This was the pitching duel I wanted to see. Vicente Padilla vs Cole Hamels. Both are pitching pretty good this season. Funny thing is, it’s not what we got. Hamels was better than Padilla was, but wasn’t outstanding himself.
Cole Hamels went seven innings, giving up six hits and two walks. This for a total of four runs, although he did strike out eight. Hamels was more streaky, as he gave up two runs in the first, then nothing for awhile, and the other two in the fifth. He seemed to dominate better than Padilla did (or did not as the case may be).
Vicente Padilla gave up more. In his six innings, he gave up seven hits and three walks. Seven earned runs. He wasn’t helped by the long ball – two of which he gave up. Both home runs were from guys you’d expect that from. Chase Utley & Ryan Howard. But Padilla was not the same guy who we’ve seen this year. Whether it was facing his former club, or the heat, or he was just “off” tonight, it wasn’t the real good Padilla we’ve been seeing in 2008.
Offensively, Michael Young did something he hasn’t done a ton of the last two seasons, hit a home run. He had a two run shot in the first inning, which was his seventh of the season. Kinsler & Young definitely had their sticks going – both went 3-5 this game. The rest of the offense was scattered amongst the lineup – Kinsler/Young were by far the standouts.
We did make some noise late when we tried to catch up – we scored a few in the bottom of the 8th against Chad Durbin, but couldn’t tie it up there. In the bottom of the ninth, the Phils brought on their closer Brad Lidge, who has returned to the lights out closer he used to be in his early days in Houston. Even then, we got a couple guys on, which brought up both Josh Hamilton & Milton Bradley. Both had the chance to win the game with a walk off home run – which I think everyone was hoping for. Didn’t happen. Lidge struck them both out.
Great defensive moment when Jimmy Rollins was gunned out at home plate trying to get an inside the park home run. Watching the play develop, I thought it was a no doubter, but then the throw came in better than I thought, and Rollins was nabbed on the hand – had he slid in with his hands down, he would have scored, actually.
This was a really good game. I was there, didn’t care for the rain, but the game itself was a good one – while the Rangers only led briefly in the bottom of the first, it had that “back and forth” feel to it. Enjoyed this one.
It rained almost the whole game. Started in like the second inning, and had various degrees of intensity through the rest of the game, but it never stopped. Praise be to God that it stopped when the game was over, so we didn’t get soaked going to the car, and more importantly that nobody had to deal with the rain in the crush of cars leaving the park.
Also, a random comment. If you’re going to take your kids to the game and teach them about baseball, that’s great. Don’t also teach them things like “Hey, dumbass – that wasn’t a strike!” There was a moron sitting behind my brother and I who was doing that. Loved he was teaching his kids the game. Didn’t love he was teaching his kids the ugly side of being a fan, too. Do you really want your kids growing up like Craig Bueno? Come on, don’t do stupid stuff like that.

Well, my brother flew in from Philadelphia to go to this game (and the other two as well). So we headed out, picked up our tickets from will call, and hit our seats, which were right behind first base. Got to see the tail end of Phillies batting practice, and watched all the pregame stuff. It was a weird feeling for me, both seeing my hometown Phillies at Rangers ballpark, and also having my brother with me at the game.
Anyway, both starting pitchers (Kason Gabbard & Brett Myers) pretty much stunk up the joint. Ian Kinsler got it started early with a solo home run to lead off the bottom of the first. That wasn’t so bad, really. The score was 1-0 going into the third inning. Then it seriously bogged down. The Phillies scored five runs in the top of the third – the big shot there was a grand slam by Pedro Feliz. The Rangers had walked Pat Burrell intentionally to load up the bases and get to Ryan Howard. On the surface that would seem like suicide, but Howard’s only batting about .210 at the moment. He struck out. But then Feliz hit a slam over the wall in left, giving the Phillies a 5-1 lead. Gabbard actually survived that inning into the fourth, but not much longer than that (only one more out).
The bottom of the third inning was started by Brett Myers, but he never got anyone out, and was pulled after several batters reached. It continued with Clay Condry, Philly’s long man, who gave up the first major league home run to Chris Davis, who it it the other way over the left field wall. That was pretty cool to see in person.
In all there were six longballs in the game, three by each team. Milton Bradley had one that hit the right field foul pole. There was the aforementioned ones by Chris Davis and Ian Kinsler. The Phillies had three too, one being the Feliz grand slam. Chris Coste had one in the fourth, and Jason Werth had one off of CJ Wilson to start off the ninth inning – not what you want to see when you closer comes in.
Still, the Rangers managed to hang on and win the game, getting yet again one game over .500. They try tomorrow to get two games over, which has been a major problem all season. It will be a great pitching matchup – Cole Hamels against Vicente Padilla. That’s the pitching matchup I was looking forward to the most this weekend. Hope it lives up to the billing.
One other thing was bats tonight. There were three bats that flew into the stands, including the third one which was a broken bat off the hands of Josh Hamilton. That bat hit a woman about 10-15 rows in front of me or so. She ended up leaving the game with a VERY obvious limp – she was hurting. Was funny, as soon as they started flying, or any bat broke in the field, you heard a ton of people around me shouting “MAPLE!” – not sure what the means, but the world maple is starting to be synonymous for “broken bat”.
Here is a sideshow of pictures I took at the game tonight (including several of Chris Davis). If you want to see larger versions of the pictures, you can reach the photo gallery here.

