I was at this game. Had some free tickets from a friend (thanks, dude!), and figured with it being the Royals, we’d have no problem. The Royals threw out Bruce Chen, a (until recently) journeyman starter who has pitched for several major league clubs (Atlanta, Philadelphia, NY Mets, Montreal, Cincinnati, Houston, Boston, Baltimore, Kansas City, & Texas). His time as a Texas Ranger was but a blip. He pitched just five games here in 2007, all in relief. Left Texas with an ERA of 7.20. In fact, after his time in Texas, he didn’t play anywhere in the majors in 2008.
When he got to the Royals, he wasn’t quote good immediately. Went 1-6 in his first year. Then 12-7 & 12-8 the last two years, so he appeared to have figured something out down there. Still, he’s Bruce Chen and this is the Royals. I did NOT expect Chen to go out there and shut us down. He went 6.2 innings, allowed just five hits and one run. The one run we got was on a solo home run by Nelson Cruz. That was IT for our offense this game. No Ranger had more than one hit. None of the other six hits besides the home run was anything more than a single, and there were only two walks. Pretty much a non showing for the Rangers offense.
The Royals didn’t fare too much better. They had just six hits overall, all singles. Same two walks the Rangers had, but theirs were bunched better, as it plated them three runs.
A bla game to go to as a game, but I ended up enjoying the heck out of it, because two guys sitting behind me were great to talk to. One was visiting his buddy from Canada, and these guys knew their baseball. Was a great treat to talk to them, especially considering nothing was going on in the game.