No time to write a lot here – but it was nice to see the longballs. Some real bombs in Tampa. Shame about Ryan Drese – I thought he was outstanding till the bottom of the 6th.

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My wife and I were at the game, and watching it, I didn’t think Kenny Rogers pitched well at all. However, it was extremely windy, and I’m convinced that the two HR’s that Detroit got were both wind assisted. Neither looked well hit at all, they looked like bloops to right, but they kept going. Kenny’s line was 7.2 innings pitched with 5 runs given up. One was an inherited runner that Jeff Nelson allowed to score, but other than that, if you take away the two home runs, that would make Kenny’s line, that would be only three runs, and one of those three was unearned. I’m convinced the Ballpark cost us this game, and not Kenny’s pitching. Although I’m sure the quotes out there won’t show that.

Detroit hurler Nate Robertson looked great. I was expecting us to stomp on Detroit, and it didn’t happen. I knew they were improved, but they have a much improved team – far better than I think anyone here in Dallas realized. Plus Pudge is hitting as well as he ever has. He got a nice ovation every time up to bat on Sunday’s game.

We hit the road now, going to Tampa Bay and Detroit. We’re not back home again until the 18th. This isn’t a bad road trip, but the really heavy duty road trip from June 28th through July 11th, and then the All-Star game will probably kill us. If we are still in contention after THAT grueling road trip (the last home game is June 27th. The next one after that isn’t until July 16th) then I might start to believe in playoffs. That schedule is death. Whoever allowed that to happen should be shot.

Brett Carre: Damn. That is the one word that comes to mind. Just like in the 1st game of this series, we had a lead in the late innings but couldn’t hold it. A 5-3 loss puts us now at 19-12. That is great, but Anaheim won again today. We are now 2.5 games back. I know it is only May 9 and being down 2.5 games is nothing, but will these guys ever lose? Good news is they play the Yanks and Orioles all next week so we should be able to jump back ahead if we play good on the road. We head to Tampa and Detroit for 3 each. I hope we can manage to win at least 4 out of 6 on this trip. Anything less would be very disappointing. That is just what I think.

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I was watching this game, and like most people I was disappointed when RA Dickey didn’t look as awesome has he had been this season so far. Little did I know that his poor performance would be a trend to follow. Orel Hershisher got ejected during a mound visit, which was strange. It didn’t galvanize the pitchers as we gave up a bazillion runs after that.

After the top of the fifth inning, when we had given up 8 runs, I did what I normally do when I’m disgusted watching a game. I gave up. But for me, that doesn’t mean not paying attention anymore. I just stopped watching TV, and switched to listening to the radio, and went in the computer room to do some other things at the same time. However, after a few runs scored, I came back (I think after Perry’s HR). There was a lot written about this game, and a lot better than I could (especially as it’s 1:15AM and I’m tired).

My wife and I were at Ameriquest Field The Ballpark in Arlington a couple of years ago for that really wild 17-16 comeback win. I thought I had seen my best game as a Ranger fan then. I’d say this one topped it. I’m not gonna try and make it sound good with some cliched writing. Just read the stories and the game logs and all that below. I’ll just leave my commentary with a few stats:

31 Runs
32 Hits
14 Pitchers (7 in the 5th inning)
21 Walks (15 by Tigers)
3 Home Runs
100 Pitches in the 5th Inning
1 Hour 8 minutes for 8th Inning
1 Pitching Coach ejected

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No pitching. That’s essentially what this one boiled down to. :) We tried to come back late, but couldn’t pull it off.

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No commentary from me, as I was really tired and fell asleep watching the game, of all things. :)

Brett Carre: Things get back on track after a nice 6-1 win over the Rays last night. This game was typical Rangers ball for this year. Solid pitching, timely hitting, and a shot or two of Hank’s Homies.