Friday’s game is the halfway point of the season. We head into that game at (wait for it) .500 again, after having dropped the finale of the series to Houston, 7-2. We fell behind bigtime very early, and were never ever in this game.
Millwood gave up a three run triple in the first inning up onto the giant hill of grass in center field, and then in the second inning surrendered four more runs. Kevin was just a mess. He actually threw five innings total, but his first two were so bad, it gave him a line that was bad even if you factor in the three scoreless innings he did pitch. All told, Kevin gave up twelve hits and three walks for seven earned runs. Raised his ERA over five (5.08) – just bad. The only positive to the pitching was that Josh Rupe, Jack Benoit, & Jamey Wright all had scoreless innings to follow, but it didn’t much matter at that time.
Wandy Rodriguez for the Astros threw gem of a game against us, and even if Kevin had given up just a few runs, it wouldn’t have much mattered. In his eight innings, Rodriguez only gave up a single run on five hits. The run that he did give up was in his last inning pitched on a single to Ian Kinsler. We were pretty much shut down all game. There was one surprise hit though – a double by Kevin Millwood. This ends NL Interleague for the season, and our pitchers did pretty well as a group with the stick.
Josh Hamilton & Milton Bradley were in the game, but neither factored into what little offense we did have, and Hamilton had to leave the game after the first inning when he was hit in the hand by a pitch. Anyone else having visions of him being elected to play in the All-Star game, but not being able to?
This ends the Silver Boot series for 2008. Every year someone writes about this – if you recall, the Rangers were making a big stink about getting out of the AL West and going to the AL Central to be more in tune with the time zone we’re in. That was apparently going to happen, and Tom Hicks let Bud Selig off the hook by accepting a guaranteed series each year against the Astros, keeping us with a lot of 9PM game starting times. This was supposed to become a big rivalry, but it hasn’t happened. I do like seeing us play the Astros, that part is nice, but the rivalry is a non issue. The most telling thing of all was the quote by Michael Young about the silver boot that the Rangers won (again on run differential, as the series was 3-3). Young said, “I could care less,” shortstop Michael Young said. “They can keep it for all I care.” That your “face of the franchise” player said that about the boot tells you all you need to know. As much as I like the Astros games, I think I’d rather be in the AL Central with more realistic starting times for my inter-division games.
Philly comes to down for the first time ever. My brother is flying in from Philadelphia, and we’re going to be at all three games. Yeah, I’ll be wearing Phillies shirts – it’s not often I get to see my home town team live. I’ll probably do the thing where I wear a Phillies shirt, and a Rangers cap. Probably won’t see too many of those in the park. :)

I’m still pretty tied down with work, and since I wanted to get this done before the next game starts, I’m going to have to resort to something quick.
1) Scott Feldman can’t catch a break. On a game he doesn’t pitch terribly well, the team goes on to win a low scoring game. They can’t score for him when he pitches great. Go figure.
2) CJ Wilson really feels like John Wetteland in that he gives you a heart attack before getting the save.
3) Welcome Max Ramirez! Not only did he get his first major league hit in the game, he then went on to get his first home run, a two run shot that turned out to be the game winner. That was really nice to see!
Tonight is the rubber game for the series, and for the overall Silver Boot. I should have some time to write about that one tomorrow.

