Yeah, we lost, and sadly it was Scott Feldman who started. Unfortunately, we’re at the point in the season where we have to start thinking of removing Feldman from the rotation. We’re at a point where we have a very real shot at the playoffs, and it’s no shock to anyone that Feldman is the weak link in 2010. Which is saying something given how “meh” Rich Harden pitched earlier this season. It’s quite a fall for Feldman, who I think everyone expected to be an Aaron Sele this season, win 21 games or so, and be a huge part of things.
He was not.
This game actually was somewhat better than some of his outings, but still, 5.1 innings, seven hits, one walk, three earned runs isn’t the greatest outing. But he struggles now, and most fans probably don’t have any confidence in him. While the team will never admit it, they might think the same thing themselves.
On top of that, Darren Oliver probably had his worst outing of the season, giving up another three runs in his 0.2 innings of work. This was not the most well pitched game by the Rangers, who have recently been a team with good pitching.
The Rangers only had six hits the whole game, and two of them were solo home runs (Young, Cruz), and even though we got those two, this one felt like one where we didn’t score that much.
We lost.

Michael Young homered in the bottom of the first inning for the second night in a row to put us up 1-0. That was the end of the scoring this game. That was it. The first run was the last.
CJ Wilson was pitching more like Cliff Lee tonight than CJ Wilson. His pitches per inning have been pretty high this year, and was one of the things one had to watch out for when he became a starter. It was 17 and change per inning. This game he was more like Cliff Lee, averaging just 13. Even if Lee doesn’t stay here past this season (rather likely I would assume), his time with our staff this season will be a valuable lesson. CJ went eight innings total, throwing 104 pitches, which is quite good for eight. He allowed no runs on just four hits. All four of those hits were singles, and none next to each other, as NOT A SINGLE ANGEL REACHED SECOND BASE THE WHOLE GAME! I mean – WOW! CJ walked nobody, and struck out just three, but man, four hits, nobody getting to second is quite impressive.
Neftali Feliz closed out the ninth, and at this point my wife came in and watched the last inning of the game. She’s not one to remark on Rangers games except for the highlights (you know, “Chick dig the longball” and all that), but when Feliz closed out the game, she said out loud “That was some spectacular pitching”. She never says stuff like that.
This game was all about pitching. There was not a ton of offense to speak of, what with just one run at all. This was spectacular. And it gave us a seven game lead in the division over the Angels. By far the widest lead of any of the six division leaders.
It’s just a damn good feeling being a Ranger fan at the moment.
Scary moment in the game when Matt Treanor tripped over first base and fell in a heap lying in the chalk line. He had to be helped off the field, and was reported to be back in the clubhouse in crutches at the end. He’s supposed to have an MRI today, but I can’t imagine how he doesn’t go on the DL over this. Even if he’s down just a few days, we need to have a backup catcher on the roster. Shame, as he’s been doing great this year.

