I don’t have much time to write about this, so here’s a few highlights.
1) Drese was great
2) Kevin Brown lost to the Rangers again
3) THE YANKEES LOST!
That about sums it up.

Ugh 2. We got swept in Baltimore and will now limp home to meet the Yankees. This could get real ugly.

Ugh.

Lost to the Orioles. Erickson was “OK” in his first Ranger start. Rodrigo Lopez was awesome. That’s about it.

Ugly from the start. The only good thing to say about this game was that our pen was pretty decent once we got into the guys who are normally out there.

A really quick, nicely crisp moving game lead to a Rangers sweep in Detroit, and our retaking of first place, with our 60th win of the season. I know a lot of the local press in spring training was saying this was about all the wins we’d get total, as they were saying 100 loss seasons. Ha!
Ryan Drese earned his eighth win of the season, and did it in a way we don’t normally do. Nice, quick pitching, and a low scoring game. All told, there were 3 runs, and 13 hits for both teams. Thing is, both teams had a few other opportunities to score, and didn’t. The Tigers had the bases loaded twice, and didn’t get anything, and we had bases loaded once, I think, and we didn’t get anything, either.
Drese, and Ledezma for the Tigers were cruising along through five, when Ledezma came out due to a pitch count limit. Esteban Yan came in, and gave up a solo home run to Soriano to win the game. Our bullpen (Mahay, Almanzar, Cordero) was spectacular, not allowing any runs on the way for CoCo’s 33rd save of the season.
A really nice, very National League feel to this game.

I have to say I wasn’t thrilled at seeing another in our line of starting pitchers (the 14th this season now) go out there. I was thinking “Oh great – here’s another guy who will get pasted and sent back to the minors”. I was wrong about that. Mike Bascik went 7 innings, gave up just four hits, and NO runs. He walked no one and struck out four. Was a stellar performance. Sure, it’s just the Detroit Tigers, but still. It was an impressive line. I’d say he earned himself another start with that.
Another Ranger that had a good night was David Dellucci. He went 3 for 5 with an RBI, and two runs scored. However, the best night probably was by Laynce Nix. Nix was 3 for 3 with 2 RBI’s, a walk, and three runs scored. He also had a couple of diving catches in centerfield, and an assist on a putout at home plate. Was definitely a good night for the boy from Midland.
The Yankees also won, which brought us back to just half a game out of first. The Red Sox also lost, which gave us a 1.5 game lead in the Wild Card race. Things are looking good. I think I might allow myself to believe, even given the shaky state of our rotation.

This game ended up well, but there were a few warning signs in it for me. First, the obvious one. Mike Young. He had to sit out with a problem with his back. As the local media outlets are saying, no one really knows when he’ll be back. Hopefully it’s today, but if it’s not today, that’s a bigger flashing red light to me. He’s been the person who has almost always been good for a hit or three a game. He’s also the only player for which we don’t have a realistic option. If we have to put him on the DL, it creates another problem, as none of the other 25 man roster guys are true Shortstops, so we’d probably have to move someone else at the same time. Not good.
The other problem was Kenny Rogers. He seems to pitch well, then give up or let the lead get away, which is what he did last night. We ended up getting the win, but Buck had taken Kenny out before an inning was over, so Kenny couldn’t get the win. He’s still pitching well, and god knows he still plays his defense (he had three great defensive plays last night), but something is starting to scare me there.
Offensively, Eric Young did really well, going 3 for 5 with an RBI (the GW RBI), and a run scored. He wasn’t tested much in the field at SS, but offensively he provided the spark we needed. We had two home runs – one from Teixeira and one from Mench. The one from Tex was a “true” Comerica Park HR, the Mench one would have been an out in their old park configuration. Either way, those coupled with the EY hit were enough to give us the win – our pen was it’s usual stellar self in holding up the back end.

Not much time to write about this one, but there wasn’t much to write about anyway. We were shut down for the most part by Mark Redman. He allowed just one run on 6 hits over 7 innings. Nick Regilio for us didn’t pitch too badly, either, but we usually score more than that for our pitchers. :)

Well, the news of the day was the trading deadline, really. Oh yeah, the Rangers played, but they were really squeezed by the home plate umpire, and we likely lost because of it – or at least in part. We did get a home run out of Brian Jordan, which was a bit of a surprise.
Back to the trading. We got Scott Erickson from the Mets. He was already DFA’ed by the Mets, so it’s not like a huge trade – we’re only giving up a minor league PTBNL for this, so it’s not likely it will be anyone important. I like that for the most part we stood pat. We tried to trade Brad Fullmer, but his injury prevented that move to the Padres. We almost traded away AA 2B Ian Kinsler and another prospect for Larry Walker and a lot of cash. That’s the kind of move we didn’t need to be making. Fortunately, Walker rejected the trade with his no trade clause.
But the biggest story was the Nomar Garciaparra trade. I have to say I was a bit surprised by that. I figured he’d finish up in Boston and then walk in the off season. It’s a bit disappointing on one level, as Nomah is my wife’s favorite player, and he won’t be coming here anymore as he’s with the Cubs now. Of course, we could trade Soriano for pitching, move Mike Young back to second, and put Nomar at short here in Texas – yeah! ;)
This was also the induction ceremony for the second 2004 Rangers Hall of Fame game. While I never saw Fergie Jenkins pitch, or Buddy Bell play with my own eyes, I know them by reputation, and they both seem worthy candidates to be enshrined. There’s also Tom Vandergriff, who brought baseball here in the first place – all of us fans owe Mr Vandergriff a debt of thanks.