Looking a lot like the pitcher that the Phillies gave up on and shipped to Texas, and NOT like the pitcher that the Phillies threw against Texas a few seasons ago, Robinson Tejeda took the hill on Sunday night in the finale of the series against the Indians. He was not particularly good. Robinson went five innings, giving up 5 hits and five walks. He also gave up five runs (3 earned), and struck out four. I know we’re trying to stick with guys to let them learn, but he’s had 46 major league starts in his career with Philadelphia & Texas. One would think he’d be a little more consistent by now.
Willie Eyre was nothing much to write home about, either. He went two innings, giving up five hits and a walk, and three earned runs. Blech. His ERA (4.33) isn’t that horrendous, but I can’t say I feel very confident when he takes the hill.
Offensively, we had just seven hits this game; three of them by Marlon Byrd. Byrd certainly seems to have played himself into the Rangers long term plans, assuming he can keep up most of his current pace. I don’t think anyone expects him to bat around .370 all the time, but he hasn’t embarrassed himself offensively or defensively. Odd that I started this story talking about a failing former Phillies player, and now talking about a failed Phillies player who is seemingly making it here.
Gerald Laird was hit in the hand with a pitch, and it didn’t look pleasant on television. Hopefully it’s not something bad which will require a DL stay. We all know what happened to Laird the last time he went on the DL. Barajas, eh?
Lost the series to the Indians 3-1. That wasn’t fun.

I didn’t see much of this game, because I was busy feeling sad for myself. My computer at home broke yesterday. It’s a doorstop now. Because of that, I had to go buy a new one, and I wasn’t in the mood to watch baseball – I was playing a new football game on my Xbox 360.
However, I did see the first inning, where the Rangers jumped all over Cliff Lee. We scored five in the bottom of the first on a bunch of hits that never seemed to stop coming. In all that frame were three singles and three doubles. And then we only got three more hits the entire rest of the game. One big one was a triple by Marlon Byrd in the bottom of the seventh (which I also saw when flipping by between games) that gave us a more comfortable lead after the Indians had crept back into the game during the last few frames.
Jamey Wright didn’t give up a lot of runs in his performance (3 total, only 1 earned), but he had an obscene pitch count – was at 82 after just 3.1 innings. Way way WAY too much. Of course, his giving up six walks (!) might explain that.
Interesting that two players most folks expected to be out of here (Sosa, Gagne) both came out publicly saying that they wanted to stay here. Read there’s talk of an extension for Gagne. I wouldn’t be opposed to that, assuming he stayed healthy.

For eight innings, the Rangers were completely closed out of this game offensively. Cleveland pitcher Fausto Carmona tossed eight brilliant innings, giving up no runs on three hits with three walks and seven strikeouts. Was an outstanding performance. Not much else you can say about that.
Brandon McCarthy wasn’t too bad either, although he was nowhere in the league that Carmona was. Brandon tossed 5.2 innings, giving up the three runs the Indians got (two came on a home run to Travis Hafner). He walked three, struck out four, but still had too high a pitch count (100 in his 5.2 IP). But not all that awful, either. Problem again was Carmona.
Our bullpen, a strength this season, was good again. Wilson, Benoit, & Feldman all tossed scoreless innings, allowing just three hits combined (and one walk). That was a good outing for the Rangers pen. Perhaps they had a good outing at the rectangular table before that. ;)
We did make some noise in the botom of the ninth against Cleveland closer Joe Borowski. We scored two unearned runs on a few miscues by Cleveland. It just “felt” like they were trying to hand us the game. However, we couldn’t finish off the job, and left the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, after scoring two and then loading them up. Oh well.

