No time to write about this game.
This is a marker page so the schedule page will have the proper score update.

No time to write about this game.
This is a marker page so the schedule page will have the proper score update.

No time to write about this game.
This is a marker page so the schedule page will have the proper score update.

Josh Lewin takes a lot of grief from some of the so called “hardcore” (read: no fun) fans that follow the Rangers. But I think even they have to recognize that one of Josh’s strengths is his wealth of fiddly and useless media knowledge. He also has a quick wit, which allows him to make really good off the cuff funny remarks. Such was the case yesterday when right after Ben Francisco gifted the game to the Rangers, Josh called the play “A Ben Francisco Treat”. My mind immediately leaped to the old “Rice-A-Roni” ad jingle, which is probably what Tom Grieve did too, as he was laughing at the time.
This game started off on paper to be a slaughter. Doug Mathis (who was not good first time out) was making his second major league start. He was going up against CC Sabathia (who is generally good to dominating). I was expecting a slaughter. But Mathis stuck with Sabathia. Mathis gave up a first inning run, and that was IT! Doug was quite good, going six innings in all, giving up seven hits and three walks, but only the lone run. Doug Mathis looked quite good this game. Shame he didn’t get the win, he certainly pitched well enough to deserve it.
Our pen was strong too, not allowing any further runs for Cleveland. Frank Francisco bounced back from some “meh” outings with a good one here, Jamey Wright threw two scoreless, and CJ Wilson got the save in the 10th, his 10th of the season.
Our offense was fairly limited, but we got just enough for the win. Our first run came on an Ian Kinsler smash down the left field line for a solo home run in the sixth. We had a few small rallies not go anywhere, until the 10th inning. That’s when Ben Francisco, playing right field for Cleveland paid us back for his good offense Saturday. Ben let a single by Ramon Vazquez get through his legs and go all the way to the wall. That allowed Jarrod Saltamacchia to score on the play for the second and winning run of the game. I didn’t think Francisco really misplayed that ball all that bad. Most of the time balls that get by a guy to the wall are really misplayed, and you can tell. This one he did all the right stuff, and it STILL went through his legs.
Still, I’ll take the Rice-A-Roni treat for the win.
On to Tampa Bay (still at .500), where I’m sure we’ll hear a LOT about Josh Hamilton’s time with the Rays.

Saturday’s game was the much ballyhooed meeting between the top batting average guys in the AL (Hamilton & Bradley) against the top ERA pitcher in the AL (Lee). Cliff Lee didn’t pitch like the guy who had a sub 2 era. He walked four, gave up seven hits in his 6.2 innings of work, but just two earned runs. That’s more like Lee, but he walked a lot, which was very uncharacteristic. The Rangers couldn’t capitalize, though. We had no power in this game, of our eight hits overall, just one was not a single; it was a Byrd double.
We did score two runs as I mentioned. Those were RBI’s by Ian Kinsler & David Murphy. Of the walks, three of them were to Chris Shelton, who wins the Heinz Ketchup “patience” award for this game.
Nice defensive moment when Marlon Byrd threw out Michael Aubry at the plate.
However, this game was decided on a three run home run by Ben Francisco in the third inning. Scott Feldman started this game for Texas, and was pretty good. He was getting good pitches, but had a couple of mistakes – and they cost big. One was this home run to Francisco, the other was another home run to Jhonny Peralta in the sixth. If it wasn’t for the home runs, Feldman could have beat Cliff Lee and the Indians; not to be.
Oh well, was one of the games that falls under “Yeah, I would have liked to have won, but we pitched well, got beat by a really good pitcher, can’t complain too hard about that one”.

This was a night when there was precious little good pitching to go around. The fact that we won was no small feat, given how frequently we tried to give the game back to Cleveland.
We got out to a 4-0 lead after the top of the first, then immediately gave back two runs. Cleveland made it 4-3 after two, and then we exploded, going up 11-3. Safe? Not really. We gave three of those runs back in the bottom of the third. While we were never behind, I never felt this game was out of reach for Cleveland.
Kason Gabbard (2.2IP, 4H, 6BB!!, 6ER) was bad. Frank Francisco wasn’t that great, either (1IP, OH, 2BB, 2ER) – both the walks Frankie gave up scored. Granted, Eddie Guardado let them score, but still, Frankie shouldn’t have walked the guys in the first place. Jamey Wright was the only guy without a real blemish, going two scoreless innings to finish the game. Gabbard just stunk.
Coming into this game, I thought we’d have a hard time scoring runs. Fausto Carmona can be quite good, and his ERA coming in shows that. Turns out he had to leave in the third right after a bang bang play at first, where it appeared on the surface he hurt himself covering first. However, if he was hurt from the start, it might have explained his performance (2IP, 5H, 3BB, 6ER). Still, we’ll take it. And we needed it.
Jorge Julio followed Carmona, and was worse than either starting pitcher. 1.2IP, 6H, 3BB, and 5ER – including a grand slam to Jarrod Saltamacchia, which was the highlight of the seven run third.
What was cool about that home run was that my daughter had been watching most of the game with me up to this point. Without prompting, a few minutes before this, she asked to see a home run. I told her that it wasn’t up to me, the players had to do that. But as soon as anyone started running, she thought it was a “home RUN” due to the word run, obviously. But when Salty’s slam came up, I got to show her a real home run, so this home run will be the first “baseball moment home run” between Daddy and his daughter. I’m starting to EXPLAIN BASEBALL TO MY KID. This was the first time I got to do this when she was old enough to actually “get it”. Was a major daddy moment for me.
David Murphy had yet another double – his 19th (which leads the majors). Speaking of doubles, the Rangers set a franchise record for most doubles in a game. They had nine, which broke the old record by one. The breakdown was Murphy (1), Hamilton (1), Bradley (2), Vazquez (3), Kinsler (1), & Saltamacchia (1). The only other extra base hit besides these pile of doubles was Salty’s grand slam. Every other hit (seven others) were singles. Every Ranger starter had at least one. The only Ranger player not to get a hit was Marlon Byrd, but he never got a plate appearance, so that didn’t count.
The reason Byrd was in was because Milton Bradley got ejected again, for the second time in three games. He’ll probably hear about that from Selig’s office. Not that he probably cares. :)
We’re back to .500 ball with this win at 25-25. Josh Hamilton went 2-6, which lowered his average to .335, and dropped him out of the AL lead in batting average (to Joe Mauer, who is now at .338). If Josh had held the lead, it would have set up something for Saturday night’s game which would have been great to see. That being the leader in batting average vs. the league leader in ERA (Cliff Lee; 1,37). Still, the Rangers have two of the top three in batting average (Bradley’s third). That will be a battle against Lee.
I will have something to say about Tom Grieve shortly. I feel it deserves its own post, not to be buried as a “oh yeah” remark at the bottom of the game story, like a lot of other people have done.