Shit.

Anaheim starter Joe Saunders did something you never really want to do as a starting pitcher. Go the complete game and get a loss. Saunders had a great game. Eight innings, six hits, three runs, no walks, and five strikeouts. A really good line. The problem is the Rangers’ line was way better.
The problem was that Rangers pitching was better. Matt Harrison made his major league debut this night, and was fabulous. Matt went seven innings, giving up just five hits, one walk, and just the lone two runs. Matt had a rough start, with an error made behind him on the first play, but got a double play right after it, and from that point on he seemed to pitch better – even if he looked somewhat scared on the TV. :) Eddie Guardado & CJ Wilson followed. While CJ walked two in his inning (!), neither allowed a run, and kept the win for Matt Harrison.
In all, Angels hitting had just six hits. Two of them were by Howie Kendrick, and the other two were by Guerrero. No shame in giving up hits to Guerrero. Or Kendrick either, but you kind of expect it with Vlad in this ballpark. The only extra base hit was a double by Kendrick, everything else was a single.
The Rangers also only had six hits total. Two were by Michael Young, and the others were scattered amongst the lineup. Thing is, even though we only had six hits, it felt like more of an offensive game than the Angels did. That’s because Michael Young had a triple, Chris Davis had another home run (his fourth in his fourth start in Arlington), and Ian Kinsler had a double. Half of our hits were extra base jobs. Josh Hamilton extended his major league lead in RBI’s with two RBI’s. One was a sac fly to left, and the other was a single up the second base hole. That gives Josh 87 in all.
You know, I’ve written about Josh Hamilton a few times before, but a few more things have happened with him I wanted to point out, and now’s a good a time as any. First, when he was interviewed on the TBS All Star Game selection show, he didn’t shy away from his faith. Far from it. When asked a pile of questions to open, the first thing out of his mouth was (paraphrasing), “First off, Glory be to God for everything I have and where I am.” He mentioned God numerous times through the interview, and that’s something to rejoice over. He was quite joyful in his love of Jesus, and it showed in his interview. It’s for these reasons that I will believe Josh Hamilton when he professes his faith. It’s obvious he wears it for the right purpose. Unlike guys like Deion Sanders and Michael Irvin who profess to believe, but wear their faith like a piece of gold jewelery, and that’s all the wrong reasons.
Anyway, the other thing about Hamilton that I liked was that I read that he told his High School coach (or someone like that from his past) that if he ever made it to the Home Run Derby, that he’d take him as his pitcher. Well, that happened – said guy is going to be Josh’s pitcher in the home run derby. It’s moments like THAT that make me think that not all athletes are egotistical jackasses who care about their contract, and that’s it. So God bless Josh Hamilton. I can’t think of a better baseball player for my little girl to root for.
To get back to the game, Matt Harrison’s performance was awesome. Makes you wonder how long he’ll stick around, and if he can seize the spot on the rotation while he’s here.

I know there was more to talk about, but this game will be remembered for the picture above. I was there. It was seriously impressive live. I stood there in row 14 of Section 325 for about two minutes with both arms up in the air.

Here’s a video clip.  It’s still damn impressive..

What do you say about games like this? Offense all over the place. No pitcher was particuarly well represented by his box score.

Texas			IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Millwood (W, 6-4)	5.0	9	5	3	0	2	1	4.93
Wright (H, 11)		2.0	1	0	0	1	2	0	4.44
Rupe 			0.1	2	3	3	1	0	1	4.31
Guardado (H, 17)	0.2	1	0	0	0	0	0	2.90
Wilson (S, 21)		1.0	2	2	2	0	2	2	4.70

Baltimore		IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Liz (L, 3-1)		3.2	7	6	4	5	4	1	5.94
Loewen 			1.0	0	0	0	2	1	0	8.02
Cabrera, F 		1.1	2	0	0	0	2	0	0.00
Bradford 		1.0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2.78
Johnson 		0.2	3	4	4	1	0	0	1.88
Sherrill 		1.1	2	1	1	2	3	0	3.72

In fact, that’s about all I’m going to do for this one. Was a pretty poorly pitched game (21 runs and 29 hits total), that’s what this one boils down to.

