Shutting out the Yankees at home in the playoffs. Who would have thunk it?
For a game that had a final score of 8-0, it seemed really weird to say it was a totally well pitched game, that was rather close the whole time. But it was. Other than a single pitch mistake, this was an absolute pitcher’s duel gem up until the ninth inning.
I think we all expected a pretty good, pitching dominating game, but what we got was freakin’ fantastic. Here’s the overall starting pitcher lines:
Andy Pettite: 7IP, 110P, 5H, 2R, 0BB, 5K
Cliff Lee: 8IP, 122P, 2H, 0R, 1BB, 13K
The only mistake made by either of them was a ball to Josh Hamilton in the first. Which wasn’t much of a real mistake, actually. Josh reached out and batted at a ball and got it over the fence in right to give us a 2-0 lead in the first. Off the bat, it looked like a ball that would just get dumped into right field for a hit, but it went out for a home run. It was an early lead, one that made me feel better about facing Andy Pettite. But that’s about all the offense that happened for quite awhile.
Cliff Lee started mowing down batters, including a few against Derek Jeter that made Jeter look more stupid for swinging (rather hard) at a ball out of the strike zone. Not easy to make Jeter look silly. The first eleven Yankees were set down in order, seven of them by strikeout. Cliff Lee faced 27 batters total. Of those, only two of them got hits (Brett Gardner & Jorge Posada), and one walked. That’s it. Everyone else sat down. It’s pretty close to total domination. Even given his pitch count of 122 after eight innings, he was going to come back out, and most everyone who was online with me thought so too. But then the top of the ninth happened, and he sat down, as well he should.
What happened in the ninth? Well, it was PAYBACK FOR THE TOP OF THE EIGHTH IN GAME ONE! I mean wow. It was just like the other day. Runs and hits just kept coming. Here’s a tally of the top of the ninth:

1. Double by Hamilton
2. Single by Guerrero (lifted for Borbon as a pinch runner)
3. Single by Cruz
4. Strikeout by Kinsler (who if first wasn’t occupied, probably would have gotten there on a dropped strike three
5. Murphy pinch hits for Franceour, and is intentionally walked.
6. Molina immediately singles, screwing with that idea.
7. Mitch Moreland singled.
8. Elvis Andrus doubled
9. Michael Young grounded to third
10. Josh Hamilton flied to left

That was the top of the ninth, and it was beautiful. It was even sweeter that it was against the bloody stinkin’ NEW YORK YANKEES. Fan posturing aside, what did amaze me was the shots of people leaving the stadium when it got to 3-0. THREE – and you bail out? Come on. When it got to 6, and especially 8, I could understand it. But Yankee fans bailing after just three runs? That’s disgraceful. I’ve always thought and believed Yankee fans (though misguided) to be loyal to their team. They showed tonight that they were NOT. EPIC FAIL on the part of Yankee fans in the ninth.
What is interesting about this is that if we can jump on AJ Burnett tomorrow like most everyone except Joe Girardi things we will, we could go up 3-1. That raises the possibility of not NEEDING to pitch Cliff Lee again in the series, setting him up for Game 1 in the World Series against (I hope) Roy Halladay. Anyway, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, but man was tonight fun for a Rangers fan. Enjoyed the heck out of it.
Major kudos to TBS for not bombing us with celebrity sightings. I know TBS takes a lot of grief over their baseball coverage (I mean Craig Sager NEEDS TO GO), but they have a lot of great camera angles which Fox Sports Southwest could learn a thing or three from. But tonight, if this was Fox, we’d have an inning’s worth of total combined time of celebrity sightings, with nice graphics on the bottom saying who they are, etc. Don’t care about that junk. Yes, we know they’re there. I’m sure Billy Crystal was there. Do we need to see that every game? NO! Thanks to TBS for not doing that. Would have liked to have seen the moron who ran on the field during the game though. Was probably just trying to disrupt Bengie Molina’s timing at the plate :)
I also did take my twitter notes again, but decided not to flood Twitter with these notes tonight (see Jake, I was doing you a favor). Here they are for my site. Looking for game 3 tomorrow night. Hopefully right after my Phillies go up 2-1 on the Giants.
