Well, we won in the bottom of the ninth. That was exciting and all, but it doens’t feel as good to me because Coco Cordero blew another lead in the ninth. It’s odd on my fantasy teams where I have him, as I’m not getting saves, but I’m getting stupid high ERA’s and wins from him. Not the way I wanted my closer to behave.
We seemed to have this game pretty well in hand all along. We got out early on an uncharacteristically (sp?) wild Barry Zito (75 pitches through first three innings). Zito gave up 6 hits and 5 runs overall in his 5 innings pitched. He also walked 4 and struck out five, a bunch of numbers that just don’t say Zito. Even his trademark curveball wasn’t as good as it was – one of them Hank Blalock nailed off the right field foul pole for a home run.
Speaking of home runs, Kevin Mench tied the Ranger record with five straight games with a home run. The second was right after Blalock’s home run. Phil Nevin had a shot later in the game, too. It was all feeling good, as Vicente Padilla was going well, allowing just one run through five. He did give up a couple in the sixth, but still had good numbers, going 5.2IP, allowing 3 runs (only 2 earned). He did walk four which isn’t good. But we blew getting him the win, which he probably deserved.
Cordero stunk up the joint again, and when he came off the field after blowing the lead, he got booed, which is a new experience for him, I’d imagine. The TV coverage showed Akinori Otsuka a bit in the pen when Cordero was knee deep in it. I wonder how long it would take before that switch was made?

Well, what was good? Kevin Milwood pitched shutout ball.
Well, what was bad? Kevin Millwood only pitched five innings. The Stars also lost a game late tonight. :(
Said it before, will say it again. You can’t walk 7 batters in a game and expect to win. Although, as I recall, most of the guys who walked didn’t score. Millwood walked 6 batters in five innings, and none of them scored. The other one was by CJ Wilson, who did give up all three runs, although I can’t recall at the moment if his walk scored. Probably did.
Take out Wilson’s inning, and we did not all that bad. But we didn’t get enough offense, even though Kevin Mench tried, going 3-4 with a home run, and getting both our RBI’s. A frustrating game. Sigh.

I’m going to have to take a pass on commentiung on the Devil Rays series. I was going to do all three of them in one update on Monday, but I got stupid busy at work again, and this is about all I can say about it.

Well, this game was cruising along nicely. Vicente Padilla and Joel Piniero were pitching a scoreless shutout through five innings. Things were nice. The Rangers then got a few runs in the sixth. Gary Matthews broke the ice with a home run to right field. We then loaded the bases, and Kevin Mench just missed a grand slam (and $25k for someone on the Sonic contest) by a few feet. Still, he got his first two RBI’s of the season on a double the scraped the top of the wall in the left field wall. It stayed that way, and Padilla was still in the game in the bottom of the seventh. He gave up a solo home run in the seventh, and game out having pitched an excellent game. Seven innings, only thee hits, and one earned run (the HR). He did walk three, but struck out seven.
Joaquin Benoit came on, and gave up two runs after a play that initially looked like a bad call, but was probably right (the ball that Adrian Brown in right trapped). Our pen couldn’t hold it again, and we went into the ninth 3-3. Eddie Guardardo came on, and he’s someone we always seem to have good success against. Eddie threw 38 pitches in the top of the ninth – a lot of stuff happened, and we did get one run off of him in the ninth, and it was on a walked in run.
In the bottom of the ninth Cordero came on after Tom Grieve was saying that he wasn’t supposed to pitch at all, but Buck Showalter showed some support for his closer and sending him back out there after getting slammed last night. The game ended on a nice defensive play by Hank Blalock and a nice pick by Mark Teixeira. But for me the play here was the pitching by Padilla. He was quite the pitcher we’ve needed the last few years tonight, and it’s a shame he got a no decision.
We come back home to Arlington with a winning road record. That’s a nice thing to have.

You know, I’m so mad at how this ended, I don’t feel like writing about it, despite the fact that I do have time to write about this one.

Stupid busy at work today, no time to write anything.

This was definitely two games in one. The first game seemed to run from the start till the seventh inning. It was a great pitchers duel. Kameron Loe went 7 innings for the Rangers, giving up one unearned run on 5 hits. Dan Haren went 8 plus innings, giving up 1 run on four hits. A good pitcher’s duel.
Then it got into the bullpen. Otsuka did not do well, giving up a couple of runs in .2 IP. However, Houston Street was terrible, giving up FOUR runs in his .2 IP in relief. THat was the difference. We did have a couple of home runs in the game late for the win. One was a two run shot by Tex, which wasn’t a surprise.
However, the other one was far more comical, envoking memories of Jose Canseco’s ball off the head home run. Milton Bradley had a ball hit by D’Angelo Jimenez in his glove, and then “pushed” it over the fence for a home run. If he hadn’t have touched that ball, no home run, but the only reason Jimenez got his first Ranger home run was thanks to Mr Bradley. It was pretty comical to watch. :)
Not much else to say about this one, as today was my daughter’s first birthday, and I watched this game in about 20 minutes in high speed on the TiVo. :)
Our first series win of the season. That’s good.

This game can be summed up in just a few words. Padilla. Home Run.
While obviously more went on in this game, it will hinge on the fact that Padilla gave up three consecutive home runs to the A’s in the 6th. In all, Padilla went 5+ innings, gave up 8 hits (four of which were home runs) while walking one and striking out four. Obviously not his best start with us. Jack Benoit and CJ Wilson combined to pitch the other three innings, and didn’t give up any more. Sure, we could have scored more runs in the final three innings, and didn’t. But it just felt like the game was over in the sixth inning.
On the other side of things, the A’s pretty much kept us in check. In the entire game, we had just five hits total. One of them was a three run home run by Phil Nevin. We never got much sustained offense in this game.
As I said before, home run. Padilla. Game over.

I won’t have much time to write about this one. The reason is I had to get up at 3:30AM for Easter Church responsibilities on Friday morning, so by the time this game rolled around, I was dead to the world tired. I fell asleep during the game, and I didn’t see the back end of it util about 8:20AM on Saturday morning. Now I’m off to the aiport to pick up my mother in law who will be in for my daughter’s first birthday tomorrow.
Zito helped more than the Rangers helped themselves, as he was wild, and definitely not “Zito”. Still, I’ll take the win just fine. :)

I’ll have more about this in the morning. The game just ended, and I’m fairly tired. I will post my raw notes I took while the game was going though. Will probably have somethimg more coherent in the morning. :)
Welcome back Matthews. 3 run 2 out 2 strike triple in the fourth. Batted around in the fourth. Tex HR too
Fifth: Two singles, a walk, a couple of RBI’s chased Escobar after giving up 8 runs in 4.1IP
Sixth: Nix got an RBI double, first ebh of season.
3 hits 3 runs 2 RBI with a home run for Gerald Laird
Nix hit by pitch
Mike Young got his 900th career hit
Esteban Yan wild pitch scoring the 11th run
Koronka looked good. Started the game by striking out the side. Koronka made a great pickup on the mound on the botom of the 6th, behind his back
Guerrero: 39 games