After doing some yard work tonight (I hate mowing the lawn when it gets hot out in the summer), I decided to sit down and score the Brewers game. I had forgotten they were going to be in town when I bought tickets, so I’m not going this weekend. I couldn’t just pick up and go due to other commitments (family stuff tonight, a dinner at my church with our bishop tomorrow, and company coming over Sunday), so going was out. But I could score the game, as I did want to see the Brewers, so that’s what I did. Lately with them playing so badly, I’ve been less inclined to want to actually sit and watch a whole game from start to finish. I get bored, start skipping forward on the TiVo, generally I can watch a full game in about 45 minutes that way. But this time I watched all of it.
Early on, Robinson Tejeda was electric. He had struck out five in the first three innings, I believe, and other than a home run ball near the wedgie to Prince Fielder, he was cruising early. He looked like what I’m sure Philadelphia was seeing – a good young pitcher with great stuff.
The Rangers got some offense early. We picked up a two spot in the bottom of the second, when Capuano was incredibly wild, walking three in the inning, including one with the bases juiced. We would have had more had it not been for a cannon shot from Bill Hall to gun out Kenny Lofton at home. The fourth was our big offensive inning. Ian Kinsler led off with his first home run in a month, a shot off the top of the left field foul pole. After a couple of more singles sandwiched around a fielder’s choice that Kenny Lofton beat out to stay out of a DP, Mark Teixeira doubled down the line in right to score both Lofton & Young. Sosa followed up with another double, scoring Tex. A nice inning there by the guys who were supposed to be doing this same thing all season long. We picked up another next inning on a sac fly by Jerry Hairston.
Meanwhile Tejeda was cruising. Going into the seventh, his pitch count was low, he was winning 7-1 – it was everything our pitching was not. And then the reality set in. Tejeda’s wheels fell off hard in the seventh, giving up a 5 spot fueled by two home runs (Hart & Braun), and he was out. CJ Wilson came in and k’ed Prince Fielder to end that mess. OK, we’re still up, but it’s not the same game it was before.
We picked up a couple more runs in the bottom of the 8th to make our lead a little wider, but the back end of this game was Aki in the 8th, and Gagne in the 9th. Both Aki & Gagne were perfect, not allowing anything in either of their frames. Gagne started off with two K’s, making the batters look silly. I can just imagine what Los Angeles (the real LA team, not that fake one in our division) felt when he had like 10,000 saves in a row a few years back.
The annoying thing about this is that other than the 5 spot in the seventh, this was the way the Rangers of 2007 were supposed to be all the time. Good offense, Aki in the 8th, Gagne in the ninth. That’s what I mean by we won, despite ourselves. Minor concern that Teixeira came out of the game, hopefully that’s not anything. Course, if he is hurt and is out for awhile, that probably kills all trade talk about him.
Finally, this image is awarded to Victor Diaz who struck out four times (all swinging, too), earning the Golden Sombrero. Josh & Tom were saying that it was just a sombrero for four, and a golden sombrero for five, but that didn’t seem right to me. I looked it up a bit, and found out I was right. Four is the golden sombrero.
08Jun win was 9-6