Man, on paper this was the game to go to. The AL ERA leader in Cliff Lee goes for the Texas Rangers, and the leader of the Angels, Jered Weaver dueled in Arlington on Thursday night. A battle of aces for sure.
One I wanted to truly watch on TV, and not just use the TiVo FF function to skip the boring bits. Watched it all I did, and man, was it a rewarding game. Cliff Lee continues to be as advertised. I think a lot of Rangers fans are seeing Lee as the saviour, the guy we’re riding high into the playoffs on the back of. I still haven’t forgotten opening day 2009 when Lee was bombed by the Rangers here in Arlington, although he was pitching against us, not for us.
Lee was great, don’t get me wrong, but by his own standards, he struggled just a little. Not enough that your average fan would notice (especially if you look at his line), but he didn’t strike out as many as usual, and he had more 3 ball counts than normal. So it wasn’t a total lights out performance, just a step below it.
Lee allowed five hits, with no walks and four strikeouts. One of the hits was a home run in the seventh (to Mike Napoli). The other run was a double in the fifth that Josh Hamilton almost caught. He made a spectacular run for the ball, and it just glanced off the side of his glove. Had it been just two inches closer, I’d say it would be easily the defensive play of the game. Still, it cost us a run. In the grand scheme of things it worked out OK, but you would have liked to have seen Josh catch that.
Cliff Lee came out for the ninth, and pitched to one batter, and gave way to Neftali Feliz. There was a confab on the mound where Lee was smiling as he was taken out. Feliz needed the experience in this kind of situation too, so I wasn’t totally against Lee coming out, but you would have liked to have seen his streak of complete games keep going.
On the other side, Jered Weaver appeared to be pissed on the mound a lot, there were several camera shots of him coming off the mound and apparently swearing at something. Probably himself for not getting guys out, but he seemed rattled a little by the game situation. Whether that worked in our favor is an unknown, but we did score enough off of him (all three actually) to win the game.
The first one set the tone with Michael Young homering in the bottom of the first inning to go up 1-0. The second one was a double by Josh Hamilton in the sixth which scored Vlad Guerrero. Guerrero himself helped out earlier by legging out his single into a double, which I thought was a bit of a gamble at the time. The third run was scored on a sac fly by Bengie Molina, scoring Hamilton.
The game was tight, was well played, and the Rangers had some nice defense. There were two catches in the ninth inning by Cruz & Hamilton that could have easily fallen for hits. We’re looking like a well rounded team all of a sudden. Offense, pitching, & defense are all there.
Man, it’s a great feeling! Great that Lee got his first win in our uniform, too!

Colby Lewis has been one of the best surprises of this season so far. However, tonight in Detroit, he was more pedestrian. It’s not like he was totally awful, he looked at times to be well, but he labored a bit, and was just “eh”. His mound opponent (Max Scherzer) pitched more like 2010 Colby Lewis than the actual Colby Lewis pitched.
Colby’s line ended up with seven innings pitched with nine hits, two walks, and four earned runs with 103 pitches thrown. Not horrendous, but not a lot like the 2010 edition of Colby Lewis we’ve known so far. He even allowed a home run to former Ranger Gerald Laird, a two run bomb that was a true Detroit home run, not one in front of the old left field wall in the new home run area. :)
Scherzer on the other hand went seven, giving up just four hits and three walks, but more importantly, no runs. Matt threw a LOT more pitches, 123 in all over seven, which is 17.5 an inning on average. Too many. But he got it done where it counted – no runs allowed.
All four hits that the Rangers got were off the Detroit starter. One of which was a triple by Michael Young, and the others were singles by Nelson Cruz, Elvis Andrus, & Ian Kisler. That was it. No other offense to speak of. The one run we did get wasn’t even on one of those hits, it was a ground out RBI by Josh Hamilton in the top of the ninth.
So we were pretty effectively shut down. But still, we took 2-3 in Detroit, and 5-2 for the road trip where I think most people expected 2 out of 7 (or worse). We’re feeling good coming home, even with a series finale loss.

