A lot was made about the fact that Arod tied Jimmie Foxx for 14th on the all time home run list at 534. But what I found far more amazing was the fact that Jason Giambi got a triple in this game! If ever there was a time to use Chris Berman’s NFL quote of “Rumblin, Bumblin, Stumblin…”, that was it. Speaking of Giambi, when did the Yankees allow facial hair again? I thought that was verboten with them. As long as I’m at it, Giambi’s ‘stache looked sillier than the promo pictures for Ramon Vazquez & Frank Catalanotto for 2008. :)
The Yankees only got four hits total this game. That’s the story of this one. The Yankees’ offense was shut down. Of the four hits, it was for the cycle, amusingly enough. There was a single by Benji Molina, a double by Jorge Posada, the triple by Jason Giambi, and a home run by Arod. Arod’s home run was pretty titanic, it cleared Monument Park – quite a shot. That was Feldman’s only mistake of the night, but to a guy who should be the eventual home run king is nothing to feel too bad about.
The Rangers didn’t exactly tear it up offensively, either. They had just seven hits, and Michael Young had three of those. Two of Young’s three hits were doubles. In fact, four of our seven hits were doubles. Our first run scored on a Josh Hamilton single to right, which scored Ian Kinsler. That gave Josh his 80th RBI of the season. Our second run, and the winning run was plated by Chris Davis, the second game in a row where he did that. Davis’ RBI was on a double to deep right field.
Nice caught stealing by Saltamacchia, throwing from his knees. His defense has looked better since Laird got hurt. If Salty keeps improving, one might think Laird would have a bit of deja-vu. That would be the second time he could conceivably lose his starting job when someone else came in and played great while he was on the DL.
Bit of bad news for Eddie Guardado. He had to leave the game after not throwing a pitch at all. He appeared to get hurt during his warmup tosses in the eighth inning.
It was nice to see Scott Feldman get a win – he should have many more. We continue to not score runs for him, but this time at least we managed to keep the other team off the board.
We finally got to two games over .500. Seems like such a “lofty goal” that we reached, even if it is just two games over .500 – know what I mean?
Anyone else want to see Chris Davis stay at first base for good, and pretty much be done with Catalanotto, and forget about this idea of Blalock being a first baseman? I don’t think Hank is back in 2009 anyway.

Chris Davis came to the majors with quite a fanfare. Well, at least from those of us who have a knowledge of the Rangers’ minor league system. On Sunday, he delivered what turned out to be the winning run. Davis hit a home run in the second inning, which gave the Rangers a 2-1 lead at that time.
That was the only run of the second inning, and we had just a lone run in the two frames surrounding it, too. The first inning was a leadoff triple by Ian Kinsler who was grounded home by Michael Young. The third inning run was a Michael Young double, who was brought home by a Josh Hamilton single. That was actually it for awhile. The Rangers didn’t score again until the bottom of the eighth, when they plated two on an RBI single by Ramon Vazquez, and a fielder’s choice by Michael Young.
The Rangers were up against former Ranger pitcher Jamie Moyer, who is still chugging along quite nicely at 45. He’s one of the few players left in MLB older than me, so I notice that. :) Moyer’s line wasn’t that bad – 5.2 IP, 7H, 4BB, 3ER. Well, the walks weren’t good, but 3ER in just about six innings isn’t horrendous.
Problem for Philly was that Eric Hurley was good. He gave up just one earned run in his 5.2 innings of work. This was enough to get his first major league win. Our pen followed up with 3.1 innings of scoreless relief to give the Rangers a series win, and take them back over .500 again.

