Usually on day games during the week, I don’t get a good listen because I’m busy doing something at work. Well, on this one, I forgot the game was even on until it was two hours into the game. I turned it on, but only got to listen for about 5 minutes, and had to bail – too busy at work yesterday. I had the game on my TiVo at home, so when I got back home from my bowling league I turned it on and watched from the bottom of the 9th onwards. Kind of nice watching the end of a game knowing you’re gonna win. :)
But we can thank David Dellucci here, for his pinch hit, two out, bottom of the ninth, two run, game tying home run. That’s pretty much what this game was about for me, not having seen the vast majority of it.
Again, attendance was listed as 18,077 – it looked like half that from what I saw on TV.
We’re back to four games under .500. There’s 16 games left in the season, and to reach my goal of two games over .500, we’ll have to go 12-4 over the remainder of the season, which is unlikely, as six of the 16 are against the Angels. Even ending at .500 will require 10-6. Ugh.

2004’s Home Opener starting pitcher R.A. Dickey finally made his first appearance of the 2005 season, in game 145. Only this time he showed up with a different pitch, a knuckleball. Something the Rangers haven’t really (seriously) had since Charlie Hough last was in a Ranger uniform in 1990. My wife and daughter were with me in this game. We had some comp tickets in Sec 229 Row 2. We almost got a foul ball, the closest one came was that it hit the red railing right in front of us, and the bounced back downstairs. The section two to our right got about half a dozen fouls over the night.
Aside from the first inning, Dickey was pretty good. His total line was 7IP, 5H, 3ER. Two of those runs and three of the hits were all in the first inning (along with a walk). So yeah, I’d say Dickey did pretty good. I’ll write off the first inning to jitters, as it was the first time he’d pitched in the majors with a knuckleball. The problem this game had was that the Orioles kid was better. John Maine went 6.1IP, giving up just two hits – both solo home runs (Mench, Blalock). In fact, outside of those home runs, we had only two other hits total the whole night (double – Soriano, single – M Young). We were pretty inept at the plate.
Still, I had a great time at the game with my family. Took some pictures of that, they’re online here if you want to see ’em.
The attendance was listed at 21,167. It looked like a lot less than that to me.

Another game I didn’t watch much of. It was Monday Night Football. I was doing the same thing that I’m sure Kevin Mench would have been doing had the Rangers been off, watching the Eagles on Monday Night Football.
It was surprising to read in the local press that Rafael Palmeiro was “sent home” to rehab an injury, and then when his team gets here, he doesn’t hang out with them. Seems odd – I’d be stunned if Raffy plays another game with Baltimore. Sosa wasn’t there too, probably for mostly the same reason, they’re doing better without them. Sosa & Raffy was one of the primary reasons I wanted to see the Orioles in town this year. As it stands, it’s a couple of fading teams playing a mostly worthless game in mid September.
This game was mostly lost on a big two run error by Kevin Mench in right field. Edison Volquez went 4 innings, and gave up just 1 earned run (3 total, due to that error). But the real reason I suppose was Baltimore starter Daniel Cabrera, who only allowed 2 earned runs, and the 4 relievers who followed him gave up none. Mike Young kept his hitting streak going with another hit.
No home runs, though.

Didn’t watch much of this game, as it was Week 1 in the NFL, and I was watching the Steelers / Titans game on NFL Sunday Ticket. Yeah, I’m a bigger baseball fan than a football fan, but there’s something about first weekend that makes the games “unskippable” to me. Given there was early, late, and night games, I didn’t TiVo the Rangers game, as I wouldn’t have time to watch all of it.
Was nice to get a win, though – although we should have won the other two in this series, too. Kenny Rogers got the win, his first in awhile, going 6 innings, giving up 7 hits and 3 ER. John Wasdin tossed three scoreless innings behind Rogers for the save.
Mike Young went 2 for 4 with a double and an RBI. He continues to lead the AL (not sure about the NL too) in batting average, he’s about 6 or 7 points above Arod and Johnny Damon with a couple of weeks to go. The other player we have in the lead or close to it is Tex who is close to the HR lead, and is leading in RBI’s. Tex only had one hit tonight, but it was a three run home run. Mark DeRosa also had a home run again, showing some surprising consistency. I know bench player is always a role that’s hard to fill, and there’s lots of candidates – I wonder if he’ll return next year. He’s been really solid whenever he’s been used.