Tommy Hunter came out of the game after seven innings and having allowed no runs on just three hits. His pitch count was pretty darn good too, topping out at just 92 pitches over seven innings, a pretty good count. His seventh was a bit rocky (ground out, double, walk, fielder’s choice out, line out), but not terrible, I was a little surprised he didn’t come back out for the eighth.
However, he was followed by Darren Oliver, who has been fantastic this season. Darren only allowed one walk, and nothing else. Darren’s had a renaissance here in 2010, I remember when he left last time, it was a “can’t wait to get him out the door” kind of feeling, but he put it together after that second stint with us, finally settling into a good relief job, and this year he’s carrying an ERA of 1.29 after this game. It’s quite spectacular, actually. He’s got a team option for $3.25M for 2011, I’d say it’s a safe bet it’s picked up (he makes $3M this year).
The Rangers took an early lead in this game when Ian Kinsler tripled to the left center field wall, scoring Elvis Andrus. Kinsler himself was brought home on a sac fly by Josh Hamilton. In the top of the second, David Murphy jacked a seriously long home run, which went out over the dead center field wall, which is impressive, as that wall is 420 feet.
They said his home run was 430 feet, and I have to say, my immediate reaction to the home run shows that I watch Tom Grieve a lot on TV coverage, because I said “That was a long home run, boy!”. The “boy” is a Grieve announcing staple, and it came out of my mouth without thinking about it. :)
The score stayed that way until the sixth when Cruz singled in another run.
The Rangers scored four more runs in the top of the ninth in dramatic fashion. The first was a suicide squeeze by Elvis Andrus, scoring Chris Davis. Don’t see a ton of squeezes, and even less so when you’re up 4-0. Ian Kinsler finally did get a ball out of the park after that when he hit the left field foul pole, scoring himself and Michael Young. Josh Hamilton followed with a solo home run to right, so the rout was on. It was 8-0 at this point.
The Rangers brought in Doug Mathis, who was brought up from AAA today to take the slot of Dustin Nippert, who went on the DL as a precautionary reaction to his being hit the in the head by a batted ball the night before. Mathis allowed just one hit, but nothing else, and got the win.
This gave Tommy Hunter a record of 7-0 this season, and set a new all time Rangers franchise record by a starting pitcher having the most wins in his first seven decisions of the season. Nobody had ever done that before, and one wonders how long this can go, because Hunter has looked pretty darned good this year. One would think he’d get a lock on a rotation slot next year if this keeps up. Granted, we said the same thing about Feldman at the end of last year, but when you’re in the middle of the good part of that equation, you’re not thinking that way. :)
But the biggest story I suppose is the fact that we’ve now won two of the three games in Detroit (one left to play Wednesday), and we’ve won both series in Boston & Detroit. I think a lot of Ranger fans expected us to come home from that trip something like 2-5 or 3-4 at best. If we win tomorrow, it’ll be 6-7, which is something I don’t think any of us expected. Thing is if we do win tomorrow, it so easily could have been 7-7. GAH!
But we’re still five games up over the Angels in the West (with more in the loss column). ESPN tonight said the Rangers should win the division, and get well into the playoffs. While I don’t think I’m ready to feel that way, this run has certainly felt good. Nice to see the team getting some love nationally.
Now if only we can get the bloody creditors off our backs and kick Hicks to the curb, giving the reins to Greenburg/Ryan, I think most Rangers’ fans heads would explode.

Scott Feldman took the mound to start this game, and sadly, we got the 2010 version as opposed to the 2009 version. This wasn’t good, as we still had to play games in Detroit, a city we haven’t won even so much as a single game at in years and years.
So Feldman’s performance certainly didn’t help. Just five innings with seven hits and two walks. Of which three of the hits were home runs pretty much led to the five earned runs that Feldman gave up. Two of the home runs were by Miguel Cabrera, which isn’t a shame, really, as he’s a great hitter, but still, it just felt like it was more Feldman’s pitching than Cabera’s bat.
The Rangers scored a bunch early on, with a two spot in the first (two run homer by Kinsler), and three in the third (couple of singles, etc). The problem is that Feldman couldn’t hold that up. The Tigers scored a run in each of the first three runs. Then two of the home runs came in the bottom of the fifth when Feldman allowed two solo home runs, and the Tigers tied the game at this point. The Rangers and Tigers traded solo runs in the seventh and eighth, allowing to a feeling that the Rangers were going to lose the game, adding to the despair of Detroit.
When Feldman first came out of the game, he was replaced by Dustin Nippert, who got an out, but the second batter got the ball came back and hit Nippert on the head, which bounced into left field. Dustin laid on the ground for awhile, and when he went off the field he was actually smiling. It’s quite amazing and a blessing by God that he wasn’t hurt. Quite a blessing.
Darren O’Day came in and finished off Nippert’s inning, and was followed by Alexi Ogando who gave up the tying run, although it was technically Francisco who allowed the run to score. We were saved so to speak by Matt Harrison who came in and pitched four innings. He did allow two hits and four walks, but most importantly no runs.
The game lasted a very long time – in all just a few minutes short of five hours. I hung around watching all of the game. I did think we were going to lose once when the bases were loaded, but we got out of it by a double play.
We got to the fourteenth inning, and Nelson Cruz saved the day with a two run home run in the top of the inning. It just barely cleared the wall right next to the right field foul pole. I initially thought it was going to be reviewed, as it appeared that a fan might have interfered with it, but it was allowed.
Feliz came in and got the save and the Rangers finally broke the streak of losses in Detroit. It just made you feel good finally about the team. It’s pretty cool how well we’ve played in Boston & Detroit after the debacle at home with Baltimore.