Ryan Drese continues to impress me. He got the win going 6.1 innings, no runs, 2 walks, and 4 k’s. His ERA is on 2.25. This from a guy who couldn’t get Rangers Captain out last year. As usual, the pen had a solid night. I have just one compliant and I think Joe already touched on this, why in the hell is Doug Brocail on the team? I don’t understand. Let’s watch for this now, if we stay in the race in July and August will Hicks and Hart start dealing prospects for a 3 month rental. Let’s just keep an eye on that.

The bats awoke tonight with Mike Young being the star. Young went 4-4 with a homer, a triple and two singles. Can you say All-star?

Another series win, that brings us to 18-10, but the stupid rally monkeys won again, so we are still tied for first. Want some garlic fries??

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Well, as much as I’m sure everyone wanted the winning streak to continue, it didn’t. Although I can see some of the latecomers to the bandwagon jumping off already.

We lost to the Devil Rays tonight by a score of 5-4. It was all longball, as the Rays had five solo shots. Three of them were off Chan Ho Park, including one in the first inning. One was off the eraser, and one was off Jeff Nelson, the game’s loser. Only one I remember being tattooed – the rest (at least two, maybe three) were wind assisted, I thought. I don’t think we were horrible, even considering the usual inconsistency of Chan Ho Park.

Offensively, no one really stood out, although Mark Teixeira jacked one onto Greene’s Hill. Nothing seemed to click offensively. I saw the club in there that won the games, but they seemed flat tonight. Lots of popups, and lots of strikeouts (nine of them).

Thing is, I’m sure this club will be right back up on the horse again Wednesday night. And 17-10 is nothing to sneeze at, either. :)

Brett Carre: Ouch. This is a game that reminded me of last year.

Can’t write a lot today, but TB had 5 solo homers, wow. Chan Ho did his normal thing, not great but not bad at all. Bullpen let us down last night.

The Halos won last night, so we are both 17-10. Did everyone see Kevin’s Krew?? LOL

[ From Joe: I wanted to see the Mench Mambo! ]

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I sat down last night to watch this game on TV as did most Ranger fans I would assume still rolling from the high of the night before. The SWEEP chant, taking all three from the Red Sox, RA’s performance, etc, etc, etc. I don’t think anyone thought the Rays were going to be a pushover – but cripes – they were!

Kenny Rogers pitched a four hit shutout, going all nine, and looking pretty good doing it. He fielded his position well, making several great plays. He acted well, like an Ace of a staff. It was quite nice to see, especially after RA’s performance last night. If you put Dickey & Rogers together, their combined ERA is just slightly over 0.5. with 17.2 innings pitched. Absolutely stunning.

Offensively, we sent 11 men to the plate in the first inning, hitting three home runs, for a total of 8 runs. We picked up another later on a sac fly, but the game was really over in the first inning. The three home runs were hit by Mike Young, Alfonso Soriano, & David Dellucci. Dellucci has hit 5 in the last few days, which ties him for the club lead, surprisingly enough. It was just a total bludgeoning in the first inning, and I loved it. :)

My wife was elsewhere in the house when this was happening, so when she passed by after we’d scored the 8, but were still in the first, I paused the TiVo and said “look at this score” – she looked visually stunned at that. “EIGHT? IN THE FIRST INNING?” I thought yup – we’ve got this game won already. I shouldn’t think that way, because it tends to come back and bite you in the ass, but dammit – I knew we had this one won in the first 30 minutes.

Brett Carre: Sorry everyone. Been busy. The good times keep rolling. 19-7!! The hitting was great and Kenny was outstanding. Hell yea!!!

