No update available from me. I had a hard drive crash on Wednesday, which took me two days to recover from. No time on Friday to do an update for this game.

No update available from me. I had a hard drive crash on Wednesday, which took me two days to recover from. No time on Friday to do an update for this game.

You know, after we loaded the bases the first time and didn’t score anything, I had a feeling that it probably would come back and haunt us. After the second time in two innings we loaded the bases and didn’t score, I was sure it would come back and haunt us. It did.
We got shut out by the Indians 2-0 in a game that Rick Helling really REALLY got screwed into a loss. He pitched probably the best, most dominating game I’ve seen him pitch probably all year, and he got nothing at all back from our team. For some reason, we always seem to pitch well in Cleveland, unfortunately, so did they tonight. This is one of those games you don’t mind losing, because it was a great game of baseball – but DAMMIT! We couldn’t push anything across.
The tag by Haselman in the 7th that was somewhat controversial looked to either be a tie or a good call by the ump in calling him safe. It was one of those calls that could really have gone both ways. Either side would have argued.
Some good did come out of this game. A wonderfully pitched game by Helling – Rusty Greer got his 1000th career hit – and Gabe Kapler extended his hitting streak to 21. The longest in the majors this year is 22, and the longest by a Ranger all time is 24. Just a couple more to go – that would be very cool, considering how poor his first half was hitting wise.

A nice win. Ryan Glynn pitched really well, I thought – and other than the gopher balls to Dave Martinez & Carlos Delgado, he kept the ball down, got outs, and generally pitched like he belonged here. Was nice to see him get teh win, even though our bullpen tried to blow it for him.
Gabe Kapler extended his hitting streak to 20 this game, which is very cool. He’s hovering at about .280 – which would be a career high for him. Mike Lamb got three doubles in the game, and B.J. Waszgis had a lot of firsts.. First major league start, first major league hit, first major league RBI, and first major league run scored, and first major league win. :)
Not a whole lot else to say, but it was nice to keep ourselves from losing our first four game sweep since 1997.

I didn’t get to see much of this game, as I was at a surprise birthday party for a co-worker’s wife during the afternoon.
However, I appear to not have missed a lot. We got beat by David Wells (again). From looking at the scores, it didn’t appear that we were that bad, and Doug Davis wasn’t awful, but he needs to learn.
Gabe Kapler got his hitting streak to 19 – which is very cool. Team record is 24.

Well, another game that’s indicative of the problems of the 2000 Rangers. Our bullpen.
Matt Perisho pitched OK, if not awesome as a starter. He went 6 innings, allowing 3 earned runs (2 unearned). He walked three and struck out two. Then comes our bullpen. Fransisco Cordero (who to me is starting to look like he needs to spend extended time at AAA), only pitched one inning, and gave up three earned runs. Venafro (who got the loss) pitched only 2/3 of an inning, and gave up two earned runs. Sigh. The only person not to give up any runs was Crabtree, who only pitched 1/3 of an inning.
Offensively, we scored 8, which isn’t bad, but when you give up 10…. We had two home runs (one by Haselman, one by Raffy), two doubles (one by Raffy, one by Kapler), and a bunch of singles. Speaking of Kapler, his hitting streak is now at 18, passing Todd Zeile on the Rangers list (Todd had 17).
We are definitely a mediocre team. That’s for sure. The goal now has to be .500 for the end of the year.
After the game, we traded Dave Martinez to the Blue Jays – his fourth team this year – for the infamous PTBNL. We called up outfielder Pedro Valdez at the same time.

There’s not a whole lot to say about this one. We were outpitched. Plain and simple.
Gabe Kapler blasted a solo home run in the second inning – extending his hitting streak to 17. However, that was it for our offense. Nothing more.
Kenny Rogers pitched fairly well, going six innings, allowing two earned runs, but got no run support and lost the game. Frank Castillo pitched extremely well, and the Kapler jack was the only blemish of the day for him.
One of those games you don’t mind losing, was a great game.

Not available.

I was at this game, and going into it, I felt like we’d get shut out 2 or 3 to nothing. James Baldwin always seems to kill us. And for the first several innings, it felt like that was going to come true. We were shut out for about 4.2 innings. We finally managed to scratch a run out of him in the bottom of the fifth with a Haselman double, and a Lamb single. That tied the game at one.
Ryan Glynn pitched equally well as Baldwin – also giving up just 1 run on 5 hits. Unfortunately, he was matched against Baldwin, or he would have gotten a win. Glynn went seven innings, allowing 6 hits and one run. An outstandingly excellent performance. Then came the downfall of the 2000 season – the bullpen. Doug Davis came in to only two batters (a strikeout and a single). Zimmerman came in and was awful, allowing the inherited runner to score, as well as one of his own. Actually, Zim probably should have had a lot more runs scored on him – he just didn’t have anything.
In the bottom of the 8th, we managed to get to Baldwin a bit – we got some runners on, and then the Chisox started playing bullpen magical chairs. Kelly Wunsch came on, only pitched 1/3 of an inning, and then Bobby Howry came on – and we got to him. We managed to load the bases, and then Gabe Kapler came through with a single, scoring two runs to tie the game up. However, Raffy made another ill advised attempt to take an extra base, ending the inning at third.
In the ninth, John Wetteland came on, and gave up a gopher ball – but retired the three outs in pretty quick fashion. However, the longball by Ranger killer Charles Johnson won the game for Chicago – we started to mount a comeback in the 9th, but Scar Green was thrown out when he overslid second base on a successful steal attempt.

I totally forgot this game was on, I was watching the Pittsburgh Steelers whoop the Dallas Cowboys’ asses. :) That was fun.
I saw the ninth inning – that was it. Was nice to come back against a pitcher who hadn’t given up a run since May, but our rally fell short.