Led by Adrian Beltre, the Rangers got out to an early lead, and kept it the whole game, although they tried to give it back late. Beltre was 4-5 in this game with two doubles and scored two runs. Only one RBI, though. But when you have a full 1/3 of your team’s hits for the game, then yeah – you qualify as having led the team. :)
Overall, the Rangers had a dozen hits. As I said above, Beltre had four of them. Beyond that, Kinsler had a double, Murphy had a double, and then there were a bunch of singles. We scored a run in the first on a Beltre single. Scored two in the third on a couple of RBI singles by Young & Murphy. We also plated single runs in the 6th & 7th on a Kinsler double, and a Young single respectively. No big “pop” here, just a lot of smaller hits to account for our offense, which is a good thing.
The Indians scored an unearned run in the bottom of the fourth on an Elvis Andrus error. That was the only run that Ryan Dempster allowed. Dempster was quite good, something that’s become a common theme. Six innings, just two hits, three walks, and seven punchouts. The only run was the unearned one. 104 pitches. Tad high, but not bad at all. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by Dempster since he’s come over here. Wonder if we’ll try and keep him.
He was followed by Michael Kirkman, who threw two innings of shutout ball. Uehara came on for the bottom of the ninth, and proceeded to try and give the game back. Allowed a double, then a home run on the first two batters. He got an out, but was replaced by Joe Nathan who came on to finish the bottom of the ninth to get a save.
Pretty good game overall, except for Uehara at the end there.