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I started this site in December of 1998. I was running it when we were in the playoffs before. This season, I’ve done things I haven’t done since we were in the playoffs. I drove home, and immediately came to my computer to do the page update. Normally I let the updates go till the morning, and do it as part of my morning “rounds” at work. But this time I didn’t want to wait. I wanted to come home and update while it was fresh in my mind – with all the losing the last few years, I have to say I wasn’t as eager to get home to write about more losses. ;)

Anyway, this game was absolutely awesome in just about every way. It was a crisp, fast moving, game. It bogged down a bit in the last inning and a half, but it was fast, with a time of 2:31. As it started, I wasn’t sure what kind of pitching we’d get thrown against us. Tim Wakefield, with his knuckleball is either totally unhittable, or you get 8 runs off him in 2.2 innings. There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground with him. Add to that the fact that he never really seems to pitch terribly well here, and I expected that we were going to win this game going in. However, we got unhittable Wakefield tonight. One other thing that was very cool was a ball hit by Boston’s 3B Bill Mueller, robbing Kevin Mench. The ball hit him, then popped up in the air, and he caught it.

Fortunately, RA Dickey was more than up to the task of matching him – and bettering him. RA’s line shows 8.2 innings, with one earned run. Actually he should have had a complete game shutout. He was a strike away from it, but appeared to have run out of gas at the end, with an over 130 pitch pitch count. Showalter came out after Dickey put two men on, as it became a save situation, according to some of the sillier rules on that thing (if the tying run is on the on deck circle, it becomes a save, even though the score is actually 4-0). But Dickey got a standing O after he left in the 8th, I assume because most figured he wouldn’t be back out, as at the time, we were up 2-0. He got a second when Showalter took him out – deservedly so. In fact, I saw a few folks with Red Sox caps on applauding him – that was nice to see. Also nice to see were two fabulous catches by Brian Jordan in right – one an all out dive to his left, and the other a long running catch in front of the middle of the bullpen area in right center. Two really nice defensive plays by Jordan. He’s not hitting at the moment, but he is playing D.

Cordero came on, and did get the save, but was a bit wild doing it. He walked two guys, although I felt that he got squeezed by home plate umpire Larry Poncino, and he should have gotten out of it with no walks. But he walked two, the second accounting for the only run the Red Sox got, a gift run. But Coco did get his third save in the span of about 28.5 hours. Not a bad weekend’s work at all. He now has the most saves in the AL. Actually he did last night too, but I don’t think anyone had two saves today to pass him. I’m not sure if he has the lead in the majors, too. Speaking of leads in the majors, the Rangers right now have the best record in all of the majors with a 16-9 record. That’s stunning. Simply stunning.

One other thing that was really stunning during the game was the crowd chanting SWEEP. I generally go to about 20-25 games a season at the Ballpark. I’ve been doing that since 1997, my first year with season tickets. I have to say I’ve NEVER heard that happen before. Ever. Steve Busby, who is paid to attend games for the Rangers, said he’d never heard it. Neither had Showalter, although I’ve been going to Ranger games for more years than he had. Normally when you hear crowds chanting things, you hear a buildup of the sound. It would start on the other side of the stadium (unless it started near you), and work it’s way over. For me, sitting in Sec 329 Row 14, it seemed like it was at full crescendo RIGHT away. It was absolutely amazing, and was something that seemed to stun Showalter & Steve Busby. And myself. I wish I could find a sound file of that. I’d love to have that clip that they played on Ranger Replay a few times with Nadel & Rojas talking about it. The best part of all of this? The absolute best part? We did this on national television. We swept the previously best record in the AL team Red Sox with an almost shutout on national TV. And the SWEEP thing made it out nationally, too. It was almost like a big ol’ middle finger to the rest of baseball who gave us no chance at all this year.

UPDATE: I have an mp3 file of the Nadel/Cotroneo coverage during the broadcast of this. Turns out it was Hank’s Homies who started it, and it took over the stadium. VERY cool.

Driving home from the Rangers game, my wife and I were listening to the Rangers Replay show like we always do. Steve Busby made a comment after a caller who said “I’m now on the bandwagon”. Lynn said to me “You never got off the bandwagon”. Yup. As I said above, I was running the site when we were in the playoffs in the late 90’s. I’m still here – I’ve been doing this site through all the crappy years of the early 2000’s. About time we start winning again – I thought I’d have to stop doing the site for them to win some more. ;) I told my wife that if we’re still holding up this pace with not a lot of slippage by the end of June, I might start to allow myself the luxury of thinking of the playoffs. We’re not there yet, and as much as I’d love that to happen, I think it’s a bit too soon to start thinking that.

