A late comeback wasted. Nelson Cruz & Mike Napoli both hit home runs in the top of the 8th. However, Brennan Boesch hit one of his own in the bottom of the 8th off of Mike Adams to win the game.
Not a great debut for Mike Adams as a Ranger. Probably won’t be the way he performs overall (aka pull a Eric Gagne for the Red Sox), but you never want to see that in Game 1 with your new import.

I didn’t hear any of this game, as I spent the afternoon at the circus with my daughter on Sunday, and had such a good time, I didn’t think about the game. In fact, I didn’t even take a look at the trade deadline moves until we were back on the Dart train coming home.
To that, I didn’t pay any attention to the game, nor do I feel like writing about it, as I had such a good time in the circus, and for some reason, that made me not want to care about this specific game. :)

Derek Holland pitched himself into the Rangers history books today. First off, his performance today. Darn impressive.
Complete game, nine inning shutout. Allowed just four hits (all singles), one walk, struck out five, and was helped by a double play. Total of 95 pitches thrown. Highly effective. Too bad I couldn’t see it. Heard most of it as I was driving around running some errands today. Only blip on his ledger is the one error the Rangers had was his own, a throwing error. But it didn’t affect anything. He was spectacular.
And about this history books. Check this out. Derek Holland has three shoutouts in the month of July. Four overall for the 2011 season, and is tied with Cliff Lee for the most in the majors this season. The last time a Rangers pitcher threw four shutouts in a season was Doc Medich in 1981. The overall club record is six, set by Fergie Jenkins in 1974, and tied in 1976 by Bert Blyleven. Given the way he’s rolling, it may not be unreasonable to think he could set the team record.
Checked into MLB records, and the Rangers were tied with Philly for 13 shutouts this season. If my numbers are right, with this win, the Rangers have taken over the MLB lead in pitched shutouts with 14.
As long as I’m wallowing in stats, the win by Holland gives him 10 wins. That ties him for the club lead with CJ Wilson, Colby Lewis, & Alexi Ogando. Matt Harrison is right behind them with nine himself. How long has it been since the Rangers have had five starters with 10 wins in an ENTIRE season, let alone at the start of August? Probably ages, if ever.
Anyway, the Rangers offense all came from the longball. Mitch Moreland hit a two run shot in the second, which is his first official home run off a lefty. He had one in that game that was lost to a rainout earlier in the season, though. The other was one by Mike Napoli in the 8th, a solo shot. We had seven other hits, including a double by Chris Davis in his final game as a Ranger.
But this one was pretty much all about Derek Holland. Loved that start.

The Rangers didn’t fare much better against Brett Cecil the second time around.
Here’s something telling. The Rangers had ten hits. We left eight men on base as a team. If you count individual player left on base numbers, that was TWENTY! No wonder we didn’t win this game. Couldn’t get it done when it mattered most.
Bret Cecil had a lot to do with that – again. 7 innings pitched, seven hits, one walk, six strikeouts, and one earned run. Came out with just 94 pitches thrown, not a lot, so I’m not entirely sure why he came out when he did. No matter, the Rangers didn’t get it done against him. That’s two in a row in a week. His overall record is 4-4. Two of those wins are against the Rangers. I’ll repeat something from an update a few days ago. Bah.
Alexi Ogando started for Texas (again against Cecil), and fared the same. Pitched OK, but didn’t get the win. Ogando only went 5.2 innings this time, and gave up just four hits, but four WALKS. That’s excessive for him. All those walks didn’t help. Oddly enough, none of them factored into the three runs. Those runs in the sixth came on a single, single, and a three run home run. Two of the walks were the last two batters Ogando faced in the sixth.
Tommy Hunter came in to relieve Ogando and was masterful. He went 2.1 innings, threw just 32 pitches, and allowed just a single hit. No runs, no walks, he looked quite good. I guess that’s what Baltimore saw, as I write this, we just traded him to the Orioles (more on that in another post).
We did make it interesting in the ninth, putting up a second run to make it 3-2 at the time. Mike Napoli started the inning off with a solo home run. Mitch Moreland followed it with a single. A ground out, a strike out (Davis), and a pop out ended the game and the comeback. Rangers lost 3-2.
Game ended on… wait for it… a popup by Ian Kinsler.

First off, I wanted to draw attention to the image with this entry. Given I can’t watch games on TV much anymore, this is how I’ve been “watching” games. Via the MLB At Bat app. Depending on where I am, it’s either iPhone or iPad. This particular game was on the iPhone. Checked in during the 8th, and saw this status update for Ian Kinsler. I cannot say I was surprised to see that. Capt Uppercut has returned, going 0-4 this game.
The Rangers pounded out ten hits this game. Couple of doubles (Hamilton & Torrealba), and a pile of singles. It was enough to plate a run in the fourth & fifth, as well as a pair in the eighth. Josh Hamilton went 3-4, pulling his average up over .300 (304) with a triple and a double. Actually, Hamilton was the home run short of the cycle.
Michael Young & Mitch Moreland each had two hits.
Matt Harrison was solid this game. Went 7.1 innings, gave up eight hits and a walk (a little high on the hits, but not alarming). Just one run in the sixth (to Thome). Came out with 114 pitches thrown. The relief core behind him was solid. Tateyama (0.1 IP), Arthur Rhodes (0.1 IP), and Neftali Feliz (1 IP), were all perfect. Nothing allowed by those guys.
Well pitched game.
Not thrilled at Capt Uppercut making a comeback, though.

