This bit from the line score summarizes the game.
Four hits
Three errors
That’s about it. The Rangers managed only four singles, and managed to get two of them together in the 9th for the one run we got. We barely avoided the shutout, and given we had just two hits through eight innings, the only story of this game was Trevor Cahill.
Granted, Colby Lewis was good too (7IP, 5H, 1R, 8K) is nothing to sneeze at, but it was not what Cahill did.
Fortunately, the Angels lost too, but they were jumped by the A’s in the standings, and the Angels are currently in third place.
Hats off to Trevor Cahill.

Cliff Lee was freakin’ fantastic! Nine innings pitched. Five singles allowed, no walks, and THIRTEEN strikeouts. He did allow a run, but it was unearned (due to an error by Kinsler when he didn’t cover second on a steal attempt). Nine innings, and 118 pitches. I felt sad for him when we didn’t win it in regulation. He should be perfect in wins and losses since coming here, but we have developed an inability to score any runs for Cliff Lee. I hope that’s not his legacy.
The Rangers went up 1-0 early on when Vlad Guerrero doubled in Michael Young. It sat that way for awhile until the unearned run scored in the top of the sixth, and then there was no more scoring.
Until Nelson Cruz crushed a home run way over the left field wall for a walkoff home run, which is always a good thing.
I was going to go to this game, but I was so beat I wasn’t in the mood to drive to Arlington. Which turned out to be a good thing as I fell asleep on the sofa from 7PM till 8:30PM.
But the Rangers won the game. Which is the bigger deal, but man, you feel bad for Cliff Lee. Really.

Tommy Hunter is now 8-0 in his first eight decisions with the Rangers. That is a record that no other Rangers pitcher has ever had in the history of the franchise. That’s quite an accomplishment, and something to build on. He’s looking like a huge part of the rotation if we go into the playoffs. Six point one innings of work, three hits, three runs, and it’s home runs again – the Angels had two home runs. Still, it’s a quality start, and you just got the feeling that Hunter was all over the game.
Offensively, the Rangers had a nice pile of hits (13), and it was almost all singles, as the only extra base hits were two doubles by Elvis & Chris Davis, and a triple by Josh Hamilton which was a cool one to watch, as it just squibbed over the second baseman, and slowly rolled out to the 407 spot in the right field power alley. As it rolled, you thought perhaps it might be an inside the parker, but he ended up with a two run triple, which was nice to watch.
Feliz made it a little more interesting by giving up a run in the 9th, but still it was all about Tommy Hunter to me, and that’s a cool thing.
We’re up seven games in the West. Wow.

Yeah, we lost, and sadly it was Scott Feldman who started. Unfortunately, we’re at the point in the season where we have to start thinking of removing Feldman from the rotation. We’re at a point where we have a very real shot at the playoffs, and it’s no shock to anyone that Feldman is the weak link in 2010. Which is saying something given how “meh” Rich Harden pitched earlier this season. It’s quite a fall for Feldman, who I think everyone expected to be an Aaron Sele this season, win 21 games or so, and be a huge part of things.
He was not.
This game actually was somewhat better than some of his outings, but still, 5.1 innings, seven hits, one walk, three earned runs isn’t the greatest outing. But he struggles now, and most fans probably don’t have any confidence in him. While the team will never admit it, they might think the same thing themselves.
On top of that, Darren Oliver probably had his worst outing of the season, giving up another three runs in his 0.2 innings of work. This was not the most well pitched game by the Rangers, who have recently been a team with good pitching.
The Rangers only had six hits the whole game, and two of them were solo home runs (Young, Cruz), and even though we got those two, this one felt like one where we didn’t score that much.
We lost.

Michael Young homered in the bottom of the first inning for the second night in a row to put us up 1-0. That was the end of the scoring this game. That was it. The first run was the last.
CJ Wilson was pitching more like Cliff Lee tonight than CJ Wilson. His pitches per inning have been pretty high this year, and was one of the things one had to watch out for when he became a starter. It was 17 and change per inning. This game he was more like Cliff Lee, averaging just 13. Even if Lee doesn’t stay here past this season (rather likely I would assume), his time with our staff this season will be a valuable lesson. CJ went eight innings total, throwing 104 pitches, which is quite good for eight. He allowed no runs on just four hits. All four of those hits were singles, and none next to each other, as NOT A SINGLE ANGEL REACHED SECOND BASE THE WHOLE GAME! I mean – WOW! CJ walked nobody, and struck out just three, but man, four hits, nobody getting to second is quite impressive.
Neftali Feliz closed out the ninth, and at this point my wife came in and watched the last inning of the game. She’s not one to remark on Rangers games except for the highlights (you know, “Chick dig the longball” and all that), but when Feliz closed out the game, she said out loud “That was some spectacular pitching”. She never says stuff like that.
This game was all about pitching. There was not a ton of offense to speak of, what with just one run at all. This was spectacular. And it gave us a seven game lead in the division over the Angels. By far the widest lead of any of the six division leaders.
It’s just a damn good feeling being a Ranger fan at the moment.
Scary moment in the game when Matt Treanor tripped over first base and fell in a heap lying in the chalk line. He had to be helped off the field, and was reported to be back in the clubhouse in crutches at the end. He’s supposed to have an MRI today, but I can’t imagine how he doesn’t go on the DL over this. Even if he’s down just a few days, we need to have a backup catcher on the roster. Shame, as he’s been doing great this year.

