No commentary from me. No time.

Kason Gabbard took the hill in this game, and looked pretty decent. He got in a bit of hot water in the third, but got his way out of it. Not so much in the fourth when he gave up the first run of the game on a hit to Donnie Murphy. Gabbard gave up a single to Piazza and then a home run to Mark Ellis in the sixth after setting down the previous four in a row, and 7 out of 8 before the Piazza single.
The bottom of the sixth was a big one for the Rangers. It started off with a Cruz walk, and then a rather interesting play on a screaming liner by Jason Botts. It forced Cruz to dive back to first, that was an odd looking play, we almost ended up with two runners at first. Then Cruz was doubled in by Saltamacchia. Gerald Laird then doubled in two runs, knocking out Chad Gaudin (who I dropped from about four fantasy teams I had him on before the game). After the pitching change, Ramon Vazquez bunted Laird over to third, which seemed a bit of an odd move in the middle of a big inning. Frank Catalanotto then doubled in Laird. Then a real puzzler, the A’s intentionally walked Michael Young to get to Marlon Byrd. It ended up working, as Byrd grounded out to third, ending the inning, but it worked – we scored four runs.
Kason Gabbard came out of the game in the top of the seventh after a pretty decent line. Six innings, three earned runs (technically a quality start), five hits, three walks (too many), and four strikeouts. Way too many pitches, though – 107. Still, six innings is doable.
Wes Littleton came on, and was completely ineffective, allowing all three runners to get on base, leaving for Frank Francisco with the bases loaded. But Francisco navigated his way out of that mess, and did not allow anyone to score. I know how that feels, the Rangers have done that. Nice to have it happen for us, as opposed to against us. Francisco just mowed ’em down in the seventh. Cust flied out, Piazza struck out, and Mark Ellis grounded into a fielder’s choice. Into the eighth, Dan Johnson lined out, and Marco Scutaro flied out. Those five outs in a row came on just 12 pitches. Donnie Murphy’s at bat end that with a double, followed by an RBI single by Curt Suzuki, followed by a home run by Shannon Stewart making it 7-6, a close game again. Frustrating outing by Francisco, as he was totally dominant his first five batters, and then totally not the next few after that.
The Rangers did add one in the bottom of the 8th, and had a chance to bust it wide open, but just settled for the one.
That was it for the A’s, though. CJ Wilson came in and pitched the rest of the game, not giving up any runs, and getting the save. Kason Gabbard got his first win as a Ranger, and his first in Texas.
Random comment: Jason Botts just looks gigantic at the plate. :)

I have to say, once we fell behind 6-0 in the first inning, I lost my desire to watch the game. I’ve had enough of that kind of crap inning as a Rangers fan, and the prospect of sitting through another game hoping and praying we’ll catch up was not one I was looking forward to. It got worse once we got to the third, and went down 7-0. By this point, I was flipping channels, and started watching Baseball Tonight, and also watched more of the Nationals Giants game than the Rangers game. That kid the Nats ran out there (John Lannan) looked pretty good on the hill against Barry Bonds (and the rest of the Giants).
Anyway, the Rangers did pick up a three spot in the bottom of the third to make the game a little more palatable. Two scored on a Sosa Texas leaguer to left, and the other on a Marlon Byrd single.
As bad as the first inning was for Rheinecker, I have to give him some credit for battling, and staying out there for five innings. Really, other than the grand slam in the first, he wasn’t THAT awful. Now there’s no good way to say giving up six runs in an inning is a good thing, but innings 2-5 were pretty decent. Shine’s off the shoe a bit regarding that honeymoon feeling when he was called up, though.
In the bottom of the eighth, we got the bats going again and got closer. We scored three. The first two were on a Jason Botts home run (which I’m sure had every Newberg fan and Jamey himself probably too excited for their own good), and a groundout by Kinsler, scoring Salty.
The bottom of the ninth was led off by Michael Young’s first home run in three months (to tie it and go to extra innings), and then two innings later, Michael Young led off the inning by getting his first ejection of the season, followed quickly by the first ejection of Ron Washington too. Ron looked pretty darned mad. I know managers can get mad, but Ron seems like one of those “nice guys”. Nice guys can get seriously mad when they do get mad. Makes me wish I could lip read, there was a really good closeup of the argument on TV.
Mike Wood (4IP), Joaquin Benoit (1IP), & CJ Wilson (2IP) were all great out of the pen, keeping the A’s off the scoreboard. Then in the 13th, came in Willie Eyre. I had that feeling of doom. I’m not a real big fan of Eyre, and my feeling was upheld. Eyre gave up two runs in the top of the 13th that lost us the game. Shame, as it was a great feeling coming back from down 7-0 so early.
A few amusing things… Regarding Marlon Byrd, when did this thing start I saw on TV where everyone was “doing the Bird”? I don’t have a problem with it, it’s rather cool, but I can’t recall seeing it before tonight. Also, I saw on TV that Saltamacchia had his own “Hank’s Homies”. Forget right now what they were called, but it was “Salty’s Shakers” I think. That’s nice to see so quickly.
Bonds is still at 755. I’ll probably be flipping between channels again tonight to see if he hits 756. I know it’ll be all over SportsCenter, Baseball Tonight, and every sports show and website from here until the end of time, but there’s something about “seeing it live when it happens”, that makes me want to flip channels. :)

