After the first two games of the series, I was feeling pretty good about our team vs the Mariners. But then I remembered that Edinson Volquez was pitching. Now I don’t have anything against Volzquez – he’s a wonderful talent. In the minor leagues. While he’s shown flashes of brilliance in the majors, he’s not had the same kind of success up here – yet.
So I wasn’t expecting a lot when he took the mound Saturday night. He proved me wrong, going seven innings, giving up no runs on just four hits. He did walk three, so it wasn’t as “crisp” as that line showed. But you can’t argue with seven innings of shutout ball. Benoit came in and stunk up the joint – all four runs the Ms have were on his ledger. Bauer & Otsuka had zeroes up there, which kept it a win for the Rangers. But Volquez had a great outing, something that I agree with Mike Hindman on.. It didn’t get a lot of coverage locally.
Offensively, we continued our pile of extra base hits. We got doubles from Gary Matthews & Ian Kinsler. We got home runs from Gary Matthews & Gerald Laird. We had 12 hits in all, so most of them were just singles. Tex was 3-3, Matthews was 2-4, Laird was 2-3. Was a fairly balanced attack. Seven of our nine starters got at least one hit (Blalock & Cruz did not).
There was a 20 minute rain delay in this one. I did not go to the game – I didn’t miss the rain, I hate rain delays. I would have liked to have seen the 1996 “reunion”, however.
Still, we go into Sunday with the possibility of doing something we haven’t done in ages, that being sweep a team in a four game series.

I don’t suppose anyone reading this has an extra Sundberg bobblehead they wouldn’t mind trading for the Mike Young bobblehead from earlier this year, would they? I have a new one of that in the box, and would like to trade. If you would like to do this, drop me an email.
Why did I miss my bobblehead? Well, I left work promptly at 6PM. I work over near Northwest Highway & LBJ in Garland. So it’s a bit of a drive for me, but with a 7:30 game, there shouldn’t have been any problem. Then I got past the downtown Mixmaster after the usual slowdowns before it. I hit the wall. It took me about 45 minutes to go from the main post office outside of Dallas to Cocherel Hill. That’s what, two miles? It was 7:20 when I got past the accident, and fortunately, I got to 30 & Six Flags right as the first pitch was thrown. I parked my car right when the Mariners finished batting in the top of the first, and got inside the ballpark right after Carlos Lee flied out to right, so I saw all the real fun. But yikes, I detest being late for a game with a passion, and right up until the point I broke through the traffic jam, I contemplated turning around. However I was 2/3 there already, and I ended up not missing much.
Good thing I came, as I saw a whale of a game. This game was “over” after four innings. But those first four innings were highly eventful. Kip Wells put up a zero in the top of the first, but a couple of key errors in the bottom of the first kept the Mariners from doing the same. A Ben Broussard throwing error could have been a double play, and then a Betancourt throwing error could have been out three, had the Broussard one not happened. As it was we put up a big crooked line in the first inning; a seven. In all we got seven runs on just TWO hits, as Gil Meche was just abysmal, walking four in the first. In fact, here’s the play by play for the first inning:

• G. Matthews Jr. walked
• M. Young walked, G. Matthews Jr. to second
• C. Lee flied out to deep right center, G. Matthews Jr. to third
• M. Teixeira walked, M. Young to second
• H. Blalock reached on fielder’s choice, G. Matthews Jr. scored, M. Young to third, M. Teixeira to second on B. Broussard’s throwing error
• M. Stairs flied out to shallow left
• I. Kinsler walked, M. DeRosa to second
• R. Barajas safe at first on shortstop Y. Betancourt’s throwing error, H. Blalock and M. DeRosa scored, I. Kinsler to third, R. Barajas to second
• G. Matthews Jr. singled to shallow right, R. Barajas and I. Kinsler scored
• M. Young flied out to deep right

Quite an eventful first inning. Kip Wells was a little wobbly in the top of the second, but didn’t allow anyone to score. Then came the bottom of the second. Gil Meche walked the first two batters of the inning, which prompted Grover to take him out. Gil Meche faced only 13 batters, and walked 6 of them. He threw 54 pitches to get his three outs, 30 of them were balls, only 24 strikes. Again, abysmal.
Blalock then singled loading the bases. Mark DeRosa doubled to right center, but it wasn’t your traditional double, it hung up a bit, prompting the runners to hold up to see what happened. When it landed, it forced the always amusing to watch bit where two baserunners are right next to each other rounding the bases (BLalock & Teixiera). Tex scored, but Blalock was tagged out, denying DeRosa a three run double. Instead he just had two. DeRosa scored a minute later when Matt Stairs singled him in.
The Mariners broke the shutout in the top of the third with a double (Beltre) and a single (Ibanez). Still, we’re doing OK. One run through three is not bad. Then we came up in the bottom of the third, and got the run back immediately, as Carlos Lee annihilated the first pitch of the inning way WAY over the left field fence, past the seats and almost down the walkway behind Section 8 in left. Very impressive looking home run. A couple of batters later, Mark DeRosa had another home to almost the same place, it too was very impressive looking. That gave DeRosa just the triple needed for the cycle, which he didn’t get unfortunately. But he still had a pile of RBI’s, can’t complain about that.
The wheels fell off a bit in the top of the fourth, the Mariners put up their own big ugly squiggly number on the linescore, a 6. Here’s how they did it:

