This game was frustrating for several reasons. Most obviously is that we lost the game 2 to 1. It was one where probably should’ve one but we didn’t. One of the other frustrating things that Ian Kinsler got ejected. I didn’t happen to hear that part of the game I was busy doing something else is the time when I tuned him he was already out. Thirdly was Adrian Beltre getting hit with a pitch late in the game and having to come out. Not good.
Martin Perez was called up from the minors as the latest guy to help out in the starting rotation. I wouldn’t say he had a spectacular outing but he did well enough. Six innings, five hits, two walks, one earned run. He left with 98 pitches thrown so he was doing fairly well. Alexi Ogando and Mike Adams both followed with perfect innings of relief.
On the Red Sox side, Clay Buchholz pitched seven innings with just four hits and one run. If you put both sets of pitching together the starters went 13 innings and allowed just nine hits. It’s quite a good performance. That’s part of the reason why the score was as low as it was. While the Red Sox did have two errors it didn’t really factor into the score a whole lot. The Red Sox got their run in the top of the fourth, and the Rangers got theirs in the bottom of the sixth.
One interesting thing about the offense. Of the combined 11 hits that both pitching staffs got for the entire game, all of the hits were singles. There’s usually some extra-base hits in there but not this time – all singles. The Rangers offense was fairly bunched together. Elvis Andrus had two singles, David Murphy had two singles, and Adrian Beltre had one. That was it. Nobody else had any, although Mike Napoli walked three times.
Speaking of Beltre, late in the game he got hit by pitch thrown by former Ranger and “head” enemy Vicente Pidente Padilla. Long time readers of my site know I talked a lot about Padilla hitting people. And while he’s generally lost that reputation somewhat, it certainly came out this game. He hit Adrian Betre in the head in the eighth inning. He had to come out of the game and when the game was over was unknown what his status was. Given we had already used our infield substitute when Kinsler was ejected, when Beltre had to come out it made for an interesting defensive realignment. Snyder came in and played third, Torrealba who pinch ran for Beltre stayed in the game as the catcher, Michael Young moved from first to second base, Mike Napoli went from catcher to first base. Good thing I wasn’t scoring, because I got to stop and pause the game and make sure that was all accounted for.
Mildly amusing that Padilla got booed when he came off the mound at the end of that inning. What makes this loss particularly galling is that Padilla ended up getting the win in the game. :(
Joe Nathan came in in the ninth and couldn’t hold it together – gave up a run in the ninth. And all that was after he’d gotten two outs. So that was not a good outing. The Red Sox are struggling lately; i really hate to almost give them wins like this.
Wednesday night is the rubber game. Derek Holland goes against Josh Beckett. They both seem to have fairly disappointing lines this season. Not awful mind you, but definitely not what either of them thought they would have had in late July.