This was the one game of the Boston series going in is the one I had the most concern about. CJ Wilson has been a bit up and down over the last half dozen starts, and doing that in Boston could be real trouble. However, we got the earlier version CJ Wilson in this start.
CJ went 6.2 innings, and gave up just three hits and one earned run. He did walk five, which gave the feel a less dominant feeling than it probably could have been. The walks contributed to his 113 pitches thrown in the middle of the seventh when he came out. Our pen backed up CJ with 2.1 innings combined. However, Neftali Feliz, who closed the game out, had a John Wetteland moment by allowing the Sox in a bit closer by allowing a run in the bottom of the ninth. But despite the final bit of nailbiting, the game felt pretty well pitched overall. A great bit was the fact that CJ Wilson struck out 10 batters, which is something that’s surprisingly common this season (thanks Colby).
The Rangers mostly singled their way to the win, with six of their nine hits being singles. The other three were doubles, but despite the lack of power, it was well put together. They scored two on a double in the fourth, and then we got a run on a double steal of second and home in the fifth. That was a cool move. Not a straight steal of home, but still, it’s a fun way to score a run. Kinsler singled in the final run, so it was all well placed.
This gave us a 3-1 series win in Boston, something that’s not happened in ages, and I’m sure will upset Boston fans, who would likely thing “Texas? We lost three to Texas?”

Well, Cliff Lee made his second Rangers start on Saturday night, and unfortunately, I wasn’t able to watch any of it. I had taken my daughter out to a Grand Prairie Air Hogs game, and that was a blast. However, since I have a five year old daughter, she wanted to spend a boatload of time in the playground that they have out there. So I had a ton of time spent in the playground. Fortunately, I had my iPhone with me, so I was able to watch the game sort of on “MLB At Bat”. It wasn’t a great way to pay close attention, but I wasn’t able to do that really, as it was bloody hot out at the AirHogs game, and yet at the same time, I could generally see what was going on.
There wasn’t a ton of offense going on in this game, so I was watching my iPhone app put up a lot of zeroes. The Sox put up a single run in the first, the Rangers had a two spot in the top of the sixth, which put us up 2-1, and Cliff Lee was cruising. He went into the ninth inning again, which he did in his first outing, and Cliff’s like fourth or fifth in a row or something like that. We had two outs in the bottom of the ninth with a man on, and Kevin Youkilis doubled in the tying run in the bottom of the ninth.
A couple of innings later, Youkilis sac flies in the winning run in the bottom of the 11th, and that was frustrating. That’s two starts by Cliff Lee that we lost due to a really close score, and one that if we hit like we normally did, we’d have won. I really hope Cliff Lee doesn’t turn into our guy who ends up with no run support.
Still, we’re up 2-1 in the series at this point, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of in Boston.

