The big bats came out in Chicago tonight, the Rangers apparently showing no ill effects of their tri city tour yesterday.
The bats came alive again, putting the Rangers into double digit runs for the first time since the first game after the All-Star break. It was defintely powered by the longball. We bashed four of them, two off of starter Mark Buehrle, who we beat up on again. Buehrle actually went seven innings, but gave up 5 earned runs. Chicago trotted out three relivers after Buherle, all of which gave up runs, too.
Texas sent out five pitchers of their own. John Wasdin started the game, but was pulled after just 3.2 innings, only having given up 2 runs, which I felt was kind of odd. Following Wasdin was Ron Mahay, who was credited with the win. Wes Littleton, CJ Wilson, & Rick Bauer all followed – they combined for just one run allowed (Littleton).
But again, this was the game of the home run. Mike Young, Mark Teixeira, & Brad Wilkerson hit three, but the best one was Kevin Mench. He had a three run home run which at the time put us up 9-3. This was Kevin’s first home run since early June.
Nice way to get my regular updating started up again. :)

Well, I’m back. As the White Sox series is about to start later this evening, I need to get back into things. I probably could have updated for the Toronto series, but I got lazy. As I wrote before, I was home on a two week trip to Pennsylvia to visit my family and my wife’s. While we were in Pittsburgh, we attended Fanfest, which was a lot of fun. I did post some pictures of that online, you can see them here. As a lot of games passed between my last update and now I’ll have rather short recaps of them. Most of them I didn’t even see being out of town. :)
June 28th: Rangers lose to Giants, 5-1. The big deal in this one was a grand slam that John Rheinecker gave up to Ray Durham. Of course the Rangers only pushed across one run of their own – only getting one extra base hit. While we lost by 4, this game felt like a game where we lost by just 1. [ MLB.com recap of game ]
June 29th: Rangers lose to Giants, 2-1. Even more maddening than the 5-1 loss, or the fiasco that was the foul/fair ball of Teixeira’s for me. 2-1 games mean one thing – you didn’t hit well enough to win. A great start (6IP, 4H, 1ER) was wasted by John Koronka. He was bested by Jason Schmidt (7IP, 5H, 1ER). Ian Kinsler had two of the 5 hits, we had not much going on. [ MLB.com recap of game ]
June 30th: Rangers beat Astros, 3-1. Padilla beats Oswalt. Vicente Padilla, who has become our hottest pitcher of late bested Roy Oswalt in Arlington. Oswalt even pitched a complete game (8IP, 9H, 3ER), but still got the loss. That was because the Astros were dominated by Padilla. Vicente went 8 innings, giving up just 4 hits and 1ER. Otsuka got his 16th save of the season. If I wasn’t headed out of town on a trip in two days, I probably would have been at this game. [ MLB.com recap of game ]
July 1st: Rangers lose to Astros, 7-0. Another shutout. Four Houston pitchers combined on a 3 hit shutout of the Rangers. Man, we had NOTHING this game. John Wasdin technically had a quality start, but was nowhere near sniffing a win. [ MLB.com recap of game ]
July 2nd: Rangers lose to Astros, 9-5. The first of the games I didn’t get to see, as I was in Philadelphia by the time the game started. I did see on ESPN about Millwood having to come out of the game early. At the time I thought it was going to be bad, but it turns out not to be. Not a very well pitched game by Texas, giving up 16 hits with 3 walks. There goes the Silver boot to Houston. [ MLB.com recap of game ]