Still busy with the project from yesterday, no time to write.

I was sitting down to write recaps for the weekend’s games and was handed a project by my boss, so I will have to pass on this game.
Nice to see Pidente get his 10th win – probably could be a candidate to be an All-Star pitcher, but the last time he was, there was a tie in the All Star game. :)

The Rangers got out to a lead early in this one, with a leadoff home run by Ian Kinsler, just two pitches into the game. Unfortunately, despite the score, it was NOT one of those games that you get out early and coast. For two reasons.
One – our bullpen lately won’t let you coast.
Two – We let the Nats back in the game fairly quickly.
We did get out to a three run lead in the first inning, then our bats went silent for awhile. It was during this time that Kason Gabbard let the Nats creep back in with a two run fourth, and solo run in the fifth to make the score at that time 4-3.
But a huge seven spot in the seventh inning put the Rangers way out front, and a few single runs in the last two frames assured this was a Nats stomping game.
The Rangers had eighteen hits in all, but mostly just singles. Kinsler’s home run, and doubles by Murphy, Young, & Vazquez were it for extra base hits.

Jamey Wright got himself in some hot water in the 14th inning. Bases loaded, one out. Got a strikeout, but hit a grounder just out of the reach of Michael Young. That was it.
Wasted a good outing by Kevin Millwood. Hats off to the Nats pen, which kept us almost completely down from the third inning on. In fact, from the seventh inning onwards, we had just one hit.
We may have lost Gerald Laird for awhile, as his hamstring looked really bad when he collapsed in a heap. That will probably make Salty the #1 catcher for awhile, they’ll probably bring up one of our kids to be the backup. Nice that Salty did finally get a guy stealing.
Basically, all this boils down to one word – DAMMIT!

The Rangers won in a thrilling fashion. Most everyone loves walk off wins in the bottom of the ninth. However, this is one I wished we didn’t have to get to.
First off, Scott Feldman continues to be the most unlucky pitcher on our staff in 2008. He left the game again with a lead. I don’t have a count in front of me of how many games he’s had blown for him by the pen, but it’s quite a few. His record is 1-3, and has started nine games this year. He’d probably have a winning record by more than a few games if the pen could hold a lead. It’s probably why we continue to be a .500 team.
Which brings me to another point. CJ Wilson is having a major rough stretch right now. He’s either blown saves, or just given up runs when he’s been brought in for non save opportunities. If he doesn’t get it together soon, I wonder if Ron Washington will go to someone else, like Guardado or Wright for saves? I have CJ Wilson on several fantasy teams, I wonder if I need to make some moves there.
Speaking of Guardado, how about that fifteen pitch at bat to his first batter? That’s a heck of a lot. I remember when I was a kid, a guy by the name of Jay Johnstone for the Phillies had a 21 pitch at bat. But 15 is a heck of a lot of pitches. Good thing Eddie came through with a called third strike there.
Offensively, the big blast was a three run home run by Brandon Boggs in the sixth inning. That was to Atlanta reliever Jeff Ridgeway, who was the first of six relievers Bobby Cox used. In fact, of those relievers, only one pitched more than .2 of an inning! Anyway, Boggs’ blast gave us a 4-2 lead at the time, and the game was actually feeling like it was one we were going to win – something we’ve had trouble with in the daytime this year.
Jarrod Salatamacchia continues to show that Gerald Laird is by far the better catcher on this team for now. Yeah, Jarrod is supposed to have a higher “potential” than Laird, but Laird is doing well now. Makes you wonder if perhaps Salty will get moved in July and bring up someone like Max Ramirez to be Laird’s backup.
Anyway, nice to get a win.

You know, I was planning on writing how much I was enjoying this game, how I thought Eric Hurley deserved a better fate, and all that. But all I really WANT to do is post this image:


Yes, I know that’s Adam Hydzu & Akinori Otsuka up there, but I didn’t have a current picture of the bullpen like this. :)