Oh, P.S. Before the game started, MLB Network was interviewing Tom Grieve, and at the end, they asked him about the claw & antler stuff. They got Tom to do it on the air. Grabbed a few shots of that off the TV. Check ’em out before my list of in game notes below.

• Joe MacGrane from MLBN picks Rangers in G3. Dan Plesac picks Yankees. Barry Larkin picks Ramgers, & Al Leiter picks Yankees.
• Tom Grieve just did the claw and antlers on mlbn. Hahahahahahahaha
• Again, my wife comes through with proper themed food. Hot dogs, fries, and kraut. Bonus, the baby as dressed in Rangers stuff! :)
• Awesome at bat in first by young. Fouling off a bunch off stuff before getting a 2 strike hit
• Wheeee! Hamilton goes deep, on a ball that off the bat looked like a bloop to right field
• Both Hamilton home runs in post season have come off of lefthanders. #Rangers
• 25 pitches for Oettote in the first. 9 were to Young
• 15 pitch 1-2-3 inning for Cliff Lee in the first.
• Uneventful top of 2nd for Rangers
• 15 pitch 1-2-3 inning for Cliff Lee in the second.
• 58 pitches by Pettite through 2.2IP. 17 of them just to Michael Young!
• Rangers appear to have gotten a break on the inning ending play in the third, Gardner looked safe to me. Especially on the replay.
• 13 pitch 1-2-3 inning for Cliff Lee in the third.
• Secondary angle shows Gardner missed the bag on the slide.
• Uneventful top of 4th for Rangers
• Lee just smoked Jeter in the bottom of the fourth. Just carved him up.
• 11 pitch at bat ends in a k to Swisher. Nice perseverance by Lee.
• Perfect game is gone. Walk to Teixeira in the fourth. First walk of postseason.
• Moron on the field in the top of the fifth. I know why we don’t show that, but I want to see it!
• Seem like an awful lot of broken bats tonight. More than usual.
• Uneventful top of 5th for Rangers
• I’ve got a hand it to TBS. If this was FOX, we would’ve had probably a full innings worth of celebrity sightings and point outs. We haven’t had any and it’s in the bottom of the fifth. Good job TBS!
• Broken bat bloop single by Posada breaks up the no hitter.
• Lees pitch count is creeping up a little. 80 after 5 innings. Not bad, but a minor concern.
• Can we not go to Craig Sager? He takes the cake over Jim Knox barely, due to his horrible clothes. #Rangers #LesNessmanLives
• DAMMIT! Off Josh’s bat, it looked like a home run, but it missed getting out by a couple of feet – was a noisy out to Swisher.
• Pettite seems awfully concerned with Michael Young at first.
• Bot 6: Gardner gets on with a leadoff single. First thought. “Uh-oh. Here it comes.”
• Lee gassed Jeter on another strikeout after the steal by Gardner. Felt like an emotion swing.
• Nice infield hit by Frenchie, just beating the throw by Arod.
• That’s now 11k’s for Lee through 7. He’s had at least one in every inning.
• The first 11 Yankees were set down by Cluff Lee, seven by strikeouts.
• 13 k’s through 8 for Cliff Lee. He’s at 120 pitches, but looking like he’s smoking everyone. I bet he goes back out for 9th.
• Hamiltons double in the 9th sounded like yet another broken bat.
• Come on guys. We need the insurance big time.
• Great ninth so far. Walk to Hamilton, then a two strike single by Guerrero, and an RBI by Cruz.
• Yankees fans are leaving? WTF? It’s only 3-0
• Pinch hit murph for Frenchy. Loads the bases. Girardi probably playing for the DP with an exceptionally slow runner, Molina.
• Molina beats the strategy with a single to left. Scored just 1 though.
• 6-0 now. The top of the 9th is Payback for the top of the 8th in game one, isn’t it?
• 8-0 now. One out, man on third. Yankees plsying the infield in now is fairly comical.
• Jeter k’s for the third time in the ninth, the 14th Rangers k overall.
• Teixeira k’s to finish the game, going to 15 overall.

