I wasn’t able to see any of this game, although I did hear the Rangers scoring on the radio when I was driving around. Took a trip with the wife and kids to a restaurant we had never been to before. Was good, but not really worth the time and drive.
The Rangers still have a problem with Jered Weaver. In the past he’s shut us down a lot, and this game was no different. In fact, other than the fifth inning, we weren’t able to do much of anything.
The fifth had a two run home run by Hank Blalock, which accounted for all our scoring. There wasn’t a ton of hitting, either. Six hits in all, spead out over four Rangers. Weaver went into the eighth inning, throwing 100 pitches, five hits, the two runs, and eleven strikeouts. Millwood wasn’t bad, either – 6 innings, also only two runs. He had a few too many hits (nine), but they didn’t seem to affect him too much.
Eddie Guardado followed, and gave up just one hit, but it was a big one – the game winning home run to Erick Aybar. Sigh.
I’ll say this again about the Angels. When you lose to them, at least you don’t have to see the stupid rally monkey.

After a day in which the Rangers cut loose one of their bigger “name” starting pitchers for what essentially amounts to him being an ass, we took the field in Anaheim.
We came in four and a half games out of first place. Which isn’t insurmountable, but when we were in first place by about five not all that long ago, you got a bad feeling. We played pretty awful against Oakland, despite winning the last game before coming to Anaheim. So you kind of got that feeling of dread that we were going to lose the series and come out seven games out or something.
So it was quite a nice feeling when we went up 4-0 in the first inning. Josh & Tom were talking about Josh Hamilton saying he was coming off his ADD medicine that he believed it was impacting his play on the field. And of course, while they were talking about that, Josh hit a three run home run to right field. That set the tone for the game. Despite the Angels scoring six runs, and only losing by five, four of their runs didn’t come until the seventh inning. We pretty much dominated the game. Four runs in the first, a single run in the second and third, and three more in the fifth put us up 9-1. We tacked on additional singles in the 8th and 9th.
Most of this came via the longball. In all, we had five home runs. Hank Blalock also had a solo home run in the first too. Then came the fifth. We had three home runs in the fifth – two of them back to back. Taylor Teagarden was first, then Omar Vizquel and Michael Young went back to back. Omar’s was his first as a Ranger, and his first since something like September of 2007. He was probably helped by that tiny wall by the right field foul pole in Anaheim. Funny video of him doing the arm muscle flex in the dugout afterwards. Enjoyed that. A lot.
That wasn’t all for Omar Vizquel. He went 4-6 and had some great D in the field. The more I watch him, the more I start to get a grasp of what he must have been like in his prime in Cleveland. Wow. I’d like to keep him around for next year, but I don’t see that happening.
Scott Feldman was quite good, too. While his line shows four earned runs, three of them came in the seventh. And they were inherited. It’s like Scott should have stopped after the sixth. He was stellar, and then couldn’t get anyone out – left the game with nobody out and the bases loaded. So that blew his quality start, but overall, despite the numbers, he pitched really well. Good to see, especially with the departure of Padilla, we’ll need guys like Feldman to stay consistantly good if we make a run at October.
Good to see a nice start to the series. Man, would it be some sort of major confidence and morale boost to leave Anaheim sweeping the Angels. I don’t think that’s going to REALLY happen, but boy, would it be nice.
Go Rangers!

Well, we salvaged the last game of the series. The Rangers won 6-4, and Tommy Hunter was way better than he had been the last outing (the one I was at, of course).
But to be honest, after so much gone wrong this series, I don’t even feel like writing about the win. Not a great feeling heading to Anaheim. You just feel like the Angels are going to bounce back from losing to us all year, and bury us.
Oh, and the A’s released Jason Giambi after the series was over.

After the last couple of games, with CJ Wilson blowing a save in the ninth, then being shut out, I didn’t really want to watch this. And I made a good time choice. We lost again.
Bah.

The only good thing to say about this game is that Anaheim lost too. That’s about it.

