Well, day one of this series had a major thrashing of Texas by Toronto. Day two was a doubleheader that we swept, but lost Michael Young. So what would happen for an encore on the third day? Well, some good, and some bad.
The good was that we won the game. That gave us the series 3-1, and on top of that, we gained ground on both Boston & Anaheim, as both of them lost their games, too. As of the end of the day, we were now just 3.5 games behind Anaheim, and 2.5 games behind Boston for the Wild Card. That’s a pretty good feeling.
The bad was that Josh Hamilton came out of the game, with what was described later as lower back soreness. I spotted that when he ran out the double, he wasn’t running terribly hard, and after he did get to second, it took him awhile to stand back up, he was in obvious discomfort. So I wasn’t surprised he came out at all – although the TV announcers seemed to be.
Tommy Hunter took the mound for Texas, and while he wasn’t lights out like he’s been in a few starts lately, he did decently. Certainly enough to get the win, which he got – his seventh of the season. Tommy went 7 innings, giving up five hits (two of which were solo home runs), four runs on a couple of walks. Not exactly dominating, but a decent outing. He did come out with just 86 pitches, which was a low number for seven innings. Not entirely sure why he came out when he did, really.
Chris Davis handled third for this game, but he’s not expected to be the regular third basemen while Michael Young is out. That’s expected to be a mix of Omar Vizquel & Esteban German; mostly Vizquel.
Offensively, Nelson Cruz had the best night, going 3-4 with two RBI and two runs scored – one of which was on his six inning home run. Hank Blalock also had a couple of hits, and the remainder were scattered amongst the Ranger bats; nobody else had more than one. There was another home run – a solo shot by Elvis Andrus, and a double from Josh Hamilton. But not a lot of sustained power inside innings, as evidenced by the 1-1-2-2 score breakdown for us.
Jarrod Saltamacchia was activated off the DL – he still needs his surgery, but he’s being carried as the emergency catcher, and as a pinch hitter – he’s not expected to catch again in 2009 unless something goes very wrong ahead of him with Taylor & Pudge.
We’re 75-58 with just 29 games to go. If we do well in Baltimore and Cleveland (like sweep both, which is possible), we’d come back home 81-58, and that would guarantee us at least not to have a losing season. But realistically, at the rate we’re playing, I’d like to see them do way better than just that. WAY better.