javy Lopez just got a single this time, and after a couple of outs, Luis Matos singled to center. Gary Matthews picked up the ball and tossed it home on a laser to Rod Barajas. Sosa comes in to the plate spikes up, in a very Ty Cobb way of doing things. Sosa was tossed out at the plate, but immediately drew the wrath of Rod Barajas. Spikes up sliding is really uncool, and I’m not defending that, but from what I saw on the TV, it appeared Sosa was immediately sorry about it, and appeared to apologize right away. I later heard that he did, and also called the clubhouse to apologize after the game. Still, one has to wonder if the Ranger palyers won’t knock Sosa on his ass with a pitch at some point in the future. Was a fabulous play to toss out Sosa and save the game.
That set the stage for the 11th, and an inning that would put the Rangers on top for good. Hidalgo walked, DeRosa singled, and then Matthews got the game winning home run to cap off a fabulous night for him. The error that allowed the O’s to tie the game aside, Matthews made two spectacular plays in the outfield, one of which being the assist to throw out Sosa at the plate. He went 3-7 with 4 RBI’s and two home runs plus a double. In fact we had 6 doubles in the game (Soriano, Hidalgo, Tex, Matthews, Mench, & DeRosa). DeRosa had a great game, too going 3 for 6 with 3 RBI’s.
We had 20 hits and every starter had at least one. Every starter except Blalock scored at least once. Could have been a lot more as we left 14 men on base. But as bad as that sounds, the Orioles left 16 on base, with most of them coming in the last 6 innings.
Really really long game. The game itself ran 4 hours and 13 minutes, and to make matters worse, there an hour and 37 minute rain delay before it even got started. And it got started in the rain no less! It was nice to write about one of these fiasco games that we ended up winning. The win has us at 50-50 after the first 100 games. I think everyone expected a bit more out of this team at this point. It’s definitely not over, but the storm clouds are floating around, a few buzzards are up there, let’s hope our guys can keep all that at bay.
You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.