I’ve been going to baseball games for awhile now. First one was somewhere in the early 70’s, around 73 or so, I think. The height for me was when I had a half game season ticket plan with the Phillies back in the late 80’s (for a rather awful team as I remember). It’s been a lot of games watched by this pair of eyeballs. However, I say the best one I’ve ever attended was CLEARLY the Oct 30, 2010 game I attended. That was the Rangers / Giants World Series game at home, where the Rangers won 4-2. I point that out, because there was something in this game that instantly launched me back to that World Series game. I’ll point that out when we get to it.
Matt Harrison started this game for the Rangers, and did pretty well. 6.2 IP, 8H, 3BB, but just 2 runs allowed. 109 pitches when he came out. But he did pick up his 13th win of the season, and is overall having a nice year. He has lost 6, so it’s not been perfect, but a pretty solid year. So long as he doesn’t crash & burn between now and the end of the season, I think this will be considered a resounding success for him. Tanner Scheppers cleaned up the rest of the 7th inning for Matt, going just 0.1 innings. Mike Adams threw the 8th, and allowed a run on a couple of hits. Alexi Ogando pitched in the 9th in place of Joe Nathan (“sore arm”), and got his second save of the season, allowing nothing and striking out two. So our pitching was pretty good this game.
Offensively, the Rangers had just seven hits. Six of them were singles, the seventh, I’ll get to in a minute. The Rangers scored first, plating run #1 on a sac fly by Nelson Cruz. The Royals tied it up in the third, on a run scoring double play (!). The Rangers took the lead again with a couple of singles by Beltre & Murphy (with a few flyouts inbetween). It stayed that way until the top of the seventh.
Michael Young singled to lead off the inning, and after a pitching change, Murphy lined out. Geovany Soto walked, and that put two men on for Mitch Moreland. And that brings us to the World Series moment. Watching his home run swing, it was an immediate flashback to the World Series home run of his I witnessed a couple of seasons ago. Watching that home run and watching this one on TV had the same feel. Was a no doubter three run home run that instantly swung the game, and while it didn’t “technically” end the game, it effectively ended it. Was a very emphatic home run. Swing felt the same, too. You can watch Moreland’s home run from this game via the mlb.com Game REcap link above, and you can watch the World Series home run here (with the footage I took myself).
That to me is the story of this game. Three run home run by Mitch Moreland to decide it. Enjoyed being able to watch that!