Kevin Millwood finally pitched the way his “#1” tag says he’s supposed to pitch. Seven innings, seven hits, ZERO runs, ZERO walks, five strikeouts. A great outing for Kevin. What’s sad about 2007 is that he’s our team leader in wins. WITH FRIGGIN’ TEN! TEN! Kevin is making $7.5 million this year, so that’s $750,000 per win this year, assuming he doesn’t get anymore (he’s got what, one more start – maybe two)? Anyway, it was a great outing today – it’s just a shame we didn’t get 15 of them this year. Benoit & Wilson also worked they way they were supposed to, as opposed to the guys wearing #36 & #53 the last two weeks or so.
The Orioles pitcher (Jon Leicester) wasn’t all that bad either, really. Eight innings, seven hits, three earned runs – a quality start. This was just one of those games where one pitcher was better than the other. Surprisingly, it was the Rangers pitcher on the better side of the ledger.
Michael Young went 1-4, now needs five hits in the final six games. Barring injury, this should not be a problem.
The last week of the season. Bummer.

I was pretty darned sick on Saturday, and as such, fell asleep two separate times on this game. Due to that, I’m claiming illness and not writing about this game. :) A couple of quickie remarks, though:
Nice to see 20HR from Kinsler. The 20/20 thing is cool.
1/5 for Mike Young. Six more to go.
The Orioles starter’s name was one of the more bizarre ones I’ve seen in awhile – Radhames Liz.
The first O’s reliever wasn’t much better; he’s an ice cream flavor – Rocky Cherry.
The pitching mostly sucked in this game.

I actually had a ticket to this game, and had left early to go to the game. However, 5 minutes after driving away from work to head there, I felt sick, so I turned around and came back. I’m currently trying to fight off an oncoming fever, and I knew if I drove out to Arlington, sat out there, I’d feel utterly miserable by the time the end of the game came around. I was right, half way through watching the game, I felt sick. Ugh.
I did miss a good one. I really did want to go to the game for two reasons. First was the calendar giveaway. Second was the fact that Luis Mendoza was starting; I wanted to see him in person. He got his first major league win, even if he could have pitched longer than he did. He only threw five innings, for a total of 71 pitches, giving up just one run on four hits and a walk. It has been theorized that he was on a pitch count given it’s the end of the season, and he’s pitched more than he’s pitched before. Possible, but it’s always an eyebrow raiser when you take out a guy for no injury for no other apparent reason. Mike Wood followed up with two scoreless frames.
However, CJ Wilson & Joaquin Benoit followed him, and while their lines don’t show it, they weren’t really that great. CJ gave up just one hit, no runs, and no walks. However, only 8 of his 16 pitches were strikes, and it felt he was constantly in trouble. Benoit was worse. A walk, a hit, and another walk loaded up the bases. Benoit threw 22 pitches in all, and 13 of them were balls. Blech. He lucked out by allowing just a sac fly, and then a strike ’em out throw ’em out to end the game. If you saw Baseball Tonight on Friday night, there was a look that Roy Halladay had watching his game fly away to the Yankees. I don’t imagine Mendoza was quite that crazed looking, but one wonders how much Mendoza was thinking “Aw no, not that again”.
Still, we got the win 3-2. Can’t argue with the bottom line, I suppose. Nelson Cruz, getting a rare (lately) start, jacked a big home run into the left field seats for his highlight of the game, going 3-3 in all. Michael Young got one hit, so he needs 7 more for 200.
Nice to get the win, although I was disappointed I didn’t get to go.

You know, after I issued the statement saying I was going to stop, I actually feel like writing again once I made the decision to take a break when the season is over. Except today. I feel like I’m coming down with a fever, and the brain is like pudding today. So I’ll just have something really short about Thursday’s game.
The bullpen blew it. Simple as that. I hate 10 inning games, we almost always lose.
Two hits for Michael Young. He’s at 192 now. Nine games to go.

