I think most Rangers fans (myself included) were looking forward to being able to say they swept the best team in baseball. It might go a long way to shutting up a lot of people who say the Rangers aren’t really a good team because we can’t beat good teams. 3-0 against the Rays at this time in the season would have been a huge deal. We have to settle for saying we took the series 2-1 against them, which isn’t bad by any stretch, but it’s not a sweep.
I missed this game due to other family commitments, but when I saw the score on ESPN, I wondered who was pitching, then I saw why we lost. Rich Harden started. In all fairness, most of the line wasn’t his fault. He only allowed three earned runs (4 total) in his work, but his work stopped at 5 innings. 111 pitches. Good Lord, Rich. That’s way too much. Even Rangers Captain would have a better pitches per inning ratio. Heck, Mark Clark was pretty bad when he was here, but even he isn’t that horrendous with pitches thrown.
Sigh. Nice to see Joaquin Benoit make an appearance. I still wish we would have hung onto him. I think Benoit & Oliver in the bullpen would have been a nice “old timers club” for the Rangers. Oh well. :)