• K. Johjima doubled to deep left
• Y. Betancourt singled to left, K. Johjima to third
• A. Jones doubled to deep left, K. Johjima and Y. Betancourt scored
• I. Suzuki safe at first on second baseman I. Kinsler’s fielding error, A. Jones scored
• J. Rupe relieved K. Wells
• J. Lopez singled to right, I. Suzuki to third
• A. Beltre grounded into fielder’s choice, I. Suzuki out at home, J. Lopez to third, A. Beltre to second
• R. Ibanez homered to deep right center, A. Beltre and J. Lopez scored
• R. Sexson singled to right
• B. Broussard hit by pitch, R. Sexson to second
• K. Johjima struck out swinging
• Y. Betancourt flied out to right

Kip Wells came out in this inning with what we’re told is a foot injury. That’s two injury issues since he’s been here, which has been just a couple of weeks. That’s rather troubling. Not sure what to make of that now, but Wells did get dropped on the one fantasy team I had him on.
In the bottom of the fourth, we got one of the runs back on a Gary Matthews home run into the Rangers bullpen. And that would be it for the scoring, save for a sac fly by DeRosa in the seventh. That was a total of 20 runs in the first four innings for both teams.
I was glad I went, nice to see an offensive explosion in person again, but I did miss getting my Sundberg bobblehead. Bummer. When I was walking out after the game, Sunny was still signing his bobbleheads. I heard he was doing that before the game; I wonder if he was there the whole game or not. If so, he was there for quite awhile.
And as a final kicker, when I was coming home, I was just getting to Reunion Arena, and saw Rt 30 backed up as far as I could see. I shot up onto 35E North and took it to 635, and over to 30. I spent a lot more time driving back and forth to the Rangers game than I would have liked tonight. We need a high speed rail line that goes to the Rangers games, dammit!

Well, for the first five and a half innings, not much happened. The Mariners did get two runs, but both were on wind assisted home runs that barely cleared the outfield wall. Joel Piniero was cruising, which was odd, as we usually annihilate him. Adam Eaton was doing well too, except for the two home run balls. Time was flying, and I was out and about running some errands, so I was listening to the game on the radio. I got home in the top of the seventh inning, but I had to replay the bottom of the sixth on my TiVo.
Up until this point, Piniero had only allowed three singles to Ranger hitters. We were pretty asleep at the wheel. It was at this point that the annihilation began. Rod Barajas singled, Sarge Jr walked, and after a Mike Young flyout, Carlos Lee singled to load the bases. It was at this point that Mark Teixeira cleared the bases with a double that missed being a grand slam by a foot or two right off the wedgie in right field, giving us the lead 3-2.
Which was good, because Buck took out Eaton and put in CJ Wilson. Two quick groundouts and a strikeout later, we were back at bat, and the seventh turned out to be more interesting than the sixth. Piniero went back out, but didn’t have much. After a Stairs groundout, Kinsler singled, Rod Barajas doubled, putting men on second and third. Piniero’s last act was to intentionally walk Gary Matthews to get to Michael Young. Now I know it was a double play move, but wow – Young is lights out with the bases loaded.
It was at this point that I thought “Man, the folks at USS Mariner will be firing up another ‘Kill Hargrove’ thread”. I knew they wouldn’t be liking this.
Grover brought in Julio Mateo, and he promptly gave up a double to Mike Young, which kicked up chalk in the left field corner. Sarge ran through the stop sign at third, and scored. The throw home from Betancourt bounced off Jojima, and went into the Rangers dugout. This awarded Michael Young a little league grand slam (OK, really a double with a two base error), but still.
And the fun didn’t end there. Carlos Lee then singled, Tex walked, Blalock singled to right, loading the bases again. At this point, Grover took out Mateo (who retired no one), and replaced him with Sean Green. Mark DeRosa singled to the left side, but the ball hit Mark Teixeira in the back, which cost us a run when Carlos Lee was forced to return to third. Green then plunked Matt Stairs, who was up for the second time in the inning, forcing in the eighth run.
There was no more scoring after this, but I have to say this game really turned on a dime. We did to Piniero late in his appearance what we usually do early on. We picked up a half a game on the idle A’s, and a game on the Angels (who got blown out). We’re now alone again in third place, 5 back of Oakland.

