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Today was an interesting day, the Rangers announced a trade for Jorge Cantu, who was announced as a right handed complement to Chris Davis at first base. However, due to 25 man roster considerations, the Rangers called up Mitch Moreland to play first, according to some stories just for this game until Cantu got here. Well, Moreland looked good, went 2-4, and guess what? He’s staying, and it was announced after the game that Chris Davis was going back to AAA. An interesting little circle there.
Speaking of this game, Moreland got his first major league hit in the game (and his second, too). But the first one had some funny video if you were watching. It was a single to right, and when the camera from center field was watching him you could see 4 or 5 players from the dugout trying to get him to do the “claw” gesture, which he obviously wasn’t up to speed on. He eventually got it, and it was a great piece of video. You can see the hit here on mlb.com. There was video of the claw stuff, but I can’t remember where I saw it.
Anyway, Moreland looked good at the start. I feel bad for Chris Davis, as I like him, but all these moves make me think the team has soured on Davis, or at least aren’t willing to wait for him to figure out his bat at the majors.
CJ Wilson got his 10th win of the season, but he was not like he was the last two starts (which were great Cliff Lee like outings). This was a lot more laborious, he wasn’t quick and crisp, his line bears that out. 5.2 innings, 7 hits, two walks, and three earned runs – all with 105 pitches. Not godawful, but certainly not on the good side of things.
Offensively the Rangers were led by Michael Young and Josh Hamilton. Young had four hits, and Hamilton had three. David Murphy had a really long home run (almost totally over all the seats behind the wedgie (Former Section 43). But the big note of the offensive side was a two run home run by Taylor Teagarden, who hit just his second hit of the whole season with that. His batting average was .034 before that hit.
But most importantly, we won the game, and we’re 8.5 games up on Oakland in second place, and 9 games up on the Angels (who are amazingly just 52-52 at the moment). We’re headed out to California for a series with Anaheim. It could bury them if we swept the Angels. What an amazing thought. Don’t think it will really happen, but still.

This bit from the line score summarizes the game.
Four hits
Three errors
That’s about it. The Rangers managed only four singles, and managed to get two of them together in the 9th for the one run we got. We barely avoided the shutout, and given we had just two hits through eight innings, the only story of this game was Trevor Cahill.
Granted, Colby Lewis was good too (7IP, 5H, 1R, 8K) is nothing to sneeze at, but it was not what Cahill did.
Fortunately, the Angels lost too, but they were jumped by the A’s in the standings, and the Angels are currently in third place.
Hats off to Trevor Cahill.

Cliff Lee was freakin’ fantastic! Nine innings pitched. Five singles allowed, no walks, and THIRTEEN strikeouts. He did allow a run, but it was unearned (due to an error by Kinsler when he didn’t cover second on a steal attempt). Nine innings, and 118 pitches. I felt sad for him when we didn’t win it in regulation. He should be perfect in wins and losses since coming here, but we have developed an inability to score any runs for Cliff Lee. I hope that’s not his legacy.
The Rangers went up 1-0 early on when Vlad Guerrero doubled in Michael Young. It sat that way for awhile until the unearned run scored in the top of the sixth, and then there was no more scoring.
Until Nelson Cruz crushed a home run way over the left field wall for a walkoff home run, which is always a good thing.
I was going to go to this game, but I was so beat I wasn’t in the mood to drive to Arlington. Which turned out to be a good thing as I fell asleep on the sofa from 7PM till 8:30PM.
But the Rangers won the game. Which is the bigger deal, but man, you feel bad for Cliff Lee. Really.

Tommy Hunter is now 8-0 in his first eight decisions with the Rangers. That is a record that no other Rangers pitcher has ever had in the history of the franchise. That’s quite an accomplishment, and something to build on. He’s looking like a huge part of the rotation if we go into the playoffs. Six point one innings of work, three hits, three runs, and it’s home runs again – the Angels had two home runs. Still, it’s a quality start, and you just got the feeling that Hunter was all over the game.
Offensively, the Rangers had a nice pile of hits (13), and it was almost all singles, as the only extra base hits were two doubles by Elvis & Chris Davis, and a triple by Josh Hamilton which was a cool one to watch, as it just squibbed over the second baseman, and slowly rolled out to the 407 spot in the right field power alley. As it rolled, you thought perhaps it might be an inside the parker, but he ended up with a two run triple, which was nice to watch.
Feliz made it a little more interesting by giving up a run in the 9th, but still it was all about Tommy Hunter to me, and that’s a cool thing.
We’re up seven games in the West. Wow.

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.