This was the pitching duel I wanted to see. Vicente Padilla vs Cole Hamels. Both are pitching pretty good this season. Funny thing is, it’s not what we got. Hamels was better than Padilla was, but wasn’t outstanding himself.
Cole Hamels went seven innings, giving up six hits and two walks. This for a total of four runs, although he did strike out eight. Hamels was more streaky, as he gave up two runs in the first, then nothing for awhile, and the other two in the fifth. He seemed to dominate better than Padilla did (or did not as the case may be).
Vicente Padilla gave up more. In his six innings, he gave up seven hits and three walks. Seven earned runs. He wasn’t helped by the long ball – two of which he gave up. Both home runs were from guys you’d expect that from. Chase Utley & Ryan Howard. But Padilla was not the same guy who we’ve seen this year. Whether it was facing his former club, or the heat, or he was just “off” tonight, it wasn’t the real good Padilla we’ve been seeing in 2008.
Offensively, Michael Young did something he hasn’t done a ton of the last two seasons, hit a home run. He had a two run shot in the first inning, which was his seventh of the season. Kinsler & Young definitely had their sticks going – both went 3-5 this game. The rest of the offense was scattered amongst the lineup – Kinsler/Young were by far the standouts.
We did make some noise late when we tried to catch up – we scored a few in the bottom of the 8th against Chad Durbin, but couldn’t tie it up there. In the bottom of the ninth, the Phils brought on their closer Brad Lidge, who has returned to the lights out closer he used to be in his early days in Houston. Even then, we got a couple guys on, which brought up both Josh Hamilton & Milton Bradley. Both had the chance to win the game with a walk off home run – which I think everyone was hoping for. Didn’t happen. Lidge struck them both out.
Great defensive moment when Jimmy Rollins was gunned out at home plate trying to get an inside the park home run. Watching the play develop, I thought it was a no doubter, but then the throw came in better than I thought, and Rollins was nabbed on the hand – had he slid in with his hands down, he would have scored, actually.
This was a really good game. I was there, didn’t care for the rain, but the game itself was a good one – while the Rangers only led briefly in the bottom of the first, it had that “back and forth” feel to it. Enjoyed this one.
It rained almost the whole game. Started in like the second inning, and had various degrees of intensity through the rest of the game, but it never stopped. Praise be to God that it stopped when the game was over, so we didn’t get soaked going to the car, and more importantly that nobody had to deal with the rain in the crush of cars leaving the park.
Also, a random comment. If you’re going to take your kids to the game and teach them about baseball, that’s great. Don’t also teach them things like “Hey, dumbass – that wasn’t a strike!” There was a moron sitting behind my brother and I who was doing that. Loved he was teaching his kids the game. Didn’t love he was teaching his kids the ugly side of being a fan, too. Do you really want your kids growing up like Craig Bueno? Come on, don’t do stupid stuff like that.

Well, my brother flew in from Philadelphia to go to this game (and the other two as well). So we headed out, picked up our tickets from will call, and hit our seats, which were right behind first base. Got to see the tail end of Phillies batting practice, and watched all the pregame stuff. It was a weird feeling for me, both seeing my hometown Phillies at Rangers ballpark, and also having my brother with me at the game.
Anyway, both starting pitchers (Kason Gabbard & Brett Myers) pretty much stunk up the joint. Ian Kinsler got it started early with a solo home run to lead off the bottom of the first. That wasn’t so bad, really. The score was 1-0 going into the third inning. Then it seriously bogged down. The Phillies scored five runs in the top of the third – the big shot there was a grand slam by Pedro Feliz. The Rangers had walked Pat Burrell intentionally to load up the bases and get to Ryan Howard. On the surface that would seem like suicide, but Howard’s only batting about .210 at the moment. He struck out. But then Feliz hit a slam over the wall in left, giving the Phillies a 5-1 lead. Gabbard actually survived that inning into the fourth, but not much longer than that (only one more out).
The bottom of the third inning was started by Brett Myers, but he never got anyone out, and was pulled after several batters reached. It continued with Clay Condry, Philly’s long man, who gave up the first major league home run to Chris Davis, who it it the other way over the left field wall. That was pretty cool to see in person.
In all there were six longballs in the game, three by each team. Milton Bradley had one that hit the right field foul pole. There was the aforementioned ones by Chris Davis and Ian Kinsler. The Phillies had three too, one being the Feliz grand slam. Chris Coste had one in the fourth, and Jason Werth had one off of CJ Wilson to start off the ninth inning – not what you want to see when you closer comes in.
Still, the Rangers managed to hang on and win the game, getting yet again one game over .500. They try tomorrow to get two games over, which has been a major problem all season. It will be a great pitching matchup – Cole Hamels against Vicente Padilla. That’s the pitching matchup I was looking forward to the most this weekend. Hope it lives up to the billing.
One other thing was bats tonight. There were three bats that flew into the stands, including the third one which was a broken bat off the hands of Josh Hamilton. That bat hit a woman about 10-15 rows in front of me or so. She ended up leaving the game with a VERY obvious limp – she was hurting. Was funny, as soon as they started flying, or any bat broke in the field, you heard a ton of people around me shouting “MAPLE!” – not sure what the means, but the world maple is starting to be synonymous for “broken bat”.
Here is a sideshow of pictures I took at the game tonight (including several of Chris Davis). If you want to see larger versions of the pictures, you can reach the photo gallery here.