It’s Friday night, so we got a rain delay, it’s become a pattern. Last three Fridays have had a rain delay. This one was inside the game, though. Plus they played a lot of it IN the rain.
We got out early again, and while it wasn’t a six spot in the first inning, we were up 2-0 on a couple of RBI singles, and it felt good. It wasn’t 6-0 for sure, but I’ll take 2-0. Colby Lewis didn’t stick a string of zeroes on the board, he let the Sox tie the game in the bottom of the second. It was on an RBI single, and then a wild pitch scoring the second run.
After the game was tied, the rain delay (of an hour) came in, and surprisingly, both starting pitchers came back out to pitch.
Colby gave up the lead by allowing a solo home run to Adrian Beltre about 3/4 up the monster seats. But that’s about as bad as it got.
Because in the top of the fifth, we had another inning like the top of the first the night before. The big highlight was Bengie Molina hitting a grand slam just over the center field wall into the first row or so of seats up there. It was pretty cool, and was something that became more important later on. At this point, the home run left Molina a triple away from the cycle. Now we all know Molina has some pop, so the home run wasn’t a surprise. Single – no problem. Even the double is reasonable, as even I could run to second on a ball hit far enough into the alley. But a triple? Bengie Molina? Three bases? I don’t think so. But that’s exactly what happened in the top of the 8th when Molina lined a fly ball to center fielder Eric Patterson. It bounced off his glove, and careened into that little wedge out there in center field – about the only place Molina could get a triple, save for the deepest part in right field. What was the coolest part about the cycle was not the cycle itself. It was the fact that Josh Lewin & Tom Grieve turned into fans and weren’t announcers, as Molina approached second base. It was absolutely awesome to hear them hooting and cheering ’em on as he got to third base. One of my favorite moments of the two of them during their tenure. I replayed it a few times, it’s a great clip. You can watch this clip at this link over at mlb.com. After the bit used in this clip, they went on to talk about it some more, and Tom Grieve said that after Josh stopped calling he heard the end of Eric Nadel’s call in the booth next to them, and they said virtually the same thing. I think my favorite single moment is Tom Grieve laughing after Molina got to third – his laugh reminded me an awful lot of Burt Reynolds’ laugh as “The Bandit” in “Smokey & the Bandit”. Josh, if you read this, there’s your popular media reference for the night. :)
So good for Bengie Molina getting the cycle – it’s a great thing for him to have, given how much of a beating he takes for his “slowest runner ever” reputation. Not long after this Molina came out of the game, from what I can gather as a precautionary measure, as he tweaked something coming around first base on the triple. From what I read after the game, he could play on Saturday, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Treanor catches Cliff Lee just to save Molina.
We’re now up 2-0 in this series against Boston, which is way better than we’ve performed in Boston recently. Tomorrow night is Cliff Lee against John Lackey. It should be a good game, but I’ll be out in Grand Prairie with my daughter at an AirHogs game. I guess I’ll be keeping track of the Rangers game on my iPhone. :)

We went into Boston feeling good about the team in general, but still feeling crappy based on the way we limped into the All-Star break. The less said about the last series the better, but even given the shame of that, one still felt good going into Boston.
You felt a whole lot better very quickly once this game got started. While Elvis Andrus fell victim to a good knuckleball, that’s about where it ended. The immediate aftermath after Elvis was single, single, single (run), double (run), single (two runs), home run (two runs), and then the last two outs were made. We roughed up Tim Wakefield pretty good, slapping a six spot on him in the top of the first. He calmed down a bit in the second, getting the Rangers 1-2-3, but no so much in the third. THere was a single, an error, and a double, which scored the seventh Ranger run, leaving men on second and third with nobody out. The total rout was on!
However, that’s where our scoring ended. Second and third, nobody out, and we didn’t score any more. There were a few other opportunities to score as well, and truth be told, we probably should have scored about 12-15 runs total. I’ll take the 7 and the win for sure, but it could have/should have been a lot more than that.
The home run came from Bengie Molina, which seemed to surprise me. I know he’s had some pop in his time in San Francisco, but still. He seemed to be batting like all the other guys we’ve had at catcher this season so far. So the home run surprised me.
Tommy Hunter went to 6-0 after getting this win. He had a good game, going 6.2 innings, allowing just two runs on five hits. However, most of those hits didn’t mean anything, since the two runs the Sox got were both solo home runs (Drew, Hall). Hunter came out with 108 pitches thrown. Darren Oliver & Alexi Ogando (who has been looking nice in the pen) cleaned up, and held down the fort.
It was a great way to start this rather important road trip. As I told NESN, it wasn’t so much that we needed to beat the “Red Sox”, we just needed to win this series, given the Angels are playing a team they should beat. So yeah, the win was a good one for us, plus it erased the memory of Baltimore mostly. And speaking to the “Red Sox”, it’s nice to win in Fenway fairly decisively, as we have had problems in Boston the last few years.