Getting a bit tiring writing about games with short outings, and crappy pitching performances. I guess I could say that Esteban Yan didn’t give up 20 more runs after he came into the game, I guess that’s something.
My wife & I were watching from home, and she told me that she really did not want Raffy to get #500 on Friday night because I have tickets for Saturday & Sunday – she said if Raffy got it on a day I wasn’t there (I was there on Thu and saw #499), that I’d be moping around about it. She’s probably right. :)
I actually stopped watching the game once we got behind a lot, and just skipped forward on the TiVo to Raffy’s at bats. Hopefully he gets it today (Sat) or tomorrow. I’d like to be there for one of these things for a change. When Raffy got #400, I had tickets for Fri & Sun. He hit it Saturday. When Lynn & I were in Baltimore, we missed Cal Ripken’s 400th HR – he went foul by about 2 or 3 feet. :(

I have a short day today, so I need to get through this as quick as possible – no real commentary. Nice to see a win.
Raffy watch – He got #499 yesterday, and struck out in the bottom of 9th to end the game on possible #500. I was at the game, and took some pics, but I left them at home, I’ll have to update later.

The streak stops at 7 games. Why? We got to within one game of .500. That’s usually when we start losing again. :(
Actually John Thomson pitched well, it’s just at the end he had enough of a meltdown, and the bullpen (Todd Van Poppel) was total crap that we lost. I thought Thomson was great again.
Omar Daal looked surprisingly great – I followed him when he was in Philadelphia, and never thought he was that great of a pitcher.

That was one serious stink coming from the Ballpark. Don’t want to write about it, it was so bad. One thing though – Carlos Delgado’s second home run was some serious crap – it was hit into what looked like Section 251. That’s a SERIOUS distance – was something like 455 feet, if I remember Josh right. Here’s a pic of how far away home plate is looking in from that section.

I thought John Thomson pitched great this game, except for his minor meltdown which allowed 3 runs to score. But other than that, he was wonderful. Unfortunately, CC Sabathia was even better, not allowing an earned run.in his 8 innings (as opposed to the 3 that Thomson allowed in his complete game 8 inning loss). That pretty much was the entire game – CC Sabathia shut us down pretty good – not much else you can say about this one.
Raffy watch: He sat out the game, and only came in as a pinch hitter as the final batter of the game. He needs two, and I’m going to the game on Thursday, so I’m hopeful he can do it then. :)

I didn’t get to see this game, and I could only barely pay attention, as I was at the office upgrading the web server’s copy of Linux. Was nice to see a win, although quite frankly, we should have a winning streak of 6 now, the two losses against the Blue Jays & Indians the last couple of days are still annoying.
We had a lot of pitchers in this game (7 in all), with starter Todd Van Poppel (!) going 4 innings, giving up three earned runs. Jay Powell looked pretty good (I got to hear his part of the game), and it was nice that our bullpen didn’t give up anything in the 5 innings they pitched.
Don’t have a whole lot more to say, but it looks like Raffy will get #500 at home, as the Raffy watch stays at 498. My gut feeling is that if he gets 499 tomorrow, he’ll come out of the game.

Ugh. That was highly annoying, especially given that we seemed to have it wrapped up. :(
Raffy watch stays at 498.

Overall, it wasn’t a bad game. We just couldn’t overcome the 6 spot the Blue Jays put up in the second inning. We didn’t allow anything else besides a single run in the third – the rest were zeroes. But we didn’t come back enough, even with the home runs by Juan (two of them again), Raffy, & Carl Everett. This was definitely a long ball hitting series, we had a zillion of them, and Juan had 5.
Not much else to say except the 6 runs that Colby Lewis gave up in the second were the game!

Well, the offensive onslaught continues. Over the last three games (26 innings), we’ve scored 37 runs including a bazillion home runs. I went into last night’s game with a feeling of ambivalence – having just lost Doug Davis on waivers to the team we were playing. While Doug hasn’t lit it up in awhile, I still liked the guy and held out hope he could get it going in a Ranger uniform. Oh well, that’s in the past now. So as this game started, I figured after a few good offensive performances, we couldn’t get another one, could we?
Yes, we could. Juan Gonzalez just continues to tear the hyde off the ball the last few days jacking a very impressive home run and hitting the ball around the field going 3 for 5 with 3 RBI’s. In fact, the only other (Ranger) home run of the game came from Mike Young – a three run shot late in the game. The other recent hit machine, Alex Rodriguez didn’t have any home runs, but went 3 for 6. Josh Lewin said something about his raising his batting average something like 60 points in the last two days because of his recent barrage of hits. Carl Everett & Hank BLalock both had doubles. We also left more men on base than scored, and when you score 11, it tells you that it could have been even bigger offensively.
On the pitching side, Ryan Drese didn’t pitch wonderfully, but pitched a hell of a lot better than his brief experimentation with an ERA in the 100’s showed! He did dance with trouble early, walking too many, but getting helped out by a few double plays early. R.A. Dickey went 2.2 innings giving up but a lone run, and Ramirez came in in the 9th to shut things down when Dickey looked like he started running out of gas.
Nice to see Erasmo Ramirez & Gerald Laird both make their major league debuts last night. They were in the game in the 9th at the same time – something I can’t recall seeing much of in the past. And speaking of Laird, I really feel for Todd Greene getting hurt when he did – just as his playing time was about to increase as he got out from under the “three catcher” situation. :(
The Raffy watch is still stuck on 497. If he doesn’t get any in the next couple of games, it looks like #500 might happen at home, something I didn’t think possible when he went on the road needing 3 in 6 games.
We’re now just one game under .500 at 13-14 ending the month of April. Considering who we were playing all month, and the fact we’re only 4 games out, I’m actually feeling pretty good about where we are at the moment.