Man, after Game 1, I came home, and deleted all episodes of Baseball Tonight, all of MLBN’s MLB Tonight, didn’t read a single recap. Heck, I didn’t even look at the pictures I took! That game annoyed me so much, I listened to just the new Afters album on the drive home, and when I got home, it was “Plants vs. Zombies” time.
BTW, the new Afters album is quite good. If you don’t know them, they’re a band that originated in Mesquite, TX, and is a Christian pop band. Check ’em out. A link to their most recent album (Light Up the Sky) is here. I recommend tracks 1, 3, & 8.
Anyway, the only thing I did last night was write a short marker piece for my site here. And I didn’t think about it too much at all until Game 2 was starting. It extended into the beginning of the game, actually, although I started feeling a little better once we started scoring. :)
I took the same kinds of notes I did in the ALDS when I posted a ton of stuff on Twitter, although this time I just jotted the notes down, I didn’t flood Twitter. Here’s my notes from watching the game. It’ll be quite nice to go to New York for Game 3 with Cliff Lee on the mound and being 1-1 instead of 0-2. A LOT better.

• Really bummed out about lad night, still.
• Going to try just putting my Twitter notes in a note list instead of flooding Twitter today.
• I skipped every post game wrap-up last night, and in the paper, and online, and pregame today.
• Can we get Craig Sager off TV? What is that mess?
• Come on Colby! Let’s do this!
• Jeter’s up! Boooooooooooooooooooo!
• Jeter K’s! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
• Way to go Colby – 9 pitch 1-2-3!
• Elvis steals second, but it’s called a wild pitch advance.
• ….and then he steals third. w00t!
• Guerrero’s pine tar batting helmet really glistens in HD during day games.
• Elvis’ legs got us the first run in the first, although Hughes struck out the side
• We lucked out on the Cano flyout. Looked like a home run. Thanks Cruz.
• After 1.5 innings, Lewis and Hughes have the same number of pitches. 28. Except
• Lewis had 6 outs, and Hughes has 3.
• Upper tank off the facing up there – David Murphy! We’re up 2-0!
• TBS gets some crap for their coverage, but Fox Sports Southwest could learn a thing or two about camera angles.
• Three straight hits (Moreland, Andrus, Young) lead to our third run.
• SHIT! Int walk to Hamilton to get to Guerrero works. This is the same feeling as last night. Really hope the inability to step on the Yankees’ throat wont cost us the game again!
• 55 for Hughes through 2.
• Looks like the yankees stole first again on another ghost hit by pitch.
• After 2.5 innings, it’s Hughes 55, Lewis 53. Still 3-0, though.
• Go Murphy! Two RBI so far, and six total bases in two at bats.
• More claws! Two pitches, two doubles… Murphy & Molina
• It’s 5-0 Rangers again. Anyone else scared?
• Yankees plate one after we almost got out of a man on third nobody out situation. Berkman base running gifted us the third out.
• Third walk in three at bats for Josh. Helps OBP a lot.
• Colby Lewis seems to be putting more in the dirt than usual.
• Colby now has 82 after five. Not obscenely big, but he’s throwing more per inning now.
• That’s two home runs Cruz did not get cuz the ball hit the tip part of the wall, and didn’t go out. Probably missed by a foot total on both!
• Claws and Antlers in the same play – triple to right for Kinsler! That got Hughes out. Joba in.
• Hughes gave up seven of the ten hits he gave up on two strike counts.
• Very ugly strikeout by Bengie Molina in the fifth. Harnessed his inner Juan Gonzalez there.
• Moreland plates run number 7 when you thought we’d strand Kinsler at third!
• Moreland again – sno cones a foul reaching into the Rangers dugout.
• Wow. Cano’s home run almost cleared the cement walkways in the upper deck. That was seriously a big deal shot. Wow.
• Hunter is up in the top of the sixth. That’s odd.
• Lewis is out with two outs in bottom of sixth. Two men on. That uh-oh feeling from lad night is back.
• Rapada replaces Lewis and ks pinch hitter Marcus Thames, although it took 9 pitches.
• Ogando is in. Should have been last night.
• Yankees suck chant going again. Needs to last more than like 30 seconds, Ranger fans!
