In a turn of events that I thought at the time probably made Randy Galloway pretty happy, the Rangers bullpen blew the game again. I figure he was just waiting for them to get home, lose a couple, and go “See – I told you so”. That’s part of the reason why I never listen to him on the radio. I think if we actually won the World Series, he’d complain about it. Anyway…
Brandon McCarthy pitched OK. Wasn’t lights out, but was decent enough. Enough that you didn’t feel afraid with him out there. Six innings, five hits, three earned runs. Technical quality start, but the fact that he didn’t embarrass himself or the team is major progress for the man that wears Mike Schmidt’s old Phillies number on the back of his Rangers uniform. CJ Wilson got back on the horse, and threw 1.2 innings of shutout ball after his debacle the previous game. Frank Francisco came in during the eighth and played four out closer. He wouldn’t have gotten the save, but the idea was we win it in the bottom of the ninth. That didn’t happen, and we went to that very very scary land. Rangers extra inning baseball. It’s enough to make you think that Michael Jackson is a good babysitter. Eddie Guardado came in to pitch the 10th inning, and he pitched like CJ Wilson did the previous night. 2/3 of an inning pitched, four earned runs on four hits (one of which was a home run) and a walk. Not good. Warner Madrigal mopped up with a scoreless final out, but the damage was done. We were down in extra innings. Not good.
What got us there offensively was pretty good. We started off the game early with three solo home runs. Michael Young, Nelson Cruz, & Chris Davis all hit home runs off of starter Alfredo Simon in the first inning plus. Simon then left the game with some sort of injury. He also took with him the Rangers offense. That was it for our offense through four relievers who shut the Rangers down from innings two through nine. Nothing. Seems to be a recurring theme at the moment. Usually teams like getting into other teams’ bullpens. Not us in 2009. When we get to the bullpen, we are usually done. We weren’t able to piece anything together until the 10th inning. At that point we were down 7-3. We did manage to get two runs across, and loaded the bases too for Josh Hamilton. The stage was set, and we didn’t deliver. Extra inning loss. That’s bad enough, but we had managed to get an offense going there. Just not enough to get over the hump, which was fairly annoying.
Also, Omar Vizquel’s deke in the field was quite smooth. Enjoyed that.
Michael Young was 3-4, raising his average to .355.
David Murphy is still struggling, his average is a donut still.