But damn – it’s nice to see the Texas Rangers playing this way, and this well.

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Game 2. Pedro. Joaquin Benoit had given up a triple in the first two pitches of the game. Joaquin Benoit had given up a run within the first 5 pitches of the game. I figured it was gonna be U-G-L-Y!. Those blue skies I mentioned in the first game commentary peaked their head up early. After that, Benoit buckled down (what does that mean, exactly? What does one do when they “buckle down”), and got out of the inning only giving up that first run. In fact, Benoit only gave up two runs total in his seven innings pitched. Only one walk, and one home run, but the home run was a solo shot. A really nice performance by Joaquin.

In the bottom of the first, Blalock answered back, taking Pedro deep over the scoreboard in left to tie it. However, in the third inning, the wheels fell off Pedro’s little red wagon. He gave up a total of four runs that inning (and another in the fourth), In fact, I’ll just put the events of the third here, – it’s quite amazing when you realize it was against Pedro Martinez.

Bottom of 3rd
– Rangers third.
– Mench singled to left.
– Barajas singled to center, Mench to second.
– M.Young singled to center, Mench scored, Barajas to second.
– Blalock flied out to right fielder Kapler.
– Soriano doubled to left, Barajas scored, M.Young scored.
– Fullmer grounded out, shortstop Crespo to first baseman Ortiz, Soriano to third.
– Jordan infield single to third, Soriano scored.
– Dellucci walked, Jordan to second.
– Jordan stole third.
– Perry flied out to right fielder Kapler.

That was damn nice. There were a lot of Red Sox fans there, and one of them came up to me seeing me score the game on my Palm Pilot, and we talked about that. This was right as Pedro started giving up the four runs in the third, and he said that he didn’t expect Pedro to last five innings, as Pedro can’t pitch in the cold. And it was pretty nippy last night. I hadn’t even considered that.

So we’re up 6-2 after six innings, and all was going well. We tacked on two more in the bottom of the 8th, and it turns out we needed those, as the Sox came back with three in the top of the ninth after Almanzar got hit in the hand with a batted ball, and while he stayed in the game, he didn’t do anything for the next two batters after that. He came in, and Powell pitched, allowed a hit and some runs to score, and the Cordero came on and gave up a run of his own (actually it was Almanzar’s – Cordero & Powell’s lines show 0 ER), but closed the game out to sweep the doubleheader.

We swept the Red Sox & Pedro – going into that game, the Red Sox had the best record in the majors. Not anymore. Our little Rangers did that. ;) We also now have a full one game lead in the AL West. It’s been ages since I’ve talked about that, except for like the first two or 3 games of a season. It’s nice to see.

Brett Carre: Well, I couldn’t watch this game because for some odd reason the people at my cable company didn’t put it on. However, I did hear parts on the radio and from what I heard it was a very entertaining game. We were down 2-1 when we broke through for 3 in the 7th off of the so called invincible Boston bullpen. Cordero came on in the 9th for his 8th save.

Wish I could have have seen it, but a nice win for the 1st place Texas Rangers.

Game 2 didn’t come on here either. By, now I was extremely pissed, but it was nice to listen to the radio guys for a change. We roughed up Pedro. He have up 6 runs in only 4 innings pitched. Everyone got into the act offensively. Hank went deep in the 1st to tie that game at 1 at we never looked back.

The 9th was a but of the problem. We had a 8-2 lead going into the 9th. Almanzar started the 9th and gave up a couple of hits and a run. He was pulled for Jay Powell who walked a batter and then struck out a man. Powell then faced Johnny Damon who doubled to score two runs to make it a 8-5 game. Buck pulled Powell and gave the ball to Coco. Coco got the final two outs for his 2nd save of the day and 9th of the year.

We are getting a lot of national attention now. Let’s keep it up!!

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