G122: Rangers shut down again on my 40th birthday, 4-2

August 20, 2005 was my 40th birthday. And I spent it sick. Wasn’t a fun day, spent most of it horizontal or at the porcelain altar. The Rangers didn’t fare much better, getting shut down AGAIN for the 11th time in the 12 games of the road trip.
Scott Kazmir, who is a guy I’d love to have (as I’m sure the Mets would too ), shut down the Rangers going six innings, giving up just one run, four hits, and striking out ten. He looked pretty damn awesome. The two runs we got were in the traditional Rangers way, solo home runs (Matthews in 6th, Soriano in 9th). Outside of that, we had just four hits the rest of the game, pretty much were dominated. The game didn’t feel as close as the 4-2 score indicates.
On our pitching side, Benoit seems to indicate he isn’t cut out for starting. He went 5 innings, giving up 4 runs on six hits with 2 walks. Not godawful, but not great, either. Brocail, Shouse, & Loe kept the Rays off the board for the rest of the game, but it didn’t do much good.
Sunday’s game is the last one of the road trip. Probably won’t be any better.
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