Today was an interesting day, the Rangers announced a trade for Jorge Cantu, who was announced as a right handed complement to Chris Davis at first base. However, due to 25 man roster considerations, the Rangers called up Mitch Moreland to play first, according to some stories just for this game until Cantu got here. Well, Moreland looked good, went 2-4, and guess what? He’s staying, and it was announced after the game that Chris Davis was going back to AAA. An interesting little circle there.
Speaking of this game, Moreland got his first major league hit in the game (and his second, too). But the first one had some funny video if you were watching. It was a single to right, and when the camera from center field was watching him you could see 4 or 5 players from the dugout trying to get him to do the “claw” gesture, which he obviously wasn’t up to speed on. He eventually got it, and it was a great piece of video. You can see the hit here on mlb.com. There was video of the claw stuff, but I can’t remember where I saw it.
Anyway, Moreland looked good at the start. I feel bad for Chris Davis, as I like him, but all these moves make me think the team has soured on Davis, or at least aren’t willing to wait for him to figure out his bat at the majors.
CJ Wilson got his 10th win of the season, but he was not like he was the last two starts (which were great Cliff Lee like outings). This was a lot more laborious, he wasn’t quick and crisp, his line bears that out. 5.2 innings, 7 hits, two walks, and three earned runs – all with 105 pitches. Not godawful, but certainly not on the good side of things.
Offensively the Rangers were led by Michael Young and Josh Hamilton. Young had four hits, and Hamilton had three. David Murphy had a really long home run (almost totally over all the seats behind the wedgie (Former Section 43). But the big note of the offensive side was a two run home run by Taylor Teagarden, who hit just his second hit of the whole season with that. His batting average was .034 before that hit.
But most importantly, we won the game, and we’re 8.5 games up on Oakland in second place, and 9 games up on the Angels (who are amazingly just 52-52 at the moment). We’re headed out to California for a series with Anaheim. It could bury them if we swept the Angels. What an amazing thought. Don’t think it will really happen, but still.
Any credibility to the thought of wanting the Angels to do better so we don’t feel like we were handed the division title regardless of our record? Or…wanting them to do better so we don’t take the last couple months in stride and find ourselves in a September funk? Just curious.