After the debacle in Philadelphia (which my brother properly taunted me over), I figured we’d be OK. Nope. We went into Florida and continued to stink up the joint – dare I say, like rotten fish? Get it? Marlins? Fish? Har-har. :) The stink brigade was led by Doug Brocail, who gave up FIVE earned runs in his total of .1IP. Brian Shouse wasn’t far behind, giving up two runs in his 1.3 IP. And bringing up the rear in this stink brigade is good ol’ Chan Ho. He gave up 5ER in his 4.2 IP. Not horrible, but let’s face it. It’s Chan Ho. :)
The capper was Mike Lowell’s grand slam. Lowell was batting about .025 this season it seemed, but of course came up big against us.
Did I mention the total lack of deodorant for out pitchers tonight? Man, they STUNK! The roster overhaul of this past week continued before Friday night’s game, although the way I feel at the moment, it won’t make much difference. John Wasdin? Somehow I don’t think he’s the answer.
But hey, the Yankees are under .500 and in fourth place – so that’ll brighten up my day.
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Ugh. Will write more later.
Update: No I won’t. Game made me too mad.
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I’ve said this before, and I’ll probably say it again. Whenever you pitch against a guy who is making his major league first start, you either score 50 runs in the first inning, or what happened last night happens – you can’t do anything against them. It’s the nature of the beast with an unknown quantity like that.
We got shut out by Robinson Tejeda (not Tejada, guys!) last night. He went 5 innings of two hit shutout ball. In fact, the Phillies pen (former Ranger Aaron Fultz, Ryan Madson, Billy Wagner) went 4 more innings of shutout ball. Between the four Phillies pitchers, we managed just 5 hits the entire night, with Rod Barajas getting two (the others by Teixeira, Blalock, Hidalgo). That’s pretty much the story of the game. The Phillies pitchers closed us down.
On the flip side, our pitching was pretty decent, too. Starter Chris Young more and more looks like a really good rotation guy every time out this season. He went 5.1, giving up 2 runs on 5 hits (6K, 1BB). Our pen (Tejera, Regilio, Shouse) didn’t give up any runs in their time on the hill.
The highlight of the game for me was the opening of the 6th inning when they showed the Philly Phanatic and Rangers Captain dueling it out with lightsabers, in Jedi gowns. That was most amusing. Stupid me didn’t save the game on the TiVo, I deleted it before I got a chance to take a picture of that. Anyone get one?
But the big talk of the day had to have been the DFA’ing of Ryan Drese. I don’t think anyone following the team would have predicted THAT. A guy who was a 14 game winner just last year, and was this season’s opening day starter gets DFA’ed. I’m really surprised they didn’t carry on with him longer than that, especially since he has a guaranteed contract through next year (and an option for 07). Oh well, I seriously doubt we’ll be able to hang on to him and get him to the minors through waivers. It’s just a surprise to me. Hmm, I know we’re bringing up RicRod from AAA to take his place on Sunday, but an opening in the rotation, eh? Perhaps there’s more to those Roger Clemens rumours.. Nah, just joking. :)
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This was an odd game for me. My adopted team (Rangers) vs my hometown team (Phillies). I’d always wanted this to happen. Finally did (outside of spring training in FL). So it was with much anticipation I drove to the Cheesesteak place not too far from my house to pick up a couple for my wife and I to eat during the game. I pulled up, and the place was gone. Out of business. That was an omen for the Rangers for the night, and sort of put me in a down mood, as I was really in the mood for that. I didn’t really know what to do with my baseball loyalties, as I didn’t really care who won the game.
When I got home, I was about an hour behind the live game on my TiVo, and my brother called me. Wanted to know if I was watching (dumb question). I said yeah, but I’m an hour behind, and while he didn’t tell me the score, he told me enough that the Rangers got torched. The way he told it, it seemed like we gave up 8 runs in the third inning. We did give up a bunch, but it wasn’t as all horriffic as my brother made it sound. Note to self. Don’t answer phone calls when watching games behind on the TiVo.
