Our most consistant pitcher of the year took the hill for this game, that being Matt Harrison. Matt wasn’t terribly strong, but hung in there long enough to get the win. He came out of the game before the end of the sixth, but he did have the lead for the required five, so Matt notched his 16th win of the season. He’s having quite the season, so I thank the Atlanta Braves again for that load for Mark Teixeira.
Matt went 5.2 innings, allowed five hits and three walks – bit too high on the walks for innings pitched. He did strike out half a dozen though, and allowed just two runs. As I didn’t see this game (or hear it), I’m not entirely sure why he came out, but it worked out in the end. The Rangers ran a lot of relievers out there in this one:
- Ogando, 1.1 IP
- Adams, 0.2 IP
- Uehara, 0 IP (just one batter, got single)
- Scheppers, 0.1 IP
- Nathan 1 IP
Still, only Adams allowed any runs, although one of them was Uehara’s fault, despite being credited to him. But you can’t argue with the bottom line, which was a win. It got Harrison his 16th. I don’t think there’s enough starts left for him to get to 20, but whatever he does from here, he’s got a great season individually to look back on here.
Offensively, the Rangers had eight hits put together in combination with three errors by the Indians for six runs. The bulk of this came in the second inning when we put up a fourspot, which was fairly messy. Look at this: error, lineout, single, double, wild pitch for a run, walk, sac fly, double, fly out. Definitely messy there.
We picked up a couple more runs in the fifth and sixth. The fifth was a ball that was hit by Adrian Beltre, and was initially called a double. It was reviewed and called a home run, which was cool. The last one was scored on a double and a single.
But overall, while we got some help from the Indians (two of the runs were unearned), it was nice to get a win. Never turn those down.