I was going to write about how Dustin Nippert was great in a spot start.
There was the freakin spectacular debut of Neftali Feliz. I mean wow.
But all I can think of now to write about this game is this..
SHIT!
Thanks CJ. Grumble…

It figures. The Rangers play four against Seattle. They win three of the four. Guess which one I attended in person? Of course, the loss.
Sunday was a bounceback day on many accounts. Scott Feldman bounced back from his disastrous start a week ago and pitched well. Seven innings, five hits, two runs, 4K, 2BB, and 101 pitches. Got the win. Barely (more on that later).
Frank Francisco bounced back from the DL to pitch a perfect inning of relief.
Our power bounced back, as we had three home runs, accounting for all four of our runs.
Unfortunately, some guys bounced onto the DL – Ian Kinsler being the most notable.
But, in the moment that will make Jamey Newberg the most excited, Neftali Feliz was called up. He didn’t make his major league debut yet, but he was active and available. In fact, there was a mini gaggle of transactions before this game.
* 2B Ian Kinsler placed on 15 day DL, retro to Jul 29
* P Matt Harrison moved from 15 day to 60 day DL
* P Jason Grilli placed on 15 day DL
* P Neftali Feliz purchased from AAA
* P Frank Francisco activated from 15 day DL
* P Warner Madrigal optioned to AAA
Feldman came out after seven with the game tied 2-2, but before the eighth, Saltamacchia got his two run home run (off the right field foul pole) to give the Rangers (and Feldman) the win.
Was a nice comeback, and a good way to hit the road for awhile. A jaunt through Oakland, Anaheim, & Cleveland should be OK, given how well we’ve played Anaheim this season so far. Keep your fingers crossed.

Well, this was the (somewhat) annual Texas Rangers Hall of Fame induction game. I say somewhat, as recently, it’s not a guarantee that everyone will get in. I was there for several of them in the past, and after the second year, I thought “Wow, at this rate, there won’t be any really top notch players left to induct before too long. A couple of years ago, the team recognized this, and scaled it back to a similar deal with the National HOF. You need a percentage of the votes cast (which for the moment does not lie with the fans). So that’s good, because we’d be down to electing Mark Clark.

One of the alumni was Scott Sheldon. When he walked onto the field, Chuck Morgan announced him as “infielder, outfielder, catcher, pitcher Scott Sheldon”, which appeared to prompt Scott to point up in Chuck’s general direction. That made me chuckle. :)

So I watched the ceremony, which is always enjoyable. It’s great to see some of the old timers, and not so old timers come back. Always great to hear Chuck Morgan call Rusty Greeeeeeeeeeeeeer. I had brought a friend who was hoping that Steve Buechele would be there, but alas he was managing in A ball. I did not witness Toby Harrah play, that was before my time as a Ranger fan. Way before my time, considering he came with the team from Washington DC. I have respect for what he did, and his speech was cool, but I don’t have a first hand connection to him as either a player, or his brief tenure as a Rangers manager.

Ruben Sierra I knew, though. While again, I did not witness him play his first go around, I did the second time from 2000-2003. His story when he returned in 2000 was quite impressive, and I know what he did the first time around, so yeah – I was more invested in Ruben Sierra. That the team brought up his son (who is really shockingly a spitting image of Ruben Sr, it’s amazing) from A ball as a surprise guest at the ceremony was quite cool. I do have to confess at being surprised at how broken his English is, all these years later. He was highly emotional, and it was hard to hear him sometimes due to the combination. But it certainly felt sincere.

It was a great ceremony as usual, you can read the official writeup on mlb.com here. The official link also includes video of both Toby Harrah & Ruben Sierra, so you can hear what I mean about Ruben’s speech.

The actual game played by the 2009 version of the Texas Rangers wasn’t nearly as good as the pre-game. Tommy Hunter came out and pitched like Mark Clark (OK, I’m dropping his name twice in this commentary). Five innings, seven hits, five runs, three walks, one home run. It was fairly ugly. Granted, he gave up a home run to Ken Griffey Jr, which is not a shameful thing, but still. He was all over the place. Really high pitch counts, full counts, just not good. I did really enjoy seeing Ken Griffey Jr. back in the ballpark again.

A shame about Hunter, as I was looking forward to the pitching matchup. Felix Hernandez held up his side of the bargain. Seven innings pitched, six hits, two runs. He did have four walks, and was vulnerable in the first two innings. But we let him off the hook. We had a chance to score in both the first two innings, but couldn’t follow through. I even said that to the friend I was there with to see Buechele. Said if we let him off the hook two innings in a row, forget it, we’re done. We were. We were never in the game.

Nelson Cruz’ home run in the fourth was a bit of excitement. In fact, Cruz had three of the six overall hits the Rangers had. We were pretty much shut down for sure.

There was the entertainment of some guy running onto the field. However, he was stupid. He ran out and just stood there in left. If you’re gonna do that, you’re going to jail anyway, so you might as well run around a bit more than that guy did.

