I have to say, after the first inning of this game, I was concerned. We were in Boston, and we went down 2-0 to the Red Sox in the first inning, when Colby Lewis looked rather pedestrian. The bottom of the first started with single, home run, single. Then Colby kept it together, even after allowing another double. Those two runs in the first three batters were all he allowed on his ledger. After the first, Colby scattered four hits from innings 2 through 7. He never walked anyone, and struck out seven; throwing a total of 107 pitches in seven innings. Right on target. Despite the way the game started, it was a rather well pitched game for Colby. The kind of thing that gets forgotten about when your offense has twenty one hits and eighteen runs!
When there’s that much offense, one could write a few thousand words about it easily. But I’ll go over some of the highlights:
- Every Rangers starter had at least one hit. The only ofers were the late inning subs. Of those three, one of them got in on the hit parade, too (David Murphy). One of the ofers did get an RBI, however (Ab Gonzalez).
- Every Rangers starter scored at least one run. The only ofers were the same subs. That matched up perfectly.
- Four guys had three hits (Gentry, Napoli, Cruz, & Hamilton).
- Two guys had four or more RBI’s. Napoli had 4, and Hamilton had 5.
- Three doubles in the game (Cruz, Kinsler, Andrus)
- SIX home runs! Two by Napoli, one each by Michael Young, Adrian Beltre, Josh Hamilton, & Nelson Cruz.
- Michael Young was just 1-4, LOWERING his average to .356
- Josh Hamilton continues to jack up his asking price, by holding his batting average over .400 (.413)
- Mike Napoli’s torrid stretch here has raised his average to .207. At the rate he’s going, he’ll be at .300 by the weekend.
After the game, the Sox sent down Mark Melancon.
Koji Uehara replaced Colby Lewis in the 8th, and gave up the third run – a solo home run to Adrian Gonzalez. Speaking of Gonzalez, he led several former Rangers in this game. I knew Saltamacchia was their catcher, so that wasn’t a surprise. But I had forgotten (or didn’t know) that Vicente Pidente was throwing out of the pen for the Red Sox. And he was his former self. Gave up a couple of runs on a home run ball. :)
Gotta love this 18-3 bombing of the Red Sox. I knew I was up for a fun game, when I saw the game on mlb.tv’s replay. When you play the game, you see the markers for each half an inning. The marker for the top of the 8th was HUGE – so I knew a lot happened that inning. While you don’t get the score that way (they can be hidden), things like large inning markers tell you something happened. :)
Personal note: There’s a fellow in my church, an older (well, older than me) guy who loves to talk baseball with me. When he saw me on Wednesday (I’m writing this Thursday), he pointed at me from across the room and said emphatically “18-3!” Was pretty cool. I envy this guy, as he saw guys from the 40s play that I would have paid money to watch.