July 3rd: Rangers beat Blue Jays, 6-1. John Rheinecker turned in a great performance, going 7 innings, giving up just one run on 5 hits. He was followed up by Coco & Bryan Corey for the win. Mark DeRosa had a home run, and Kinsler, Laird, & Mike Young (two) had doubles in this one. From the line score, it appeared we didn’t get it into gear until late, scoring 5 of our six runs in the 6th, 7th, & 8th. [ MLB.com recap of game ]
July 4th: Rangers lose to Blue Jays, 3-2. John Koronka took a tough loss, going 8 innings total, giving up just three runs, but was bested by former Cy Young winner, Roy Halladay. Halladay went 7.2 Innings, gave up no runs. We tried to come back against BJ Ryan, but couldn’t seal the deal. Mike Young got his 1,000th career hit, if his health holds up, I think 3,000 will be no problem for him at all. [ MLB.com recap of game ]
July 5th: Rangers beat Blue Jays, 9-3. Vicente Padilla got his 8th win of the season tonight, going 6.2 innings, giving up 3 runs. But we more tha covered that by doing a number on the Toronto staff. Toronto ran four pitchers out there, none of them escaped unscathed. Casey Janssen took the worst of it, going just 3.1 innings, giving up 5ER. We had 5 doubles and four home runs in this one. Lots of offense here (14 hits total). [ MLB.com recap of game ]
July 6th: Off day for Rangers. I was at a Phillies game this night. Had seriously great seats, just two rows between me and the home dugout. Got to see closeups of Pat Burrell striking out.
July 7th: Rangers beat Twins, 9-4. Like the last game against the Jays, the Rangers got out fast, scoring 8 of their nine runs in the first three innings. Again, we had four doubles, and two home runs this game – most of which came in the first three innings. [ MLB.com recap of game ]
July 8th: Rangers lose to Twins, 4-0. The second time we were shut out this month. This time we were closed down by Francisco Liriano (and two relievers). We could get only six hits in all (2 by DeRosa). John Rheinecker didn’t pitch bad again (6IP, 3ER), but was beat by someone else. [ MLB.com recap of game ]
July 9th: Rangers beat Twins, 5-2. In a surprise, John Koronka beat Johan Santana. Johan Santana seemed to melt, based on the fact that of the 5ER he gave up, 4 of them were in his final two innings. John Koronka picked up the win in this game, although he went the minimum 5 to get it. Two home runs this game, one by Tex, one by Matthews. [ MLB.com recap of game ]
July 10th: I attended the Fanfest in Pittsburgh this day. Was a lot of fun – I posted some pictures of it online here. My wife got to meet and talk to Jackie Robinson’s daughter, and I noticed Billy Ripken hanging out in the baseball card show, stopped to talk to him for a bit – that was quite fun, too.
July 11th: Mike Young was the All-star game MVP. It was quite cool to see that. Really nice to see him get some national press. My wife and I hung out in a local bar for the start of the All Star game. We were probably the only people clapping for the AL players, and specifically Mike Young and Gary Matthews, but it was nice to have that kind of communal fun. We ate dinner at this place, was quite nice.
July 12th: Off day – no baseball.
July 13th: Rangers beat Orioles, 15-1. Bombs away is the word here. Mark Teixeira led the way in this one with a career high 3 home runs, as well as 7 RBI’s. We had six home runs in all, as well as two doubles. Offense all over the place. Of the 11 different batters we sent up there, only Jerry Hairston didn’t get a hit, and he was a late inning sub anyway. All our starting 9 had hits. Vicente Padilla had a great game here too, but that kind of got buried behind all the offense. Padilla went 7, giving up 4 hits and just 1 earned run. He continues to roll. [ MLB.com recap of game ]