Maybe it’s time to send Kam Loe down to AAA for a couple of hours to recharge his batteries. In his second straight mostly “meh” start, Kam looked positively Chan Ho Park like. Loe went six innings, giving up six runs on six hits, while walking four. He threw 97 picthes, which wasn’t really bad pitch count wise, but you can’t find much good in those numbers. Heck, he even has three sixes in a row in his line score. ;) Seriously though, it was not a well pitched game for Kam.
CC Sabathia though was the first starter to get to 13 wins. He too went six, giving up three earned runs (four overall), and only had one walk.
Offensively, we had a decent amount of hits (12), but couldn’t get enough together to score more than 5 runs. Brad Wilkerson had two hits (one was a double), Ramon Vazquez had three hits (one a double), and Gerald Laird went 2 for four (one was a home run).
The message I get from looking at this box score is mediocre (at best) starting pitching for the Rangers coupled with an inability to drive in runs (Ranger batters left 16 men on plate, although the team total was lower than that) leads to another loss. That would be our 54th loss of 2007; it came in game 96 of the season.

Kevin Millwood had one bad inning. The second. In that inning:
– N. Swisher walked
– M. Ellis singled to left, N. Swisher to second
– M. Kotsay reached on fielder’s choice, N. Swisher to third, M. Ellis to second on pitcher K. Millwood’s throwing error
– M. Scutaro singled to center, N. Swisher scored, M. Ellis to third, M. Kotsay to second
– B. Crosby walked, M. Ellis scored, M. Kotsay to third, M. Scutaro to second
– K. Suzuki struck out swinging
– T. Buck hit sacrifice fly to center, M. Kotsay scored
– S. Stewart singled to right, M. Scutaro scored, B. Crosby to third
Not a good inning. However, even if none of that happened, it wouldn’t have mattered. Oakland pitchers Lenny DiNardo and Santiago Casilla were totally dominating. DiNardo started, and went seven innings, giving up just three hits. Casilla relieved, went two innings, gave up just one hit. That was it. No walks, no runs, no nothing. The Rangers had four hits total. Two of them were doubles (Metcalf, Wilkerson) and the others were singles (Hairston, Young).
Not much Millwood was going to do against that. Still, his line was’t all that bad, really. Six innings, 3 hits, 4 runs (although only one was earned). Walked three, which isn’t great, but not entirely horrible, either. So Millwood has continued his good pitching since his return, but he got screwed by his own throwing error.
It’s definitely one of those “tip of the cap” moments.

The top of the lineup certainly came through for the Rangers this game. Kenny Lofton went 3 for 5 with a walk, and scored two runs. Michael Young went 5-5 with a walk, scored once, and drove in three runs. In fact, Lofton got a triple on the first pitch of the game, and then Young doubled him in on the second pitch of the game, so we led the game extremely quickly.
Sosa couldn’t come through here – I believe he came up twice with the bases loaded and two outs. I wonder if we’re going to be able to get anything for him at all. Sosa left eight runners onbase himself. Bleh. He did have a sac fly at one point, but leaving eight isn’t exactly getting the job done.
Other than Young and Sosa, the other RBI’s were by Laird, Vazquez, & Hairston. No home runs in this game, plus two doubles (both Young), and one triple. We had 12 singles – so it was a low powered attack, but it got the job done.
Robinson Tejeda was out of the game before the end of the fifth, going just 4.1. The usual problem. An obscene amount of walks (six). Four hits, 3 earned runs, two of which came on Jack Cust’s fifth inning home run).
Ron Mahay got a save in this game – I wonder why we didn’t use Gagne – perhaps needed a day off.
Speaking of Gagne, there’s a lot of noise that he wants to stay here past 2007, I wonder if that’s something we’d realistically consider.

Kind of busy at work today to write. But I have to admit to being surprised at the performance turned in by Jamey Wright. Very impressive.

This is another game I didn’t get to see much of. The game had started by the time I got home from church due to a meeting regarding a new church we’re building. By that time I flipped on the tube, and saw we were down 4-2, and I sighed, turned the TV off, and played some more of “The Bigs” on my Xbox 360. I benched Teixeira there, and he didn’t complain about it. :)
McCarthy was OK in looking at his line. Six innings, six hits, 2 walks, 4 strikeouts, and 3 earned runs (four overall). The pen was good this day, throwing quite a lot of innings (5 overall with five relievers). They shut down the Angels, and allowed us to win the game.
We won on a home run by Mark Teixeira that just barely qualified as home run – it appeared to be aided by a fan in the replay I saw.
Still, a win is a win. Something we don’t do much in Anaheim much anymore.