Man, on paper this was the game to go to. The AL ERA leader in Cliff Lee goes for the Texas Rangers, and the leader of the Angels, Jered Weaver dueled in Arlington on Thursday night. A battle of aces for sure.
One I wanted to truly watch on TV, and not just use the TiVo FF function to skip the boring bits. Watched it all I did, and man, was it a rewarding game. Cliff Lee continues to be as advertised. I think a lot of Rangers fans are seeing Lee as the saviour, the guy we’re riding high into the playoffs on the back of. I still haven’t forgotten opening day 2009 when Lee was bombed by the Rangers here in Arlington, although he was pitching against us, not for us.
Lee was great, don’t get me wrong, but by his own standards, he struggled just a little. Not enough that your average fan would notice (especially if you look at his line), but he didn’t strike out as many as usual, and he had more 3 ball counts than normal. So it wasn’t a total lights out performance, just a step below it.
Lee allowed five hits, with no walks and four strikeouts. One of the hits was a home run in the seventh (to Mike Napoli). The other run was a double in the fifth that Josh Hamilton almost caught. He made a spectacular run for the ball, and it just glanced off the side of his glove. Had it been just two inches closer, I’d say it would be easily the defensive play of the game. Still, it cost us a run. In the grand scheme of things it worked out OK, but you would have liked to have seen Josh catch that.
Cliff Lee came out for the ninth, and pitched to one batter, and gave way to Neftali Feliz. There was a confab on the mound where Lee was smiling as he was taken out. Feliz needed the experience in this kind of situation too, so I wasn’t totally against Lee coming out, but you would have liked to have seen his streak of complete games keep going.
On the other side, Jered Weaver appeared to be pissed on the mound a lot, there were several camera shots of him coming off the mound and apparently swearing at something. Probably himself for not getting guys out, but he seemed rattled a little by the game situation. Whether that worked in our favor is an unknown, but we did score enough off of him (all three actually) to win the game.
The first one set the tone with Michael Young homering in the bottom of the first inning to go up 1-0. The second one was a double by Josh Hamilton in the sixth which scored Vlad Guerrero. Guerrero himself helped out earlier by legging out his single into a double, which I thought was a bit of a gamble at the time. The third run was scored on a sac fly by Bengie Molina, scoring Hamilton.
The game was tight, was well played, and the Rangers had some nice defense. There were two catches in the ninth inning by Cruz & Hamilton that could have easily fallen for hits. We’re looking like a well rounded team all of a sudden. Offense, pitching, & defense are all there.
Man, it’s a great feeling! Great that Lee got his first win in our uniform, too!

Colby Lewis has been one of the best surprises of this season so far. However, tonight in Detroit, he was more pedestrian. It’s not like he was totally awful, he looked at times to be well, but he labored a bit, and was just “eh”. His mound opponent (Max Scherzer) pitched more like 2010 Colby Lewis than the actual Colby Lewis pitched.
Colby’s line ended up with seven innings pitched with nine hits, two walks, and four earned runs with 103 pitches thrown. Not horrendous, but not a lot like the 2010 edition of Colby Lewis we’ve known so far. He even allowed a home run to former Ranger Gerald Laird, a two run bomb that was a true Detroit home run, not one in front of the old left field wall in the new home run area. :)
Scherzer on the other hand went seven, giving up just four hits and three walks, but more importantly, no runs. Matt threw a LOT more pitches, 123 in all over seven, which is 17.5 an inning on average. Too many. But he got it done where it counted – no runs allowed.
All four hits that the Rangers got were off the Detroit starter. One of which was a triple by Michael Young, and the others were singles by Nelson Cruz, Elvis Andrus, & Ian Kisler. That was it. No other offense to speak of. The one run we did get wasn’t even on one of those hits, it was a ground out RBI by Josh Hamilton in the top of the ninth.
So we were pretty effectively shut down. But still, we took 2-3 in Detroit, and 5-2 for the road trip where I think most people expected 2 out of 7 (or worse). We’re feeling good coming home, even with a series finale loss.