This was one of the windier nights I’ve been to at the ballpark in quite a long time. And thanks to Mr Hicks’ quest for more money, the A’s won the game tonight. I speak of course of the jet stream created by the Gold Club behind home plate. It most DEFINITELY gave Dan Johnson a grand slam in the second inning. He hit a ball to right that was admittedly well hit, but was NOT a home run off the bat. Watching Mench glide backwards and keep going was an “uh-oh” moment. In fact, I said that as soon as he hit the ball, and I was right. Wind assisted grand slam. Where have you gone, Tom Schieffer?
Anyway, other than that grand slam ball that shouldn’t have been, I thought Kameron Loe was good. If you take away that hit, his record would have been 6.2IP with 7H and 1ER, but that’s not how it played out. He gave up 8 hits and 5 earned runs. I felt he got ripped off by the conditions. His apparent appendage reliever CJ Wilson came on and finished the game, with 2.1IP and no hits, no runs. But we couldn’t get it done against their pen. Witasik, Rincon, & Street didn’t give up any runs. Oakland starter Joe Blanton did give up 4 though.
Our home run barrage continues unabated. We had three (Young – 1st, Dellucci – 3rd, Teixeira – 6th). I forget what the number is at the moment, but we’ve set a new team record for “home” home runs. At the rate we’re going, we will pass the all time major league record. Fat lot of good that does. But remember, chicks dig the longball, and they’ll come to the park and spend money in the Gold Club, right?
My wife said the other day I seem more sarcastic than usual lately. I don’t see it, do you? ;)

When the schedule was announced for this weekend’s series, I was jazzed, as originally Barry Zito was to pitch on Saturday night against Kameron Loe, which was a game I had a ticket for, and wanted to see. However, Zito got switched to tonight’s game. While Zito’s numbers don’t show dominance (4ER over 7IP), he looked good. His obscenely good curveball was in show tonight (8 strikeouts). Our only home run against Zito was by a guy whose play has changed my opinion on him, Mark DeRosa. In all, we only managed 5 hits off of Zito, but they were well placed, scoring 4 off of Mr. Teddy bear.
Juan Dominguez was not good. He only went 3.1IP, and gave up 7 hits, 8 runs (5ER), allowing three home runs. Erasmo Ramirez gave up the other run in his 2.2IP. Shouse & Karsay also pitched, not allowing anything.
We tried to make a charge late, scoring four runs in the bottom of the ninth, capped by a three run bomb by Mark Teixeira, but it wasn’t enough, and our race towards 500 continues in the wrong direction. Three games under now.

This game happened on the 7th, I’m writing this in the 15th, I don’t remember much about this game, that’s a danger when you let updates slide too long. :)

I watched the first five innings of this game. Things were good. Michael Young got a home run (barely) in the first inning, and then David Dellucci smacked a towering grand slam in the second. Life was feeling good. Kenny Rogers, however, wasn’t crisp, and let the Twins creep back into the game. He gave up two runs in the second, and two more in both the fourth and fifth. That tied the game at 6-6 in the fifth inning. It was at this point I got called away for Daddy duties.
When I came back to the game, I saw we were down 7-6, and then I got bummed, and decided to help out my wife with baby stuff, and washed bottles. During my washing of the bottles, I peeked at the game, and it was at the top of the 9th now, and we were up 10-7. That was a surprise, so I backed up on the TiVo and watched the ninth. All I could think of when Tex mashed the home run off the second level facade of the Metrodome was, “Well, the grand slam wasn’t totally wasted”. It’s always annoying when you hit a grand slam and lose.
But David Dellucci was the star here. He went two for 5 with 5 RBI’s – four of which came on the grand slam. Adrian Gonzalez chipped in with two doubles. The best moment was probably when Michael Young singled in the top of the ninth against Joe Nathan (whom we seem to have a lot of success against) to tie the game. It was a two out (and I think two strike as well) hit, something Young is adept at executing.
John Wasdin was great out of the pen, going 2.1 innings, giving up no runs and no hits. Coco did the same in the 9th for his 31st save, only he got two strikeouts as well.
One game away from being back at .500 – feels like forever since we’ve been there.
You can view my full update for this game here, or you can leave a comment about this game below.