I started listening to this game on my headphones. I had to mow the lawn. Since we bought our daughter a sandbox for her third birthday, I can’t let the grass in the back yard slide as much as I might have in the past, since she plays out there. Don’t want the fire ants to hide behind tall grass, eh? So I’m walking around the back yard listening to all the pre-game, as well as the start. The team made all the claims that last night was “behind us”, but you all know that Padilla will be on the mound, so you wonder if he’ll plunk someone – he’s pretty good at it. :)
Anyway, this game was quite good. Scott Feldman, who seems to be making some good first steps at becoming a starter took the hill for the Rangers. While it’s hard to judge how effective a pitcher is by listening to the radio sometimes, one gets the feeling that he was pretty decent. Obviously, his line spells that out, but I didn’t see how the pitches were moving, that kind of stuff. Speaking of Feldman’s line.. Six innings, two hits, four walks, but (something you probably already know) ZERO runs allowed. Feldman was followed up by Jamey Wright, Joaquin Benoit, & CJ Wilson. All of which threw a single frame of (again, scoreless) relief. This was Feldman’s first win of the year, and it continued in the line of great pitching we’ve received lately. This makes two great outings in a row for Scott. He was great in Oakland last Sunday as well when he got screwed over by a dropped ball – one of the “non error errors”.
When I was out mowing the lawn, Brandon Boggs took a dive into the left field wall, and from the sounds of it on the radio, he smacked his knee in a rather unfortunate place in the left field wall. As you can see in the picture above, there is a very small place where you could do this, so Brandon was unlucky in that he hit the really small spot. It knocked him down; he was on the ground for awhile, but stayed in the game. I did see the latter parts of the game on TV; they showed Brandon’s parents and sister (who seemed bored quite frankly, unlike his mom). I bet Mom was a bit freaked out during that.
Anyway, the following inning, Brandon erased any doubt over whether he was really hurt or not by jacking a home run into the left field seats for a 1-0 lead. This kid really has earned his spot, and I cannot see a reason why we’d send him back down now. With his emergence, did anyone see a regular outfield of Brandon Boggs, Josh Hamilton, & David Murphy at the start of the season? I didn’t. These guys are all doing very well. I rather hope they don’t try and shoehorn someone in (Cruz) to get at bats “or a look”. The guys out there now are doing great, and should stay there until they prove otherwise.
Boggs’ home run was all we really needed, but he didn’t stop there. Boggs had two other RBI’s when he doubled in the sixth inning, scoring Bradley & Hamilton. Boggs had a great line tonight – he went 3-4 with a run scored, and three RBI’s. Not bad when your parents are in the stands at all. :) The other run was driven in by league leading Josh Hamilton who went 2-4 this game.
It’s three shutouts in a row. It’s thirty one innings in a row of shutout ball by the staff. It’s quite a pitching feat, even more so that it’s from a team that is not known for this kind of stuff. Kevin Millwood goes on Saturday to see if the streak can be continued.
Richie Sexson is still gutless for throwing his helmet. Should have been more than six.
What do we do with the outfield when Byrd comes back? All three of them have been playing fairly outstanding but you can’t deny how Marlon produced last year. My guess would be Murphy but Boggs is a lot younger…it’ll be interesting to see what Ron does.