Colby Lewis pitched six pretty strong innings, gave up the lead in the…. Nope, not talking about that…
Hamilton hits a 2 run HR in bottom of the 8th to give us a lead… Nope, not talking about that..
Rangers tie it in the bottom of the 9th.. Nope, not talking about that.
Rangers tie it in the bottom of the 11th.. Nope, not talking about that.
Rangers blow the game in the 13th, and lose the game. Which leaves me with just this to say about the outcome.
Shit.

First time I’ve gotten to use my sweep graphic this year! :)
In fact, that’s all I want to say about this one. We swept the series, and we’re in first place!
w00t!

Six singles is all the Rangers got. Elvis, Hamilton, Guerrero, two by Kinsler, and one by Murphy. That’s all we had. But they were bunched together enough to plate three runs, which was just enough to squeeze by the Royals.
Rich Harden was out of Oakland, so he was the regular Harden again. 5 innings, six hits, two walks, and 95 pitches. Not that great. I wonder, given the way some of our roster spots are being passed around if Harden might get dumped if he doesn’t get his shit together before too long. One gets the impression he’ll get replaced by someone else (oh, I don’t know – Ogando or Scheppers) before too long.
Royals starter Gil Meche pitched an 8 inning complete game loss. He gave up the three earned runs, which isn’t bat all over 8 innings, really. Just that the Rangers held down the Royals (which isn’t too terribly hard) for scoring any more.
Was a nice game, but Harden’s performance seemed even more flat than it was due to the performance of CJ Wilson the night before.

This was a great game to watch. However, it can be boiled down to just a few short things.
Vlad Guerrero homered on the first pitch he saw.
C.J. Wilson pitched a complete game. Wasn’t a no hitter, or a shutout or anything, but a complete game is always cool to see these days.
This was CJ’s sixth straight quality start to open the season. If he does it one more time in his next start, he will be the all time Rangers record holder in that regard. Wow.
Bad point: Between Ian Kinsler & Josh Hamiton, the two of them left seven runners on base. Blah.
Really though – this game was all about CJ Wilson’s pitching. Was bloody amazing.

I’m sitting down to check out the rangers game on Thursday night, and it started off like most nights.  Sitting on the sofa after some time has passed so i can fast forward through commercials and the boring bits with TiVo.  my daughter is 5 now, so she’s starting to get more of the game on her own.  I don’t claim that she’s an expert, but she is getting it more on her own now.  The Rangers scored early, and that was good, as she got to see some of it.  She is just 5, so she wants to see offense.  Specifically home runs, cuz after all….   Wait for it….   CHICKS DIG THE LONGBALL!  It’s good because she goes to bed around 8, so most of the game is after her bedtime.   So i told her the Rangers were winning a lot when she went to bed.   I never hot i would have to worry about us not winning the game, as we were up 8-0 after three innings!
She missed Justin Smoak’s 3 run bomb in the Hurd, which capped off the six spot.   The rest of the inning was small ball runs.   Sac flies, singles, etc.   But Smoak’s homer was a no doubt, majestic shot.  Reminded me of some of the ones we’d see out of Lee Stevens or Raffy.   
Matt Harrison started for Texas, and he was ok early on.  Didn’t allow any runs until the fourth when he gave up two on a Billy Butler home run.  Matt then gave up two more in the fifth the small ball way.
It was here that the pitching on both sides fell apart.  The Rangers put up a zero in the bottom of the fourth, and then neither team did the same thing until the bottom of the seventh!   So there was some pretty sloppy pitching in the middle.  It was highlighted by Dustin Nippert, who decided to torpedo his ERA by giving up five earned runs in just 0.1 innings of work.  Bad.  In fact, it was pretty darned sloppy all over the place.  Here..
Top 5th: Kansas City
– S. Podsednik singled to shallow right, M. Maier scored, Y. Betancourt to third
– B. Butler hit sacrifice fly to left, Y. Betancourt scored
Bot 5th: Texas
– D. Murphy doubled to deep right center, I. Kinsler scored
Top 6th: Kansas City
– J. Kendall doubled to deep right center, M. Aviles scored
– M. Maier singled to center, J. Kendall scored
– S. Podsednik homered to deep right, M. Maier and Y. Betancourt scored
Bot 6th: Texas
– V. Guerrero homered to deep left, J. Hamilton scored
The Guerrero home run in the 6th was a total no doubter.  The kind that seems that it will hit the third deck while in flight.  Didn’t really go that far, but it did go to the back of the seats over the scoreboard.   Was most impressive for sure.  When we came out of the bottom if the sixth, we were up 11-9.   Which in itself was good, as we had blown an 8 run lead.  
More long balls, with a two run shot by Callaspo in the 7th to tie it up at 11 again.  Was definitely a sigh moment, that’s for sure.  The sigh crossed the line into frustration when the Royals went up 12-11 in the top of the eighth on an RBI single.   Blah.
In the bottom of the eighth, the royals brought in their closer Joaquim Soria.  Soria is a great closer.  Were not talking Rivera, Hoffman, or Eck here, but he’s darn good.  So much so, that the announcers said that he had given up just 4 home runs all year last year.  So what’s he do pretty quickly?  Give up a solo home run to Josh “I want to believe it’s really him in there” Hamilton.  Josh’s shot WAS impressive; it went almost above the entrance ways I’m the upper home run porch.  It felt great; we’re tied again at 12.   Vlad came up next and jacked the game winning solo home run.  I have to admit it was another fist in the air moment at home.
Not a 2-1 game at all, but man it was an exciting game!  
BTW, this is the first entry written completely on my iPad.  Went pretty well, except I had more corrections to my typing than usual.  Even with the iPhoneOS auto-correct in play.  ;) 

Taking a mulligan. I got too behind, and I don’t have time to write four game recaps.

Taking a mulligan. I got too behind, and I don’t have time to write four game recaps.
Feldman is not looking right this season.

Taking a mulligan. I got too behind, and I don’t have time to write four game recaps.
Rich Harden looked like Rich Harden, though. Hopefully it’s not just a “return to Oakland” thing, and he’s actually figured it out.

Taking a mulligan. I got too behind, and I don’t have time to write four game recaps.
CJ Wilson got screwed out of a win – he had another great outing.