In a game that took four hours and fifty three minutes, the Rangers finally prevailed, and got back in the win column. But not for a lack of trying to give the game to the Jays. Jack Benoit had a bad outing, giving up three runs (only two earned – uh oh, another error!) in his one third of an inning of work. Oddly enough, Benoit was credited with a hold. His successor on the hill (Wes Littleton) was charged with the blown save, despite not giving up any actual runs of his own. I mean I know WHY this happened, it just seems odd. That’s all.
Kason Gabbard started the game, and pitched well. I thought he deserved the win, actually. Six innings, seven hits (OK, a few too many), and two walks. But only two runs, which was the important part. This felt like the first week of the season again. Not the sharpest pitching outing, but certainly effective, and enough where he should have gotten the win.
Toronto burned through their entire pitching staff (save for the other starters), I believe, including finishing up with AJ Burnett which threw the final inning.
When you have a 14 inning game, you get some weird stat lines. One of the weirdest is Milton Bradley, who shows as going just 2 for 3, but with FIVE walks. Michael Young was 2-8, and Josh Hamilton was 4-7. Some weird sounding numbers there. :)
We had seven doubles in all (Catalanotto, Bradley, Botts, Hamilton, & Young), with two of the guys (Catalanotto & Hamilton) getting two each. Jason Botts finally broke through for his first hit of the season; a solo home run in the fourth. Frank Catalanotto also had a home run, he had a good day overall (3-7 with three runs scored, and an RBI).
Unfortunately, our men left on base problem continues unabated. The team left a total of NINETEEN men on base. Granted, it was a 14 inning game which helped that number a bit, but even if take out the average of that for the extra innings, we still left over a dozen men on base. That’s not good at all. The individual left on base numbers were downright nauseating. There were FOURTY ONE men left on base by individual batters. The worst one was David Murphy, whose numbers were 11 in that department. Ugh.
This night’s entry in the Bad News Bears Rangers fielding clinic was Ben Broussard, who had a throwing error.