This was one of those games where you had a sinking feeling as it progressed. There wasn’t any one incident where you go “AHA! – That’s the problem!”. It was one of those where Kevin Millwood was not terribly sharp. He wasn’t a complete pile of suck, but he wasn’t the good Millwood we’ve had this year. The Royals were picking away at Kevin over the game. KC got single runs in the first (Guillen single), fourth (Buck single), and fifth innings (Gordon home run). We countered with a run in the top of the sixth (Hamilton FC), but KC got a two spot in the bottom of the frame (Aviles single, Gathright single), killing any good vibes from the top of the inning.
So we go into the down 5-1, and to be honest, I almost turned off the game. My family went out to a nice dinner at a restaurant downtown with our church group, and by the time we got back, got our girl down to bed, it was late, and I was in a post Mexican food coma in the first place. Good thing I didn’t give in to that, because the top of the eighth was a great inning to be a Rangers fan. It started out like no big deal, with two quick outs (Vazquez groundout, Kinsler fly out). But the the fun began. Michael Young walked, and then the huge break of the game, Josh Hamilton reached base on a fielding error by Mark Teahan at first. It should have ended the inning, but it was allowed to continue. That was the floodgate key we needed, because it was immediately followed by first a pitching change (to Brett Tomko), and then:
Double by Milton Bradley, scoring Young and Hamilton
Single by David Murphy, scoring Bradley
Pitching Change (to Yabuta)
Single by Gerald Laird
Single by Chris Shelton, scoring Murphy
That tied up the game at five, and it was quite a moment. You kind of wanted to take the lead then, especially as there was a walk after Shelton’s single before the final out was made. The momentum was going, and you wanted to take the lead right then. But we didn’t.
We did in the ninth. It was funny, Josh Lewin & Victor Rojas were talking about how the Royals reliever Ramon Ramirez has a habit of uncorking wild pitches. Turns out he was let down by John Buck who had a passed ball, allowing Ian Kinsler to score the winning run, setting off a celebration by Milton Bradley on the base paths that might be one of the most excited things I’ve seen a player do on the field, outside of winning a championship or in one of those walk-off mob scenes.
I did manage to see all this, and didn’t succumb to the Tex-Mex coma I was dangerously close to falling into. :)
I’d be remiss if I didn’t say something about the new giant scoreboard in center field. I mean, this thing was bloody massive! Check out this picture I saw over at the Royals site in the section they have about their overall ballpark renovation:

I mean it’s friggin HUGE! They didn’t even have the crown topper on it – there was a shot of the crown lying in disgust in the dirt out back. But even without that, it’s gigantic! I read a bit about it, and I believe it beats the previous record holders for scoreboard size (UT Austin, San Francisco, & Atlanta). All these giant boards are really making the little tiny thing in our ballpark look like a joke. We need a REAL scoreboard, Chuck. I know it’s not up to you, but we need something that doesn’t make it look like we have a tiny little old black and white 10 inch TV set in comparison. The problem with our park is even if you did have a scoreboard that huge, where would you put it? Can’t put it where the current board is. You’d have to do something like Cleveland did, but we’d have to rip out say Sections 301-306 or so in the ballpark. Not that anyone sits up there except for opening day anyway.
Come on Nolan. Push Hicks into it!