Ryan Drese, however, looked bad. It was his shortest outing this year, only 2.2IP. He gave up 5 runs on 8 hits. The other three were given up by Ron Mahay in his .1 IP. A scary thing is how well Benoit has been pitching out of the pen. I read where they’re thinking of trying him in the starting rotation again. Have we not learned our lesson with him? He’ll go there and stink up the joint. Leave him in relief where he’s finally doing good.
Offensively we were powered primarily by the longball again. In Philadelphia, that’s an easy thing to do in the new park. We had two run home runs by Hank Blalock and Rod Barajas for a four spot in the fourth. We tacked on another one in the 8th on a Mike Young solo home run. That gives Young a hitting streak of 16 games, and I believe 10 or 11 games where he’s also scored a run in a row. Soriano who was hurt somewhat came in and pinch hit, and extended his own hitting streak to 12 games.
When the Phanatic was in Philadelphia recently, Rangers Captain had let out that he was going to Philly. If he was there, he wasn’t on the TV coverage last night.
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Got extremely busy, didn’t have time to write much.
Kenny Rogers pitched extremely well again. He’s been amazing since the start of May. With each performance, I have to imagine Scott Boras’ eyes are getting bigger. In fact, that scares me. Two of our best players now (Rogers & Teixeira) are both Boras clients. Not good.
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Got extremely busy, didn’t have time to write much. But the best thing to write about is the total lack of good pitching in this game.
Chan Ho Park got his 100th career win, but he really didn’t deserve it the way he pitched. He was bailed out by our offense who beat up on an even worse pitcher, Jose Lima.
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Aw dammit. A team we were expected to stomp on continues their odd mastery of us by taking a pitcher’s duel on Friday night by the score of 2-1.
Pedro Astacio took the hill for the Rangers and had a good performance. He gave up just two runs in his seven innings pitched. I could whine about that, but then I look at what Roger Clemens is going through this year, and it could be a lot worse. Still, one hates to waste a good pitching performance by the most inconsistent of our starting pitchers. That’s exactly what we did by scoring only one run, and that run was not exactly a power display.
Our offense was asleep on Friday night. KC’s Hernandez isn’t exactly a bad pitcher, but he isn’t one you would expect to give up just one run over six innings, but that’s what he did. The Royals threw out three relievers who threw shutout ball, so we couldn’t mount any kind of comeback.
The saving grace is that the entire AL West lost last night, so we remain .5 of a game back of the Angels for first place.
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Sorry, no time for an update for this game.

The streak has come to an end at nine wins. Ryan Drese didn’t keep the great pitching performances intact, going 6.1 innings, giving up 10 hits and 6 runs (5ER). On the positive side, he didn’t walk anyone, but gave up too many hits. But it wasn’t all bad, Drese looked good through 6 innings, as we were up 4-1, and feeling good. But the wheels fell off in the seventh inning, when we gave up a 5 spot to the Tigers. That was the game in a nutshell, unfortunately.
Offensively, we had a few more home runs by the currently hot Richard Hidalgo, and the extremely hot Kevin Mench. Dellucci went 3 for 5, but no runs scored, or RBI’s.
The bottom line for me is that the game felt like the 10th win in a row until the seventh inning when all the air went out of it due to the 5 spot the Tigers got.
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Rogers finishes the month 6-0. His era was 1.6something or other. Several consecutive shutouts. I bet Roger Clemens would kill for some of the offense Kenny Rogers was getting this month. Kenny was godlike this month, and it was the backbone to our winning ways in May. May 2005 was also the month with Kenny Rogers on the calendar the Rangers handed out in April. For the record, Ryan Drese is the calendar boy in June, so hopefully he’ll have the same kind of month. :)
Don’t have time to write much else, but it was really nice to keep the streak going. Let’s see if Drese can keep it going tonight in Detroit, and keep us in FIRST PLACE – something we gained last night when the White Sox beat the Angels. :)
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