• Uh-oh. Andrus dropped a ball that you could say he was trying to hot dog an over the shoulder catch on. Hope that’s not the opening door for the Yankees.
• Ogando labored in the seventh, throwing 25 pitches. But he gassed Cano on the final pitch to strike him out.
• Last night oliver led off the 8th by walking Swisher & Teixeira. Starts off 8th today by walking Swisher again. Then he k’ed Posada. Much better.
• Oliver is out after two outs. No runs. Much better.
• Couple of nice defensive plays in the top of the 8th by Kinsler and Young to help out Oliver & O’Day.
• Feliz in for the 9th. That mike Maddox.had to come out isn’t good.
• We win! Nice running catch by Cruz to make the last out. Finally. A home playoff win. The 1961 Washington Senators breathe a sigh of relief.
• Now feel good about Game 3 with Cliff Lee as s the starter. Not nearly as depressing that would have been if we were down 0-2.

Due to my policy of the last several years, I don’t write about losses to the Yankees.
Except to say this. I had a lot of fun at the game anyway. Was nice to have a woman sitting next to me who was a single seat buyer, so we had someone to chat to. She was nice, and gave me a rally towel for my kid.
But that 8th. What the F…..
When I got home, I deleted all episodes of Baseball Tonight and MLB Tonight that my TiVo had recorded, I don’t want to read any accounts of the game. That game pissed me off so much, I don’t want to read anyone’s thoughts about it.
WHERE THE HELL WAS FELIZ & OGANDO IN THAT 8TH? WHAT THE HELL?

Wow. I started this site in December 1998, and 12 full seasons and a handful of playoff games later, I finally got to write this..
The Rangers have won their playoff series and have advanced to the ALCS.
I mean WOW. It almost seems so surreal. I’m actually at a loss for words right now. Although I wasn’t during the game. I burned it up on Twitter a bunch. I’ll be posting my game summary in the form of my twitter updates below. But a few bullet points to mention.
Twice we scored runs with a runner on second with a ball that did not leave the infield. That was pretty darned cool. That we got enough runs to win the game that way? Even more amazing.
Cliff Lee. Saw a funny tweet during the game about giving him the entire amount of money from the new Fox Sports Southwest contract. :) I mean wow. I think most Ranger fans are ready for Greenberg/Ryan to give him a blank check to stay. He had some nice curveballs working tonight.
Hamilton looks like the 2009 version of himself at the moment. Looks weak and lost at the plate. Not good.
We now have a record for most strikeouts in a division series by team, and an AL record for a single pitcher. Wheeee!
Carlos Pena looked bad too. Strikeouts all over the place. You’d think he was Brad Wilkerson or something.
My hometown Phillies and my adopted team the Rangers are in the final four. Uh-oh. I’m getting dangerously close to not knowing what to do with myself in the World Series. :)
Below is my tweet list. There’s some cool stuff in there. I’ll be out at the park on Friday for Game 1. Hope to see you out there, too!

• Ok, here we go. Game 5. Twitter ready. iPad scoring software ready. Go #Rangers
• MLBN: Ripken, Leiter, and Larkin all picking #Rays to win. The host picked the #Rangers though.
• RT @aandro: In-game guy @ The Trop is awful. 30-year-old men don’t need to flip cap backwards, act like teenagers. >> Did you say Tony Romo?
• Good that Elvis wasn’t greedy rounding first. #Rangers
• RT @VictorRojas29: Catwalk overkill…please stop. #txrangers v. #rays
• Andrus scores on a 3-1 groundout that never leaves the infield. Run Run #Rangers
• Nice catch to get the foul out by Moreland. Nice job not falling on his face, too. #Rangers #ShutdownInningInFirst
• Price had 18 pitches in this 1st inning, as opposed to 24 in Game 1. #Rangers
• Kinsler got a single, but Frenchy grounded into a DP. Oh well. #Rangers
• Easy 1-2-3 for Cliff Lee in the second. That’s why we got him. Give this man a blank check! #Rangers
• Three k’s the first time through the lineup for Price. #RaysStillLosing. #Rangers
• Bengie Molina breaks out the Antlers! #Rangers – His first stolen base since 2006!