Time for another of those catchup posts. I missed a few games, mostly due to the fact that the stupid games are starting so late again.
G112: Rangers lose to Angels, 9-1: This game turned me off pretty quickly. The ejection of Adam Eaton in the first inning pretty much annoyed me. As it annoyed a lot of other Ranger fans from reading – I also saw the guys on Baseball Tonight get into it and question the ejection. Whether it would have turned the game, who knows. Josh Rupe followed Eaton, and gave up 5 runs in the 1.2 innings he pitched following Eaton’s departure. We were down 8 runs in the second inning; a certain recipe for disaster. It wasn’t helped by the double error Ian Kinsler made on the same play. Just a game that got too ugly too fast, and we just really had no hope in this one early on. [ Game recap on mlb.com ]
G113: Rangers lose to A’s, 7-4: This was a game I didn’t get to see much of at all, because I was too tired, and went to sleep before it finished. When I went to bed, it was 4-2 A’s. In looking at the box score, Volquez wasn’t particularly great, giving up 4 runs in 5 innings while walking two. I’ve seen a lot worse than that, but those kinds of numbers won’t win you many ballgames. Rick Bauer didn’t help, giving up 3 more in his inning plus. Our old buddy Esteban Loaiza went 6.2Ip, giving up all four runs the Rangers scored.
Speaking of that, Hank Blalock busted out with a home run, but generally is doing his usual second half slump, although it doesn’t feel as pronounced to me (I haven’t looked up the numbers before making that statement). Matt Stairs chipped in with a couple of doubles, plus Kinsler & Tex had a double as well. Hard to write about this one as I didn’t see most of it. [ Game recap on mlb.com ]
G114: Rangers lose to A’s, 7-6: This game I didn’t see ANY of, as I was not feeling well, and went to bed around 10PM. Given I was going to bed that early (I normally don’t go to bed until 2AM), I had some other things I needed to get done before I hit the sack. As I didn’t see any of this game at all, I’ll have no actual commentary for it, except to say that an interference call in the 9th inning is a really odd way to end the game. [ Game recap on mlb.com ]
G115: Rangers destroy A’s, 14-0: Well, this one can be summed up like this. “SAVE SOME FOR ANOTHER GAME, GUYS!” Given how many close games we’ve had, winning by 14 runs is both fun and really maddening. I know baseball is different every time you play it, but you always get mad when something like this happens right after losing by one run. Arrrrgh!
Anyway, this one was all Rangers, and it pulled us back to being 5.5 games out in the West. Not too bad, but we can’t afford much more of “not too bad”, we have to get up there and do this kind of stuff routinely if we want to end up on the top of the division. It’s still possible obviously, but you get the feeling that we need to start moving quickly.
This game was led by Mark DeRosa who had two three run home runs as well as a double and a single, with 6 RBI’s in all and two runs scored. He wasn’t the only one, Carlos Lee finally got a home run as a Texas Ranger. We had four doubles in all (Tex, Matthews, Hairston, & DeRosa). Barajas & Matthews also had home runs besides the ones I’ve already mentioned. Was pretty efficient too, having 17 hits and 14 runs.
We pretty much nailed Barry Zito, which does’t usually happen. Zito gave up 6ER in his 5+ IP. Their relievers didn’t fare much better either (except for Flores who stopped the bleeding). Vicente Padilla on the other hand was pretty darn good, going 7 innings, giving up no runs on 6 hits and 6 strikeouts. Ron Mahay also pitched two scoreless innings of relief.
Overall a game that went the Rangers way in just about every way possible. Just wish there were more like that. [ Game recap on mlb.com ]

I didn’t see this game, as I was busy doing daddy stuff, and when I did tune in towards the end of the game, it was already 9-3, so I was’t as inclined to start watching it. :)
We were pretty much shut down by Anaheim’s pitching, getting only 5 hits in all during the game. Two of them were by Gary Matthews, one was a double by Carlos Lee, and one was a triple by Hank Blalock. One of the runs the Angels gave up was unearned, too.
John Koronka’s line wasn’t good – going only 4 innings and giving up 7 earned runs on 7 hits with FIVE walks. Ugh. No wonder we got beat.

Mark DeRosa did it all. Well, OK he didn’t, but don’t people always seem to say that when a player has a really great game? Mark (I can’t stand the nickname DeRoll) DeRosa went 2 for 3 with a walk, which doesn’t sound that impressive.
However, the two were a single, and a grand slam. That was DeRosa’s first grand slam of his career, which was nice to see, as it came against John Lackey, who has pretty much confounded the Rangers since he made his major league debut against us a few years back (which I was at). Mark also made a great defensive catch in the seventh. It ended up being a sac fly, but it saved a second run from scoring. Mark’s other RBI was on a based loaded walk.
I still dispute the batter getting an RBI on a bases loaded walk. The stat is runs batted in. Those aren’t batted in.
Anyway, it was a big night for DeRosa. Vicente Padilla (who seems to be getting no coverage around these parts on his recent arrest) pitched well, if not completely dominating. He had a few parts where it was a little wobbly, and a lot of other parts to this game where he did look dominating. Still, you can’t argue with the line; 7IP, 7H, 3R, 5K, 0BB. Josh Rupe followed up with two innings of scoreless relief.
Overall a nice win, one fueled by Mark DeRosa. We’re now back in second place in our rather bunched up division, only 2.5 games out. The Angels now have likely lost Bartolo Colon for the season (time to hit the drop button on a few fantasy leagues), which can only help us going down the stretch.