I’m not going to say much about this game. I’ve been sick, and haven’t felt like writing, I just wanted a marker page. :)

I wonder if Alex Rodriguez’s 500th or Barry Bonds’ 755th got our boys to forget about this mess any easier.
This was another game my TiVo blew it on (I need to check my settings), and when I turned it on about one hour after the game started, I figured they’d be into the fourth. They were just starting the second. And we were already losing 6-1. Oh well, time to head back to the Xbox for some more “The Bigs”.
The Rangers site’s story on this game has the headline “Eyre can’t stop bleeding for Rangers in loss”. They’re right. From what I see from the recap, it was a mess. Look at this:
– R. Johnson singled to shortstop
– L. Overbay walked, R. Johnson to second
– A. Rios doubled to left, R. Johnson scored, L. Overbay to third
– V. Wells doubled to deep left, L. Overbay scored, A. Rios to third
– F. Thomas homered to deep left center, V. Wells and A. Rios scored
– T. Glaus walked
– A. Hill flied out to center
– G. Zaun singled to deep center, T. Glaus to third
– J. McDonald sacrificed to pitcher, T. Glaus scored, G. Zaun to second
– R. Johnson struck out swinging
All in the first inning. Bleargh. Eyre’s overall line was just atrocious. 2.1 innings, six hits, seven earned runs, two walks, two strikeouts, and two home runs. And they said they pitched him because they thought he’d do better than Mike Wood, who didn’t arrive until really late at night and was tired with short rest. I can’t imagine it being a whole lot worse. Actually, I can, but I tell myself that so it’s not as bad. AJ Murray gave up the other two runs in his 2.1 innings of work. Littleton & Francisco followed, and did stop the bleeding, but it was done.
Offensively we weren’t too bad, with eleven hits (one double, one triple, one home run, eight singles). But with two home runs by Frank Thomas, and the early lead, this one was over immediately, really.

I missed most of this game due to family events. Building a block building with my little girl seemed more important than watching the Rangers game tonight. But still, I’m a Ranger fan, so I had to say something about the game after checking out the box score.
The Rangers scored early, putting three on the board in the first two innings. This was powered by a Nelson Cruz triple (scoring Cat), and an Ian Kinsler single (scoring Vazquez & Laird). Unfortunately, this was offset by another pedestrian opening by Kevin Millwood, who allowed three runs to the Blue Jays in the first inning (single, walk, single, double). Kevin’s overall line wasn’t too awful – those were the only runs he gave up. However, too few innings (four), too many hits (eight), and WAY WAY WAY too many pitches (96) combined to kick Kevin out after the fourth. We only used one other pitcher this evening (Jamey Wright), who also went four innings, and gave up three runs to Toronto in the sixth.
Jamey’s appearance in relief will keep him from starting on Saturday. Instead, we’re calling up Mike Wood from AAA to start in place of Kameron Loe who is going on the DL with some back pain (although it doesn’t seem serious from reading about it). Nothing terribly bad here, but I have a “meh” feeling about it.
Offensively, we had one triple (Byrd), and eight singles scattered around the game. Halladay went 6, giving up four earned runs. Not exactly Cy Young caliber stuff, but it was enough to beat us this Friday evening.