G63: Rangers take the Silver Boot with 6-1 win

Kevin Millwood continues to roll along in his attempt to play 2009 like he played when he was with Cleveland. Another strong outing of seven innings, just four hits, three walks, six strikeouts, and more importantly just a single earned run. Which came on a fifth inning solo home run by Pudge. Millwood looks really great, and you have to start wondering if he’ll get consideration for the All-Star game. I mean in mid June he’s 7-4 with an ERA of 2.62. He really does seemingly deserve consideration for the All-Star staff. That will seem quite weird, having a good Rangers pitcher in the All-Star game. If he does get in, you know it will garner more attention for us, as the announcers will go on about “The Rangers? Pitching?” To that, Jason Jennings followed up with two scoreless innings of his own to cap the victory.
Offensively, the Rangers were led by Ian Kinsler, who had two solo home runs – one in the first and one in the second. He also had a third hit (single), and scored on that hit, too. Nice night for him, after being in a slump for awhile. Kinsler wasn’t the only one with home runs. David Murphy also had a solo home run in the third. The three home runs were half of our runs. Michael Young also had a couple of RBI’s in the game, and Marlon Byrd had one, too. The hits were not very spread out. They were mostly bunched at the top of the lineup. Five of our nine hits were from the first two batters. The other four were from the fifth and sixth place batters. So nine hits were from four batters. The other five took ofers. The win was nice, the balance was not.
This officially claimed the silver boot for the Rangers for another season. I like playing the Astros, but does anyone really care about the boot? Outside of when we play the Astros, you never hear about it.