July 14th: Rangers beat Orioles, 2-1. Our offense disappeared after last night. We could only garner 4 hits in all, but it was enough, as we won 2-1 over Kris Benson and the Orioles. Benson did what Oswalt did a week ago or so, pitch a complete game aginst the Rangers, but lost. Kevin Millwood showed no ill effects of his early exit last time out. He went 6, gave up just one run, and the trio of Bauer/Cordero/Otsuka sealed the win, earning Aki his 18th save, and in my opinion the pole position for the closer’s job in 2007. [ MLB.com recap of game ]
July 15th: Rangers lose to Orioles, 8-1. Uh, hello? Where’d our offense go? After the outburst to start the second half, we haven’t done much since. Two runs yesterday on four hits, one run on six hits tonight. Rheinecker got bombed, giving up 7ER in 3.2IP – that was pretty much the game in a nutshell. Our pitcher got bombed, and we broke out the no hit sticks. [ MLB.com recap of game ]
July 16th: Rangers lose to Orioles, 4-0. Not only did our offense actually get worse by getting shut out for the third time this month (and it’s only half over), we also tossed in three errors for good measure. Blech. [ MLB.com recap of game ]
July 17th: Rangers lose to Blue Jays, 10-1. OK, this is getting sad. In the the last four games, we’ve gotten a total of 4 runs. Not only that, John Koronka stunk up the joint this game, giving up 9ER in 3.2IP. [ MLB.com recap of game ]
July 18th: Rangers beat Blue Jays, 5-2. It’s still sad when we win the game, and score more runs than we did in the previous four combined without getting to double digits. However, it wasn’t all nice, as we scored all five of our runs in the 8th inning – it looked like we were well on our way to another scoreless game at that point – I have to admit. I did see this one, but only from the seventh inning onwards, so I got to see all the fun. All those runs came right in time too, as Padilla had just come out of the game after pitching 7 innings, giving up just two runs – he deserved the win. Fortunately our bats came alive at exactly the right time to get Vicente his 10th win of the season. [ MLB.com recap of game ]
July 19th: Rangers beat Blue Jays, 5-4. We had another game like last night, where we had donut through six innings (well, OK 1 run, but it felt like less), and then picked up four in the 7th frame and then held on for the win. Kevin Millwood joined Vicente Padilla as a game winner on the staff. Assuming he picks up a win on his other start in the remainder of July, that would give him 11, and a pace to get about 16 or so – maybe 17 depending on how that “half a win” falls. :) We were led here by Gerald Laird, who went 2 for 3 (two doubles) and scored twice. Gary Matthews was the beneficiary of that, getting two RBI’s. Mark DeRosa also had a line drive opposite field home run in this game, too. [ MLB.com recap of game ]
July 20th: Rangers lose to the Red Sox, 6-4. A makeup game from all the rain we had in Boston on our trips in there. This was a scheduled day off, but it made for quite an intersting travel day for the Rangers, being in three towns in one day. Rheinecker got hit around a bit again, going just 3.2IP, giving up 8 hits and 4 ER. That’s pretty similar to Curt Schilling’s line too, except Schill went 7, doubling more or less Rheinecker’s distance. The difference here is that Bryan Corey also gave up 2ER in his inning plus for the Rangers, while nobody from the Boston pen gave up anything. Offensively we had two doubles this game on a total of 11 hits. And now we’re off to Chicago for a few games there. Do we still have a ballpark? I haven’t seen a game at home in almost two whole months it feels, and this all seems like road games. :) [ MLB.com recap of game ]
And there we are. All caught up. Now time to get back to the grind of doing daily updates again.

