Well, three games to go. I was at this one, as I tend to panic when there’s single digit games left in the season, and I need to go to them. :)
RA Dickey was all over the place with his knuckleball, and didn’t have any kind of control in the first inning, and it cost him. He gave up two runs in the first, and it could have been a boatload more. It was an ugly inning. He actually settled down until the fifth when it fell apart again, and he gave up three more runs. Edison Volquez, one of the relievers also tanked, giving up two runs in 0.2IP. Ramirez, Shouse, & Feldman also pitched, and were good. Problem is that John Lackey was a lot better. He only went 5 innings, but gave up no runs on three hits. Kelvim Escobar followed that with two shutout innings of his own. We only got a run against former Ranger Esteban Yan.
We only had 5 hits this game, and two of ’em were from Kevin Mench. Unfortunately, none of them were from Mike Young, so his hitting streak stopped at 25 games. He’s almost assured of winning the batting title, unless he has a complete ofer the rest of the season, and Arod gets like 15 hits.
On the really good side, Alfonso Soriano stole second base and then third in the same inning, and became the only 30/30 guy in Ranger franchise history.
I didn’t think Soriano stealing was a good thing. I was at the game, and as soon as he got on base my kids and I agreed among ourselves that he was going to try to steal as many bases as he could. It was obvious. Why? Not because the situation on the field called for him to steal (we needed more than just a couple of “smallball” runs), but because he wanted to reach that 30/30 milestone. He’s a selfish player, and stealing those bases was just one more case of him being selfish.
What I’d like to see is him running out every hit, and concentrating enough to make the routine plays in the field. I won’t be holding my breath.