German Duran, a guy who has been here for awhile, but seemingly gets overlooked when you think of the current roster makeup lead the team yesterday to a 5-3 win. Duran, batting ninth went 3-3 with two doubles and two runs scored. He wasn’t the only one with multiple hits. Michael Young went 3-5, and Ian Kinsler who continues his assult on just about everything went 2-3 with a walk, as well as two runs scored and two RBI’s. I guess if you look just at the numbers, Kinsler “led the offense”, but Duran’s 3-3 struck me as more impressive for some reason. Can’t tell you why, that’s a “gut feeling”, but perhaps it’s from a guy who may be considered “the 25th man”.
Kinsler did jack another home run, and is turning out to be the player he was lauded to be when he was coming up. He was not slated to start the All-Star game, but he really should be. Stupid Boston media bias. Pedroia is a fine player, but he’s not comparing this year to what Kinsler is doing.
Pitching wise, Scott Feldman got a start. He wasn’t supposed to start, but got the call at the last minute. Pitched OK. Technically a quality start, but barely. Six innings pitched, three earned runs, four walks though (too many). He was OK enough to get the win. He deserves that, considering how many he pitched well enough to win he got no run support. The pen was great, not allowing any runs.
Baltimore isn’t even drawing 20,000 on a Saturday game. Man have their fortunes fallen. They were a 40k+ per night draw for a long time. Shall we blame it on the owner? :)

Well, after the game I went to against the Phillies when Padilla looked fairly pedestrian, I thought “OK, he’s been pretty decent, he’ll bounce back against Baltimore”. WRONG.
Vicente Padilla looked like the 2007 edition of himself, even evoking bad memories of Chan Ho Park & Mark Clark. He gave up a run in the first. OK, no big deal, just one run. He looked wobbly in the first inning, but this version of Padilla has been good with dealing with that. Not this game. In the second inning he gave up three runs, then four more in the third. They were all earned, too. Couldn’t pin the numbers on a bad play behind him – Pidente threw up eight earned runs on the scoreboard; not surviving the third inning. It was pretty darned ugly. I think the most telling stat is that he didn’t strike out anyone. While he’s not going to lead the league in strikeouts, he does get his fair share, and to strike out zero is a pretty much the telling sign. The Rangers pen did put up four innings of zeroes before Josh Rupe gave up two more runs in the 8th. But the damage was done, we were never really in this game.
That despite an actual first inning lead when Bradley doubled in a run. In fact, that double was our only extra base hit. We had eight more hits – all singles. Orioles starter Jeremy Guthrie did allow two walks, but our bats were pretty much shut down. In fact, Milton Bradley pretty much was the offense. He was 2-4 with three RBI’s.
This game pretty much boiled down to Vicente Padilla was never in this game, so neither was the rest of the team. When you give up 28 runs total in two consecutive games, you pretty much aren’t going to be in either of those games.

Per my policy, I don’t write about Rangers losses to the Yankees.
Although I will say it was somewhat gratifying to beat Ponson, even if we didn’t beat the Yankees.

The Rangers had been godawful in Yankee Stadium the last few years. Oh, we’d get a win here and there to show we had a small pulse, but we’ve been effectively target practice for the Yankees. Not this year. After last night’s extremely well pitched game, we get another – and our second win in a row in Yankee stadium in as long as I can remember.
Kevin Millwood went for the Rangers, and had a pretty good outing. Went five innings, giving up five hits and a walk for one earned run. Struck out six. Funny thing is after just 84 pitches, he was out after five. I admit I passed out on the sofa for a bit there, so it’s possible there was an explanation and I missed it.
Josh Rupe followed and ended up with a blown save, as he gave up the tying run; his only in two innings. Frank Francisco followed with a scoreless frame. CJ Wilson closed it out, and after getting a double play, seemed absolutely fired up – got the final out on three pitches. Two strikes at 95+ on the radar gun, and the third was a ground out that shattered the bat. Was a great ending to this.
Offensively the Rangers had just nine hits. Six of them were by Kinsler, Young, & Bradley who had two each. But the big thing was Ian Kinsler, who ran us into this win. In the ninth inning, Ian got on, then stole second, and then stole third, and scored on a single in the top of the ninth. It was quite impressive to get the win against Rivera.
As a Ranger fan, you feel positively giddy about the lofty perch of three games over .500 – and to do it against Rivera and the Yankees made it a whole lot better. Dare we think sweep on Wednesday?