• David Price has 51 pitches through 3 innings. #WorkThoseCounts #Rangers
• Infield hit by Bartlett gets two on against Lee in third. Weak hits like that annoy me. #Rangers
• Hamilton totally airmails a throw to the plate, allowing the runner to get to second. Bad idea there, Josh. #Rangers
• Nice fielding by the #Rangers to tag out the runner heading to the plate, but also to keep the runner at second. #HeWasTagged
• #Rays tie the game in the third on a few singles. Could have been a heck of a lot worse. #NoThanksToHamilton #Rangers
• Man that double by Cruz went to the only place it couldn’t have gone out. His watching the ball cost him a triple, though. #Rangers
• And there’s the payback. Cruz steals third, Shoppach airmails it into left, we score second run. #Rangers #AntlersAllOverThePlace
• The pitches by Price after the airmailed throw to third look a lot less controlled. Here comes Price’s emotions. #Rangers #PourItOn
• Watching Jeff Franceour at the plate.. He looks like ol Dumpmaster D himself, Mark DeRosa. #Rangers
• Nice curveball by Cliff Lee to strike out Carlos Pena again on a called strike three. #Rangers
• “@DFishDesign: Nice curveball by Cliff Lee to strike out Carlos Pena again on a called strike three. #Rangers”. Ditto for Upton.
• There’s the strikeouts for Lee. Struck out the side in the fourth. Looking good. #Rangers
• Nice atbat for Elvis after coming back from an 0-2 count. #Rangers
• Impressive at bat by Jason Bartlett against Lee in the fifth. #Rangers
• 5 out of last 6 outs by Lee being k’s sets the record for K’s by a staff in the division series. #Rangers #MoveOverPadres
• That’s a home run by Hamilton in our park. Darnit. #Rangers
• Is it just me, or did Guerrero seem to be swinging harder than usual at this at bat? #Rangers
• #Rangers get another run on a grounder that didn’t leave the infield scoring a guy from second. #AntlersAllOverThePlace
• Unless Price’s foot was off the back of bag, it looked like Kinsler was out on the play that scored Guerrero. Rays didn’t argue. #Rangers
• RT @Evan_P_Grant: Lee just set AL Division Series record with 17 strikeouts in the series. Mussina, Randy Johnson each had 16.
• Carlos Pena is striking out so much, you’d think Brad Wilkerson was wearing his uniform. #Rangers #GoCliffLee
• Very quick 7 pitch 1-2-3 inning by Grant Balfour in the 7th to shut down the #Rangers – much better than Price.
• Is anyone watching the 2003 MLB Season Summary show on MLBN right now? #RatingsOfZero
• My 5yr old daughter colored a bunch of #Rangers Captain pages for me to have when I watched the game tonight. I love my kids!
• RT @aandro: Someone may need to start Kelly Shoppach’s car for him tonight if the #Rays lose.
• We’re through seven innings, up 3-1. Cliff Lee struck out a million. CJ & O’Day up in pen, one’s got to be coming in next inning. #Rangers
• Longoria needs to stop worrying about who has his hat, and start worrying about catching the ball. #Rangers #Thanks
• The second inning ending double play for the #Rangers this game – Grrrrrrrr.
• Jason Bartlett if finally out, after going 3-3 with a double up to this point. #Rangers
• Ten strikeouts by Cliff Lee through 7.2 innings! #Rangers
• And Cliff Lee follows up the 10th strikeout with a 1-2-3 10 pitch bottom of the 8th. #Rangers #WhoIsClosingGame
• HUGE FREAKIN INSURANCE runs there with a two run home run by Capt Uppercut! #Rangers #ICanSmellItNow
• RT d_a_cameron: Really happy for @NewbergReport.
• We win. Wow. Just freaking wow. Thank you to Jack Zduriencik. #Rangers
• The #Phillies and #Rangers are both in the final four in MLB. My head inches closer to disappearance in a baseball black hole.
• RT BattingStanceG: Tonight, even Justin Smoak’s family & friends are thinking Rangers were brilliant for ditching him. #MLB #CliffLee