This was a nice win on all factors. I was out at the Temple last night for the game, and it just felt good coming in. You know, that feeling you get when you go to a game, and you’re just having a good time? I had that feeling. This was the first game I went to with my wife in almost a month (as she was out of town for a few weeks). That alone makes me feel good. The Rangers came out, and for some reason, just looked like a team that wanted to win, not a team that was “OH crap, how are we going to win?” which was the vibe I’d seen the last couple of weeks.
Kenny Rogers came out, and wasn’t totally dominating in the first two innings, but after that, owned the game. He had about 40 or so pitches the first two innings, but then figured it out, and retired 13 straight batters before walking the leadoff guy in the 9th, then giving up a double, and coming out of the game in the 9th to a standing ovation. He looked great, and pitched an awesome game, going 8+ innings, 5 hits, and 2 runs. A great performance. John Wetteland came in, and retired all the batters he faced (although one was a sac fly). He too looked good (although not dominating). This performance dropped Kenny Rogers’ ERA to under 4. These days an ERA that starts with 3 means you’re a $10 million pitcher. :D
Gabe Kapler continues to make up for lost time after being on the DL. He went 2 for 4 again, with his fourth home run of the season. All four of his home runs have come at home, with the first three being all in April. I’ve been there for all four of them with my wife. Pudge had an off night for him, going only 1 for 4. Mike Lamb was 2 for 3. Everyone had at least one hit, which is nice to see. I like evenly spread stuff like that.
Again, I had a great time at the game last night – was nice to be back out at the Temple. The only thing I don’t like about the place is that it’s 38 miles away from where I live in Garland.

Due to work pressures, I won’t have time to write about this game. However, it was cool to see Luis Alicea get the first Ranger hit inside the park home run since the Ballpark opened in 1994.

Our short winning streak of one game is over. :( I missed a lot of this game due to falling asleep on the couch from some medication my doctor has me on. Didn’t look like I missed much.
Rick Helling got burnt on a really bad throw by Luis Alicea leading to the four run inning the Devil Rays put up late to put the game away. Other than that, this really didn’t seem like all that bad of a game, despite the score. Rick only allowed two earned runs, but had to leave early because we were down 6-2. That’s too bad, as Rick has turned into “Mr. Lack of Run Support” this year. He could be up near 11 wins if it weren’t for the lack of run support. :(
Kapler went 1 for 3 – I’m really pulling for him to get his average up (he’s at 238 now). Pudge “only” went 1 for 4, and Rusty went 2 for 4. All coming along nicely.
Oh well, back home against the Twins. Let’s see if we can win any of those. (Grumble, Grumble)

Perhaps the solution to Matt Perisho is to put him in the rotation. Hmm.. If we can get this from him, and what we got from Ryan Glynn a week ago or so, our pitching would be much better off! This is a Matt Perisho I don’t think we’ve ever seen in the show at all.
Matt went six strong innings, giving up only two hits, while striking out 6, and walking three. An excellent outing for him – in fact, I’d wager he’d pitch more, but he hasn’t started at all this year, so his pitch count was a big deal, I’m sure. Crabby and Wetteland finished out the final three frames, allowing only one hit between the two of them, with two more K’s. An extremely well pitched game, the kind of game that makes the rest of the games look particularly annoying, as the pitching is there, we’re just not executing all the time.
On the other side of the coin, we had Pudge going 2 for 4, Rusty going 2 for 5, and Gabe Kapler going 3 for 5. Gabe’s got his average up about 35 points since coming back from the DL, Rusty’s is up, too, and Pudge continues to hover around 385 or so. Our hitting looks like it’s starting to come around (although Dave Martinez is now 0 for his last 18).
Overall, an excellent game – we needed a win.

Nine in a row. One more, and we hit double digit consecutive losses. Blech. And quite frankly, with Matt Perisho pitching tomorrow, I’m thrilled with our prospects of winning.
The start of this game felt like the end of the last one. A ton of runs. It was as if we didn’t stop playing. Down 5-0 immediately, and we didn’t recover. That’s about all I have to say about this one.

With eight in a row in the loss column, it’s getting harder and harder to write about losing. If I were a paid sportswriter, I’d probably try harder, but since I’m just a fan doing it for the hell of it – it’s getting harder to write about a game where we lose 10-1, and quite frankly, didn’t seem to really show up at all.
The only thing that I thought was really good was the fact that Esteban Loaiza came out again after a 2 hour rain delay and pitched again, and was better than before the rain. Unfortunately, after he left, we gave up like 8 walks and a hit batter in two innings, including another grand slam to Albert Belle (he had one last night).
About the only good thing I have to say about last night’s game is that Gabe Kapler played hard, and is looking like he’s finally coming around – and that the two home runs Albert Belle hit raised $100,000 for prostate cancer research (according to the TV guys).
That’s about it.

They say bad teams find a way to lose. I guess we must be a bad team, because we’ve lost 7 in a row, and lost the game last night 11-10. :(
This is one of those game that we just flat out should have won, and we blew it. About half way through this game, I started feeling like this was a repeat of the 97 season. On paper, we have a better team, but we never seem to find that one thing that binds everyone together and makes us play like a cohesive unit (can someone say Yankees?). Anyway, the loss saddens me, as we had a great night, a wonderful comeback, another awesome night from Pudge, and we pissed it away.
Pudge is about the only great thing to talk about from last night’s game, even though we scored 10 runs. No wait, Gabe Kapler had two doubles last night, and is starting to look like he’s finally coming around. Pudge had two doubles and a home run.
I just can’t get jazzed about writing about this game.