Friday’s game is the halfway point of the season. We head into that game at (wait for it) .500 again, after having dropped the finale of the series to Houston, 7-2. We fell behind bigtime very early, and were never ever in this game.
Millwood gave up a three run triple in the first inning up onto the giant hill of grass in center field, and then in the second inning surrendered four more runs. Kevin was just a mess. He actually threw five innings total, but his first two were so bad, it gave him a line that was bad even if you factor in the three scoreless innings he did pitch. All told, Kevin gave up twelve hits and three walks for seven earned runs. Raised his ERA over five (5.08) – just bad. The only positive to the pitching was that Josh Rupe, Jack Benoit, & Jamey Wright all had scoreless innings to follow, but it didn’t much matter at that time.
Wandy Rodriguez for the Astros threw gem of a game against us, and even if Kevin had given up just a few runs, it wouldn’t have much mattered. In his eight innings, Rodriguez only gave up a single run on five hits. The run that he did give up was in his last inning pitched on a single to Ian Kinsler. We were pretty much shut down all game. There was one surprise hit though – a double by Kevin Millwood. This ends NL Interleague for the season, and our pitchers did pretty well as a group with the stick.
Josh Hamilton & Milton Bradley were in the game, but neither factored into what little offense we did have, and Hamilton had to leave the game after the first inning when he was hit in the hand by a pitch. Anyone else having visions of him being elected to play in the All-Star game, but not being able to?
This ends the Silver Boot series for 2008. Every year someone writes about this – if you recall, the Rangers were making a big stink about getting out of the AL West and going to the AL Central to be more in tune with the time zone we’re in. That was apparently going to happen, and Tom Hicks let Bud Selig off the hook by accepting a guaranteed series each year against the Astros, keeping us with a lot of 9PM game starting times. This was supposed to become a big rivalry, but it hasn’t happened. I do like seeing us play the Astros, that part is nice, but the rivalry is a non issue. The most telling thing of all was the quote by Michael Young about the silver boot that the Rangers won (again on run differential, as the series was 3-3). Young said, “I could care less,” shortstop Michael Young said. “They can keep it for all I care.” That your “face of the franchise” player said that about the boot tells you all you need to know. As much as I like the Astros games, I think I’d rather be in the AL Central with more realistic starting times for my inter-division games.
Philly comes to down for the first time ever. My brother is flying in from Philadelphia, and we’re going to be at all three games. Yeah, I’ll be wearing Phillies shirts – it’s not often I get to see my home town team live. I’ll probably do the thing where I wear a Phillies shirt, and a Rangers cap. Probably won’t see too many of those in the park. :)

I’m still pretty tied down with work, and since I wanted to get this done before the next game starts, I’m going to have to resort to something quick.
1) Scott Feldman can’t catch a break. On a game he doesn’t pitch terribly well, the team goes on to win a low scoring game. They can’t score for him when he pitches great. Go figure.
2) CJ Wilson really feels like John Wetteland in that he gives you a heart attack before getting the save.
3) Welcome Max Ramirez! Not only did he get his first major league hit in the game, he then went on to get his first home run, a two run shot that turned out to be the game winner. That was really nice to see!
Tonight is the rubber game for the series, and for the overall Silver Boot. I should have some time to write about that one tomorrow.

Still busy with the project from yesterday, no time to write.

I was sitting down to write recaps for the weekend’s games and was handed a project by my boss, so I will have to pass on this game.
Nice to see Pidente get his 10th win – probably could be a candidate to be an All-Star pitcher, but the last time he was, there was a tie in the All Star game. :)