I’m now 1-3 in games I actually attended this season. The one was opening day.

The Rangers won a game that was delayed rather a lot in the middle by rain. Something like two and a half hours. To be honest, I didn’t watch most of the game. It was on, but I was caught up in trade deadline discussions, so while the game was on, I was flipping between the Rangers game, and the talk on MLB Network as well as Baseball Tonight. I was a trade deadline junkie this day. :)
Vicente “Swine Flu” Padilla started the game for Texas, and went six. Six hits, three earned runs. One of those “technical quality starts” (as I call ’em). He was OK. Gave up a two run home run in the first inning, which is where most of the runs he gave up came from. That was the only power he gave up – the other five hits were all singles. Jose Lopez had the home run, and had three of the nine Seattle hits.
Offensively, Taylor Teagarden had a solo home run in the fifth. I point that out first, because he just missed a grand slam in the second (or third). Hit to the track, was an off the end of the bat shot – he “just” missed it. Darnit. Marlon Byrd however, made up for that with a three run shot in the bottom of the fifth. This was well timed, because at this point, it was obvious there was going to be a major rain delay.
And yeah. I was sitting at home. By myself. And I did the birdman flap. I’m such a dork.
Anyway, as the wind started blowing around and we were being treated to multiple shots of trash cyclones around the park, the rain started coming down. In the middle of a Michael Young at bat in the seventh, with the count 3-2, they couldn’t take it, and called a rain delay. The rain delay was interesting for a couple of counts. I got to watch one of the “Under the Lights” episodes. The one with the travel in New York & Boston. I hadn’t seen that one before, so I enjoyed that. They also showed the fireworks show on TV, as they shot ’em off during the rain delay. That’s happened to be before. Some years ago I was there for a July 4th game, and there was a three and a half hour rain delay, and they shot off the fireworks in the middle. Something about curfew on fireworks.
Anyway, when the game started again, Michael Young took one pitch for a ball, and walked. But we had no more offense after the rain delay. In fact, Byrd’s home run sealed the scoring for Texas. Jason Grilli allowed a run in the eighth to make it a little more interesting, but CJ Wilson closed it out for a 5-4 win. It was a long game. In fact, according to the box score (see the MLB Game Recap link above), the rain delay was two hours and eighteen minutes, which was eight minutes longer than the game (at 2:10).
We’re three games behind Anaheim now (who also didn’t do anything at the trade deadline), and just 1.5 behind Boston for the Wild Card. It’s August 1st as I write this. The trade deadline has passed. I think at this point, you can realistically start talking about playoffs, and not have it be a “Hey, that’s too soon” kind of thing. Go RANGERS!
P.S. I really like that we didn’t deal Derek Holland. Let’s hope that Holland holds up his end and shows us why we shouldn’t have sent him away.

In the top of the ninth inning, this happened, and I don’t think any Rangers fan really wanted to see it..

Derek Holland had done a lot to get to that point. In the ninth inning when this happened, he had allowed just two hits, and no runs. He walked just one batter, and STRUCK OUT TEN! He was seriously impressive, and on a night when there was mucho talk about him being put in a package to send to Toronto for Roy Halladay… I’ll wager he kept himself a Ranger by pitching that way. If he was just “eh”, he likely would have been moved. That’s just a gut feeling. I’m writing this actually at 5:15PM on Jul 31st, and the trade deadline has passed now. But Derek Holland was pitching like Roy Halladay on Thursday night. He was just lights out. That Warner Madrigal allowed a run to score is a crime. That should have been a complete game shutout. I wished Holland was allowed to stay in there. Oh well, he didn’t. But that’s the story of the game. Derek Holland – WOW. Three hits by the Mariners in all. Very impressive.

It overshadowed the fact that there was a major power output by the Rangers, and the fact that our pitching got more talk than the home runs. Something else unusual for Texas. We had five home runs. Blalock. Salty, Byrd, and two by Michael Young, who has become a power machine in the last week or so. Young is on quite a tear, he had three hits again, which I believe is three or four in the last week. Impressive numbers. Nelson Cruz also had two doubles, so we had a lot going on with the bats. But it is quite an accomplishment when our starting pitcher’s performance overshadowed what is the standard Rangers story of power.

Also, and I can’t resist. When I first saw the M’s reliever Chris Jakubauskas, I admit to a childish response. I looked quickly and thought it said Jackass. Sorry about that.