Tom Grieve probably had to restrain himself from swearing over the air. He seemed cheesed off. As well he should be. The Giants ought to put out a bigger food spread for the umps or something, as they owe them for this, big time.
I only saw the end of the game, as I had some work work to do tonight – I saw just the ninth inning. What a fiasco that was. Man. I don’t know how to write about this game. Yeesh.
UPDATE: Tom Hicks apparently has discussed this situation with Bud Selig. Details here.

Vicente Padilla didn’t pitch bad in this game at all. He went 6 innings, gave up three runs. Should have been enough for a win. But it was not. In fact, just the first one would have been enough, as the Rangers were shutout by the Rockies, 3-0.
After Padilla, Bryan Corey & Rick Bauer each pitched an inning, giving up no more runs.
However, against Byung-Hung Kim, Jose Mesa, & Brian Fuentes, we could manage only 5 hits (all against Kim). Two of those hits were by Jerry Hariston (both bloops over the second baseman as well, not hit well).
That’s the story of this game. No offense. In Coors Field. Humidor be damned, I want my 30 runs a game in Denver back!

Well, we gave up on Fabio Castro yesterday, as the Rule 5 pick was designated for assignment to make room for Robinson Tejeda who started on Saturday. Tejeda was lit up – BIG TIME, and is supposed to be sent back out again today before Sunday afternoon’s game starts. That sequence of events kind of reminds me on how we lost Doug Davis to a roster squeeze a couple of years ago, actually.
Anyway, Tejeda just plain stunk up the joint. He gave up a big old ugly 6 spot in the bottom of the first inning. We never quite recovered from that. In all Tejeda gave up two singles, two walks, a double, and then a three run home run to cap it all off. In fact, probably the only reason it wasn’t worse was that Tejeda struck out the pitcher to end the inning.
And then it rained – which prompted a very funny story from Tom Grieve about his time in the minors around 1970 or so in Colorado when a tarp blew up and into the stands. That was a great story by Tom. Watching the Rockies guys struggling with the wind reminds me of that now classic footage from the 1993 Fla Marlins season when they had some serious tarp issues.
Anyway, when we came back from the rain delay, I was supriginsly still watching. Tejeda was sent back out, and gave up another run in the second inning for a total of 7. Tejeda actually went three innings total, giving up 7ER on 7H, 3BB, and 2 HR. Not good. Not good at all. I bet there’s a lot of Ranger fans right now that wish we still had David Dellucci. In fact, I bet Dellucci still wishes that, given how little playing time he’s gotten in Philly.
We actually tried to make a game of it in the middle innings. After four innings, we were down 9-1. We picked up a four spot, to make it 9-5, and the momentum seemed to back on our side. However, Jack Benoit gave up two runs in the bottom of the 6th to make it 11-5, and that was it for the scoring for the rest of the game, save for a solo home run by Mark Teixeira in the 9th inning to make it 11-6.
It felt like we tried to come back, but when Benoit couldn’t keep ’em off the board, we lost what little momentum we had. The game really seemed out of reach after the first inning, however. I’m surprised I watched the entire game, I usually give up on games like that, and do something else, but this time I stuck with it. :)

First game I’ve gotten to watch completely in awhile, although I spent most of the time actually perusing my company’s public forums for contiuning reaction to our game release a few days ago. :)
This was a Coors Field game. Lots of offense. It’s not like the score was 19-14, but 8-6 is still a decent amount of offense. It didn’t start out that way. Through five innings, the score was a pretty non altitude assisted 4-1. Then the floodgates opened in the sixth inning. Check out what happened in the sixth for the Rangers:
– M. DeRosa struck out swinging
– M. Young grounded out to shortstop
– M. Teixeira doubled to deep left
– H. Blalock singled to right center, M. Teixeira scored, H. Blalock to second advancing on throw
– K. Mench singled to center, H. Blalock scored
– G. Laird doubled to deep left, K. Mench scored
– I. Kinsler intentionally walked
– J. Botts hit for J. Koronka
– S. Dohmann relieved J. Francis
– J. Botts singled to center, G. Laird scored, I. Kinsler to third
– G. Matthews Jr. grounded out to second
And that was just the sixth. It was a bit more flashy in the seventh.
– M. DeRosa popped out to shallow right center
– M. Young doubled to deep center
– M. Teixeira homered to deep right center, M. Young scored
– H. Blalock homered to deep right center
– K. Mench grounded out to second
– G. Laird struck out swinging
Blalock’s home run there was the 100th of his career. John Koronka got the win, but just barely. He was pulled for a pinch hitter (Botts, who got a single), and we took the lead before Scott Feldman came in to replace Koronka. The shine is off Koronka from the great start he had, but he’s definitely a servicable starter, so that trade worked out pretty well.
We added five more doubles this game (Young 2, Laird 2, & Tex). We have about 900 so far this season it seems. There were the aforementioned home runs by Tex & Blalock (going back to back). In all we had twelve hits, and while it wasn’t pretty, we got the win.
That’s all that matters.