So much for that thought from the last game. I said we needed to run the table to finish at .500. Forget it. Best we can do now is 80-82 if we run the table; again rather unlikely to happen. Rangers lost.
In what was probably his final start of the season, and if Evan Grant has anything to do about it, his final game as a Ranger completely, Vicente Pidente appealed his suspension, and having only thrown to (or at) two batters the other day, was “fresh” enough to make this start. (An explanation for my usage of Pidente is here. So out he goes. Five innings, 97 pitches, three hits, three earned runs, but five freakin walks. So yeah, he deserved the loss. You know, assuming this is his last start of the year, it means it cost us $1.5 Million for each of the six wins Pidente got in 2007. Course on the other hand, that’s the same number as Roger Clemens has this year, and he’s making several truckloads of dough. :)
Andreas Galarraga (whoops, Armando – anyone else have that flashback every time Armando pitches) was the only other pitcher the Rangers used. He went three innings. Four hits, one run, 2 walks, 2 k. Not bad. I’m sure he’ll be in the mix for the pen in the spring, although I think it’s probably going to end up in AAA.
Offensively, we had seven hits in all. None by Mike Young who still needs ten for 200. David Murphy, who is more and more looking like a real option for a front line starter in ’08 led with two hits; a double and a single. Marlon Byrd had a double, and all the rest were scattered amongst other players. Cat had a home run, but that was the only RBI of the night. The box score seems to show a rather flat team. In fact… Our old buddy Brad Wilkkkkkkkkerson has earned the golden sombrero for this game by striking out four times! Thanks for making me bust out Photoshop to edit the sombrero image for you buddy. ;)
Now I didn’t watch the game, I was at my bowling league night. The game was on, but is almost impossible to pay attention to, so I didn’t see any of Pidente’s outing. I did see the remark by Adam over at Lone Star Ball this afternoon that said this:

Was listening to the game tonight on the radio.
Vicente Padilla walked Garrett Jones (a rookie hitting well below .200) after starting out 2-0 with a couple of what Eric Nadel referred to as “blooper balls.”
Nadel wondered, after the walk, why Padilla would throw two of those in a row, at the start of the count, to someone like Jones.
Victor Rojas said, “Because Padilla is the biggest mental midget in the major leagues. He just doesn’t get it.” Rojas, a couple of batters later, said it was “pathetic” having to watch Padilla, and that if he were Ron Washington, he’d pull him and tell him to start serving his suspension if he didn’t want to be out there.
I’ve never heard a home team’s announcer be so harsh about one of the team’s own players.

I wish I had heard that. It’s the kind of honesty we haven’t heard since Tom Grieve was busted saying rude things about Hideki Irabu a couple of years ago when he thought his mike was closed, and it was not. It’s really REALLY nice to see that kind of honesty from a broadcaster. In reading around today, I see a few remarks from fans that seem to think it means that Victor is going to be fired over it. If Victor is fired over that, I’ll seriously protest, that’s the kind of thing we should be ENCOURAGING from our broadcasters, not shirking away from. The story went that Vince Cotroneo was let go before Vic because Vince didn’t want to be a “team cheerleader”. In emails I’ve had with Victor, I’ve gotten the opinion that Victor doesn’t like being a cheerleader either, and one would think they would have asked that coming in. I really hope nothing happens to Victor over this. It shouldn’t. It better not.

Another game by Kevin Millwood that was wasted by one of his teammates. This night it was an unusual source, it was Michael Young, who had three errors in the field. That’s highly unusual for him, he’s usually a rock. But three. Ewww… That had a lot to do with the two unearned runs that got charged to Kevin’s ledger. Take those away, and Kevin had a pretty decent night. 6.2 innings, only two earned runs (four in all). Bit too many hits (ten). Walks weren’t too bad (two), but no strikeouts. Pitch count was 110. Bill White finished the seventh, and Littleton pitched the 8th. In all the pitching wasn’t bad at all for Texas tonight.
The problem was the three errors by Michael Young. But even worse than that were the 13 men left on base. I don’t have an exact count by inning, since I didn’t score the game, but there were several innings late where we left men on base. We had bases loaded and one out in the sixth, and hit into a double play. We just couldn’t get the job finished offensively.
The best moment was probably that play where Nick Punto was thrown out at third. It was awesome. David Murphy picked up the ball that had stuck to the wall, tossed it to Ian Kinsler, who threw one of the most perfect relay throws I’ve ever seen. It was so perfectly thrown, that Travis Metcalf didn’t have to do anything, Nick Punto just slid into his glove, and he was out. It was quite spectacular. Ian Kinsler also made a great diving play in the game, but I think the Murphy to Kinsler to Metcalf outfield assist was a far cooler play.
Michael Young did get three hits, which gives him 190 for the season. He needs 10 hits in the final 11 games to get to 200. The way he’s hitting, it doesn’t seem like it will be a problem, but one never knows for sure.
Also, this was our 81st loss of the season. If we still want to finish at .500 we have to run the table, and go 11-0 to close out the season. That is unlikely to happen. :)