It was easy with last night’s game to pass off a review with just “Shit”, since that was frustrating. This one was out of reach most of the game, despite the score not being too far beyond “close”. Just “felt” like we weren’t in this one from the get go. Can’t point to anything for that feeling, it’s just that. A gut feeling.
Colby Lewis gave up eight hits and walked two during his 6.2 innings of work, leading to four earned runs given up. That’s pretty much the game there. Mark Lowe also gave up three unearned runs in relief. Bah.
Rangers left seven men on base. Bah.
Just Bah. :(

I’m going with one of my one word reviews..
Shit.

Well, it’s a blowout. The kind of game that makes you want to start quoting all kinds of statistics regarding what happened in the game. :)
I’m not going to do that, except to say this. Of all the starters, Chris Davis is the only person who didn’t have a hit, going 0-6, striking out twice. David Murphy also had an ofer, but he was a sub, going 0-2.
Oddly enough, the only Ranger with a single hit was the other sub, Omar Quintanilla, who came in for Michael Young, playing second this game. Omar had just a single hit, but it was a triple. Everyone else had two, three, or four hits. Cruz & Kinsler had four. Andrus, Young, Moreland, & Chavez had three each, and Hamilton was the only one with two.
Two home runs, one triple, eight doubles, and sixteen singles!
OK, I did end up doing a bunch of stats, but I really didn’t mean to. It’s just hard not to get into that when your team scores 20 runs and gets 27 hits.
Lost in all the offense was the fact that there was a total of seven errors in the game. Four by Texas, and three by Minnesota. Two errors were by Chris Davis (both fielding errors), one was by Elvis Andrus (missed catch), and the other was Neftali Feliz (fielding).
Derek Holland got the win, going six innings, allowing five hits, and just one unearned run. He came out of the game with 90 pitches, which for six innings, wasn’t a lot, but given how hot it was, and the huge lead we had, I guess I can’t be too surprised. Oddly enough, each of the four Rangers pitchers (Holland, Feldman, Rhodes, & Feliz) gave up at least one run. Holland & Feliz both had unearned runs. Feldman gave up one, and Rhodes three in his one inning.

There’s not a lot to say about this one. When your club is shut out, it means their pitcher was doing darned well. Which was definitely the case with Toronto’s Brett Cecil.
He threw a complete game shutout. Nine innings, 121 pitches, four hits, two walks, seven strikeouts, but zero runs. This for a guy whose era doesn’t reflect that kind of pitching. Still, when a pitcher throws a game like that, you have to tip your cap. Hope we do better when we face him again later on in the week. :)
Our offense was limited to four singles. Two of them by Craig Gentry, the others by Michael Young & Nelson Cruz. That was IT.
On the other side, Alexi Ogando did fairly well himself. 6.2 innings pitched, allowing three runs on two walks and seven hits. All three runs came in a six batter span in the 6th inning. Single, out, Double, out, Double, double. That was the game right there. Other than that Ogando was quite good. On a normal night, we probably could have compensated, but..
Brett Cecil.

Sometimes there are games that are blowouts, and some are pitchers duels. Most are in between. This one was inbetween. Nobody terribly stunk up the joint, but it wasn’t dominating, either.
Matt Harrison took the mound and went 6.2 innings. Gave up four runs on no walks and eight hits. Also struck out eight. Was actually doing fairly well, until he gave up a “team cycle” to the Jays, giving up three runs. What I mean by that is the inning started off with a home run to JP Arencibia. Then was a double to Yunel Escobar, followed by a triple by Eric Thames. Finally Jose Bautista singled, completing the cycle in four straight batters. That was by far Harrison’s worst inning of the game, although he did also give up a run in the first on a pair of doubles by Thames & Lind. I want to call this an “OK” game for him, but when you give up four and don’t get past the seventh, it’s hard to do that. Still, it was’t awful.
On the other side, the Rangers got a run in each of the third, fourth, and fifth innings. That put us up 3-1 at the time, and then we went down, 4-3 via the aforementioned three run inning the Jays got.
That got us to the bottom of the ninth when we managed to go with three sacrifice bunts. Mike Napoli walked to start it off. Moreland got the first bunt, but reached on a throwing error. Ian Kinsler then bunted, and it went like it was designed. Next batter was a suicide squeeze, pulled off well as Elvis bunts again, scoring Napoli. The Jays intentionally walked Hamilton, and then Michael Young brought in the winning run via a single.
I remember being fairly annoyed when the Rangers lost the lead (I’m writing this a week after the game happened), but the walkoff certainly made up for that! :)