Well, as I said a couple of days ago, I’ve been busy, and haven’t had time to update the site. My company released a new game demo (Prey, go check it out, although it is a “Mature” rated game). As such, my time was big time elsewhere. I missed a few games totally, as well as only half paid attention to the ones I did see. As such, I’m summarizing all the missed games in a quick update here. Just for completeness’ sake, I guess.
Jun 17 – Beat Diamondbacks, 8-4: Matthews, Young lead team, going 2-4 each. Team hits for the cycle. Koronka gets a win. Of the 5 Rangers pitchers, Ron Mahay is the one with the most experience, and he was in the minors for awhile this season.
Jun 18 – Beat Diamondbacks, 10-7 for the series sweep. Kameron Loe was not good at all, giving up 4ER in 2.1IP. He goes on the DL after this start. Cordero blows another save; gets win. Mike Young goes 5-5 in the DH slot. Team hits for the cycle again. First three batters (Matthews, Young, Tex) have a combined 9 hits (out of the team’s overall 15). Nice to break out the brooms.
Jun 19 – Off Day
Jun 20 – Lose to Padres, 6-5. Mark Teixeira had a spectacular defensive game. He had what looked like a game winning walk off home run, and was screwed by first base umpire Bill Welke. That’s pretty much what people remember about this one.
Jun 21 – Lose to Padres, 3-2. Bill Welke strikes again. This time he’s behind home plate, and blows a call on a play where Michael Young scored, but was called out. Given we lost by one run, that was huge. Former Ranger pitcher Chris Young returns and pitches well against the Rangers. Also had former Rangers Eric Young & Adrian Gonzalez in tow. And I know it’s childish, but I still giggle like an 8 year old when I hear the name Barfield.
Jun 22 – Win against Padres, 5-3. John Rheinecker survived this game. He did get the win, but gave up eleven hits in 5.1IP to go with two walks. He’s lucky he only gave up two runs with all that. Still more doubles for our insane doubles rate this season. Cordero doesn’t blow a save. Blalock, Matthews, Young all 2-4. Nice to salvage a win before going on the road.

This game was about Kevin Millwood.
I was supposed to go to this game tonight to get the giveaway (the Build a Bear Bear) for my daughter, but I couldn’t go – my wife got sick, and it was better if we didn’t go. If anyone has an extra one of those, and wants to take pity on me, please let me know. :)

Definitely not John Rheinecker’s best game. Actually, it was fairly bad. But given the way he’s pitched in his games before this, I think no one is too bent out of shape over this one. Rhein gave up 11 hits and 5ER in four innings. Raised his season ERA to 3.60.
That’s pretty much the story of this game. It was rematch of the game Rhein & Mark Buehrle, but this time the roles were reversed. Buehrle gave up 2ER over 8 IP.
Rhein & Buehrle’s lines were the story of this game.

This was Vicente Padilla’s game.
8 innings pitched
3 hits
0 runs
3 walks
7 strikeouts
2 beanings of AJ Pierzynski
109 pitches (70 for strikes)
The most telling moment for me was in the second inning when the Sox had 2 men on at second and third with nobody out, and nobody scored. That was the Sox best chance all night, and they couldn’t capitalize.
On our offensive side, we hit around Javier Vazquez. Blalock started it with a solo home run in the third. We then hit him up for a four spot in the fourth. What’s nice about that is that all four runs came with two outs. We extended our major league leading doubles lead with three more tonight (Blalock, Tex, Kinsler).
Gary Matthews continues to keep his grip on the CF job, and went 3-5 tonight with an rbi and a run scored. He continues to look great. Kinsler was 2-3, even Hairston was 2-4. Only Barajas & DeRosa were hitless. But DeRosa had the defensive gem of the night with a one handed grab of a ball hit into the ground. It was do or die, and he threw home, and kept the Sox off the scoreboard. Was a great play.
Was a great win over the World Series Champs. Keeps us in first place.