A lot was made about the fact that Arod tied Jimmie Foxx for 14th on the all time home run list at 534. But what I found far more amazing was the fact that Jason Giambi got a triple in this game! If ever there was a time to use Chris Berman’s NFL quote of “Rumblin, Bumblin, Stumblin…”, that was it. Speaking of Giambi, when did the Yankees allow facial hair again? I thought that was verboten with them. As long as I’m at it, Giambi’s ‘stache looked sillier than the promo pictures for Ramon Vazquez & Frank Catalanotto for 2008. :)
The Yankees only got four hits total this game. That’s the story of this one. The Yankees’ offense was shut down. Of the four hits, it was for the cycle, amusingly enough. There was a single by Benji Molina, a double by Jorge Posada, the triple by Jason Giambi, and a home run by Arod. Arod’s home run was pretty titanic, it cleared Monument Park – quite a shot. That was Feldman’s only mistake of the night, but to a guy who should be the eventual home run king is nothing to feel too bad about.
The Rangers didn’t exactly tear it up offensively, either. They had just seven hits, and Michael Young had three of those. Two of Young’s three hits were doubles. In fact, four of our seven hits were doubles. Our first run scored on a Josh Hamilton single to right, which scored Ian Kinsler. That gave Josh his 80th RBI of the season. Our second run, and the winning run was plated by Chris Davis, the second game in a row where he did that. Davis’ RBI was on a double to deep right field.
Nice caught stealing by Saltamacchia, throwing from his knees. His defense has looked better since Laird got hurt. If Salty keeps improving, one might think Laird would have a bit of deja-vu. That would be the second time he could conceivably lose his starting job when someone else came in and played great while he was on the DL.
Bit of bad news for Eddie Guardado. He had to leave the game after not throwing a pitch at all. He appeared to get hurt during his warmup tosses in the eighth inning.
It was nice to see Scott Feldman get a win – he should have many more. We continue to not score runs for him, but this time at least we managed to keep the other team off the board.
We finally got to two games over .500. Seems like such a “lofty goal” that we reached, even if it is just two games over .500 – know what I mean?
Anyone else want to see Chris Davis stay at first base for good, and pretty much be done with Catalanotto, and forget about this idea of Blalock being a first baseman? I don’t think Hank is back in 2009 anyway.

Chris Davis came to the majors with quite a fanfare. Well, at least from those of us who have a knowledge of the Rangers’ minor league system. On Sunday, he delivered what turned out to be the winning run. Davis hit a home run in the second inning, which gave the Rangers a 2-1 lead at that time.
That was the only run of the second inning, and we had just a lone run in the two frames surrounding it, too. The first inning was a leadoff triple by Ian Kinsler who was grounded home by Michael Young. The third inning run was a Michael Young double, who was brought home by a Josh Hamilton single. That was actually it for awhile. The Rangers didn’t score again until the bottom of the eighth, when they plated two on an RBI single by Ramon Vazquez, and a fielder’s choice by Michael Young.
The Rangers were up against former Ranger pitcher Jamie Moyer, who is still chugging along quite nicely at 45. He’s one of the few players left in MLB older than me, so I notice that. :) Moyer’s line wasn’t that bad – 5.2 IP, 7H, 4BB, 3ER. Well, the walks weren’t good, but 3ER in just about six innings isn’t horrendous.
Problem for Philly was that Eric Hurley was good. He gave up just one earned run in his 5.2 innings of work. This was enough to get his first major league win. Our pen followed up with 3.1 innings of scoreless relief to give the Rangers a series win, and take them back over .500 again.