I didn’t get to see much of this game due to my projects still going on – I was swamped with several big ones all at once, so the Rangers site took a back seat. But I did see some of this one.
This game qualified as a back and forth game. We’d score, they’d score. That happened several times, so it was one of those games where you figured it was going to come down to something small happening late.
Vicente Padilla started the game, and his line tells you it wasn’t a particularly well pitched game. One one hand, he pitched into the seventh, which is good, but then you see he gave up six of the Angels 7 runs on 10 hits, ad one walk. Also for a guy who gets strikeouts, he had zero again. That’s a bit of a concern, I would think. He gave up one home run, a two run shot to Garret Anderson. Mike Wood came in and pitched 1.1 innings of scoreless ball. Frank Francisco finished up, and got the loss. He wasn’t really terrible, as he gave up just one hit and two walks. But they were bunched, so that didn’t help.
Offensively, we had a bunch of hits. Ian Kinsler led off and had three hits, all of which were good solid hits. He looked good. Michael Young also had three hits, and is going to need several more of those to get back to 200 hits. He’s at 163, and needs 37 in 27 remaining games. Definitely doable, but will need several three hit games to accomplish that. Jarrod Saltamacchia had two hits (one a double). Ramon Vazquez also had two hits, so it was nicely spread out. Nelson Cruz had a solo home run in the 7th. We did leave nine men on base, and with 14 hits total, there was definitely opportunities
Random remark: Our old friend Darren Oliver got the win as he was the pitcher of record in the 10th.
Another remark: Scot Shields is one of the better relievers out there. Wouldn’t mind having him, but I somehow feel that Joaquin Benoit can be that way – which is quite an accomplishment given how many times in the last 4 years or so his job hung on by a thread.
Final remark: Nice to see Ron Washington extended. Would have preferred it be for more than one year, but I’ll take it. Makes you wonder if that was done in part for Torii Hunter. We’ll see.