Well, this game had a few rather entertaining moments, both of them involving Rays players. One was the pitcher and catcher arguing on the mound after a home run ball by German Duran. Then we saw footage of the two of them continuing to argue in the dugout, eventually going down the walkway, followed by half a dozen players and coaches. We didn’t see THAT, but one has to assume there was some sort of altercation. Matt Garza (the pitcher) did not return for the next inning. His numbers weren’t all that bad, really (4IP, 6H, 3ER, 2HR), so I have to assume he was taken out due to his actions outside the lines. The second entertaining moment was Eric Hinske being ejected in the sixth inning. The final one was Rangers Captain catching a foul ball. Rather enjoyed that.
This game was also monumental in that it’s the game I finally got my three year old to understand that a “Home Run” was not when someone was running. She used to think a home run was when anyone started running. But I convinced her today that Home Run was when someone hit the ball with a bat over the fence, and then they got to run – that was a Home Run. Enjoyed that parental moment a lot. :)
Michael Young and Josh Hamilton were out of the game for rest, mostly. With tomorrow off, it’s not a surprise that you rest guys on the last day before a scheduled day off. To pick up the slack, we recalled German Duran from AAA so that we could stop with the oddball scenarios that ended up with Gerald Laird playing third. Duran playing third allowed Vazquez to sub for Michael Young, who was ailing.
The offense didn’t suffer a whole lot with two of our top three producers out. David Murphy got it started with a home run in the first inning, pulled right over the wedgie in right field. It stayed that way until the fourth inning, when German Duran jacked a two run home run just to the left of the 400 sign in dead center field, promoting the fracas with Matt Garza. We tacked on another run in the fifth on a couple of walks and a single. A couple more singles came in the seventh (single, steal, single), and the eighth on another home run by Ramon Vazquez.
On the Rangers pitching side, Doug Mathis started for the Rangers. After a wobbly first inning where he still put up a zero, Doug got a lot better. In all, Doug went 5.1 innings, giving up just two runs (both towards the end of his time on the hill), both on a home run to BJ Upton. If it wasn’t for THAT, he would have had a donut up there. But donuts are what the pen put up after him. Frank Francisco, Eddie Guardado, & CJ Wilson followed up and combined for 3.2 innings of shutout ball. Probably the reasons for the shutout were that none of the uniform numbers were 45 or 53.
Anyway, it was nice to get a win to end the series and the homestand. It’s weird, as the Rays are a team we can’t seem to beat. Been a series winning for every series since late April except for the two against Tampa Bay.
We head on the road against Kansas City, who isn’t that great overall, but has Jose Guillen going about as a hot as Milton Bradley right now. Then it’s interleague action for the rest of the month, as we have series against the Mets, Braves, Nationals, Astros, & Phillies before we see the AL again on the final day of the month, in Yankee Stadium.

I was at this game, and despite the heat out there, I was quite comfortable. I was sitting in Section 326, and there was quite an nice breeze going. After third inning, I actually moved UP, and ended up sitting in the absolute last row – there was almost nobody up there, and it was quite nice – very breezy up there. Enjoyed that. One other comment about the ballpark. I don’t like that the Rangers have cut the number of ushers in the sections over the last 5-6 years. When my wife and I first got our season tickets in 1997, there was an usher for every section. You never had to worry about coverage. Not anymore – they’ve been cutting them (to cut operational costs), and there seems to be one for every three sections now. Chuck Morgan’s announcement of “The ushers are now passing through the aisles distributing All-Star ballots” was a lie. They weren’t. As was the other lie that they would collect them in the sixth. I haven’t seen that happen in the upper decks in YEARS. Better check into that, Chuck. I even ASKED the one usher for some All Star ballots, since I never picked any up. He said he didn’t have any (despite seeing them in his back pocket), and then never came back with any for me. Rather poor ushering, actually. In fact, the policy of going to the front of the section to see what the section is doing between innings has gone away in the upper decks. You’re lucky if you see that happen in anything but a handful of sections.
OK, complaining about the ushers aside… It ended up being a good game, even though we lost. Scott Feldman started for Texas, and again was hit with no run support. Scott gave up a two run home run in the second inning, but that’s all he let cross the plate in his seven innings of work. His record is 1-2 in eight starts, but he really should be something like 4-5 and 1-2 at this point. He has pitched better than his record shows. Joaquin Benoit followed him, and is acting like the Benoit of old. For the last year or so, you liked seeing him come out, but not now. He’s reverted to the “Oh crap, here come two more runs for the other team” Benoit of old. Bleargh. Jamey Wright came in for the ninth, and gave up a run, but it was an odd one. Jamey was not paying attention to Jason Bartlett on base. Bartlett stole second, then stole third, and finally scored on what was called a wild pitch by Wright, but looked like a passed ball to my eyes. One amusing thing in the field was due to Michael Young coming out of the game, we had to stick Gerald Lard out at third for the last few innings of the game. My guess is this is why Saltamacchia did not attempt to throw to third when Bartlett was stealing third.
Offensively, the Rangers didn’t do a ton against Andy Sonnanstine. He went only five innings, giving up just two runs. The Rangers managed just nine hits overall, and scattered four runs. However, the bottom of the ninth was the most interesting. Down two, we had Josh Hamilton come up with the bases loaded and got a run in on a fielder’s choice. The Milton Bradley came up, and had one of those really weird plays you never want to see. Bradley shot a ball up the middle, which looked off the bat based on fielder positioning would be a single up the middle to tie the game. However, it pinballed off the pitcher, went to Iwamura the second baseman who threw to first to end the game. Darned frustrating way to lose the game there.
But in all, one of those losses you don’t mind losing, because it wasn’t like 14-3, or your guys do something monumentally dumb. Yeah, we lost, but it was’t for a lack of a fight – that’s what I end up caring about. Did we fight? Did we seem to try? If so, than yeah, I don’t mind losing as much. It’s the 14-3 ones where we have seemingly given up that I don’t usually want to write about.
Also, when leaving, the new road that the Rangers installed between home plate and third base exits was blocked off. There was a motorcycle stunt exhibition going on out there. What was funny about it is I heard NOTHING about it announced inside the stadium during the game. You’d think with something like that, it would be announced. I didn’t stay and watch – I figured that given the way the Rangers have screwed up parking in 2008, the people who stayed and watched that were less people in front of me with their brake lights on.

Despite the final score of this one, it was a pitcher’s duel for the majority of the game. In fact, going into the eighth inning, the score was still 3-1. Last week, we were totally shut down by Scott Kazmir, and he comes to Arlington, and does it again.
Scott went eight innings, giving up just six hits and two earned runs. One of the earned runs was a Ian Kinsler solo home run, but other than that, we didn’t garner much of a sustained attack. Kazmir was quite solid again – in fact, beyond just “solid”. Eight innings, two runs, six strikeouts, no walks. Yeah, he was pretty darned good.
Vicente Padilla came back from the bereavement list to start this game, and he also pitched pretty good. Not as good as Kazmir mind you, but Pidente went six innings, giving up five hits, three earned runs, with no walks and three strikeouts. Vicente’s downfall here was the longball. Of the three runs on his ledger, two of them were solo home runs. You always want to minimize damage by having allowed home runs be solo home runs, but a run is still a run, and when going up against a guy like Scott Kazmir, the less the better.
I actually admit to stopping watching the game after the top of the eighth. Once the Rays went up 6-1, I switched over and started playing videogames. I see from the box score that the pen stunk it up. Robinson Tejeda, who probably is on his last legs with the Rangers gave up three earned runs in his 1.2 innings of work. But the real kicker was Kameron Loe. Oddly enough, Kam allowed no earned runs, but there were a total of six runs scored by Tampa Bay during Kam’s frame. All six were unearned, but UGH. Six runs allowed. Major suckage there.
We had a minor uprising in the bottom of the ninth, but it just took us from being down from ten runs to just eight. We lost this game hard in the 8th and 9th innings.
I did enjoy the games I played on my Xbox 360 though. :)
Oh yeah, Sidney Ponson. I think most Rangers fans expected the Sidney Ponson experiment to end with a streak of four or five losses in a row with 35 runs given up during that time, and an era around eight. That’s not what happened. Sidney was released by the team (technically DFA’ed, not officially released yet) with good numbers on the field. His final stats with the Rangers:
9 Games
4-1 W/L
3.88 ERA
55.2 IP
71 H
36 R
24 ER
3 HR
16 BB
25 K
Pretty darned decent numbers, actually. So the DFA of Ponson came as quite a shock. Officially, the Rangers stated the reason as conduct unbecoming a player, and unprofessionalism (I’m paraphrasing). The link above has some more details.
It’s nice to see in this town that imports players like Deion Sanders, Terrell Owens, Pac-Man Jones, Tank Johnson, and Michael Vick (mark my words, he’ll be here eventually) that a team would have the balls to cut a player for being disrespectful. I applaud that. Too bad the local NFL team doesn’t have the same kind of morals regarding player behaviour in management, otherwise I could probably like them.

This game started off like a lot of games we’re used to seeing the last few years. Down 4-0 before we come up to bat the first time. This latest edition of that no fun piece of baseball comes at the hands of Kevin Millwood. Kevin gave up three doubles and two singles in the first frame, and it tallied up to four runs. Ugh.
To Kevin’s credit, he turned it around, and ended up throwing six innings in all. Turns out those four runs in the first were the only runs he gave up all game. It was actually the only runs the Rangers gave up at all, since the pen (Guardado, Francisco, Benoit, & Wright) didn’t give up any in the three frames of relief they threw. Nice piece of frosting on that remark was the fact that there were zero walks given up by Rangers’ pitching in the entire game. Always good to see that. Even in losses.
Offensively, we were going up against C.C. Sabathia. This year, Sabathia isn’t himself – he’s 3-8 with a 4.81 ERA. He’s a better pitcher than that. Still, he’s a guy who strikes fear into a lineup, despite his troubles this year. We did get to him a bit. CC threw six innings, and gave up five runs (one was unearned), but walked three. He got hit up a bit and didn’t seem overly dominating.
At the plate, the Rangers had twelve hits in all. Highlights were five extra base hits (two doubles, one triple, two home runs), and three hits for both Michael Young and Milton Bradley. Both Young & Bradley had two RBI’s each, but they were topped by Ramon Vazquez, who had three RBI’s (as well as a triple in the game).
Was a nice comeback win. Would have been better if we didn’t give up the four in the first frame, but eh – a win is a win. We’re doing the .500 dance again, can’t get any streaks going long term (in either direction fortunately).