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After Friday night’s shutout, I had mentally given up on the season. I have to say, I wasn’t interested in this game. I mean I cared somewhat, it’s not like I’m shutting off completely, but I was disinterested in watching the game.
Right around 7:10 or so, I fired up the MLB AtBat app on my iPod Touch to see who was starting the game, and discovered the game was already in the fourth inning. At that point, we were winning 1-0, and I have to say I was surprised at the fourth inning. I watched a little on the iPod Touch app, and then passed out on my bed, as I had been up since 5:30 when woken up by the baby.
When I woke up, I went and played some “The Bigs 2” on my Xbox 360, and wasn’t even interested in watching the game, to be honest. Was having fun with Home Run pinball in Times Square. :)
When I checked back in on the Rangers game, it was over, and we had won. Which is good, I suppose, but it really REALLY feels like “too late, guys”.
We did score three runs, which is a major uprising, given last week’s offense. However, it still isn’t a major offensive production, three isn’t terribly great. Good thing Feldman was there to win (his 17th), otherwise we would have lost yet again.
Speaking of Feldman, he has an outside shot at winning 20 games this year. By my count, he can get three more starts this season, the third coming on the actual last game of the year. It would be quite an accomplishment for him to do that, it’s been quite awhile since we’ve had a 20 game winner.

Half a dozen seasons ago when the Rangers came out with their then new logo, the circular Texas Rangers logo… A lot of people were kind of “meh” about it. Some people (like myself) didn’t care for it. To be honest, I said at the time it looked too much like the Montreal Expos logo. I thought it lacked imagination.
But this morning, I realized the real reason they chose that. It looks like zero! Which is the number of times this team has won in the post season, and also the number of runs they seem to like putting up in late 2009 – when it matters! I mean look at it. It LOOKS like a zero, it’s like we’re being mocked. MOCKED I TELLS’YA!

Pretty darned sad. It’s what, about 600 innings in a row now without a run? And 1,433.2 if you add in David Murphy’s solo home run from a few days ago?
Five in a row.
Zero for five games (27) with runners in scoring position.
One run in the last 46 innings
7 1/2 back in West with 16 to play
7 back in Wild Card with 16 to play
The Angels Magic Number is 9
The Red Sox Magic Number for the Wild Card is 10
If anyone was still holding out hope (I kind of sort of still was even though I said they were done after Tuesday), forget it..

The only thing I’ll say about this game individually is that catch that Nelson Cruz made in right with the bases loaded in the second was really quite good. Kept things from getting out of hand, really. Like they weren’t already in the larger scale.

I didn’t think the last few games could be topped by bad play. I was wrong.
Wow, that was just pathetic. Lose 4-0 to the A’s. Get one hit (single by Marlon Byrd) by the A’s, the last place team is bad.
We now have four straight games in a row where we went a combined ofer with men in scoring positions.
We’ve scored just one run in our last 37 innings.
We’re six games back in the West, and 6.5 in the Wild Card. It might be time to bring out that tugboat picture I have posted here the last few years or so when we’re done.
Ian Kinsler walked twice, but he popped out to the outfield about 25 more times, too.
Sigh.

I was at this game. I wasn’t expecting to me, but I was sitting in the library in Garland near my house, and saw a message posted by Michael Gonterwitz asking if anyone wanted tickets to the game. I did, so I headed on down. Turned out it was great, because I got to sit in Section 15, Row 3. The view from there was quite awesome. Thanks a lot for the invite, Mike. I had a good time sitting down there – was quite the treat for me.

Unfortunately, the view was about the best thing in the game. The Rangers continued their total lack of offense in this game. Well, that’s not ENTIRELY true. They did score one run. But it was their only run of the game, and the only run for the previous 22 innings when it happened. So now the Rangers have one run over the last 27 innings. UGH! I mean..

It was bad. Brandon McCarthy was all over the place. Three innings. Only allowed four hits, but he walked three, and allowed four earned runs. Neftali Feliz gave up the others, and his ERA “raised” to 1.46, just about an entire point, as I think he was at like 0.65 or something like that before this game.

We also had three errors. A throwing error by Pudge, a fielding error by Esteban German, and offhand I can’t recall what the third was. It was sloppy to say the least.

But the more annoying part was our offense. We had just five hits. Two of them were doubles (Byrd & German), two were singles (Murphy & German), and one was a home run by David Murphy in the fourth. It broke the scoreless streak at 22 innings, but was pretty pathetic as the lone offensive output over the two games before this, AND this one.

I think we’re about done, folks. Would take a miracle to bring the team back, and even if they did get in, you’d get the feeling they’d be like the San Diego Padres, who back in there, and get destroyed in the first round, since they’re not really that good.
I mean, when you’re more interested in getting a good shot of the live Dot Race when it runs right past you instead of most of what was going on in the game, you know you’re watching a bad team.

I think that might be it, folks. While I haven’t completely given up for the 2009 season, that certainly was a deflating feeling. Yeah, I know. We’re only technically 4.5 games behind Boston, but it doesn’t feel good, my friends.
This was great through five. Then not only did the wheels fall off, but they all fell off, the truck went off the road, went upside down in a ditch, and the only thing to do in the meantime was read Jean-Jacques Taylor articles about the Rangers while you waited to be picked up by AAA. What a nightmare!
Anyway, I digress. Feldman looked great through five. Then it sucked. SUCKED HARD. Rangers have now been shut out two games in a row, and haven’t scored in what, about 50 or 60 innings? Actually, it’s 19 and change, I believe, but who’s counting?
Thing is, I’m not even mad at this. Usually I get mad at losses like that. Not this one, I was just sad and disappointed.

Felix Hernandez (and two relievers) shut down the Rangers. Julio Borbon had three singles, which was half of the total offensive output the team had. No runs.
Derek Holland seems as gassed as Millwood has lately. Six innings, eight hits, two walks, five earned runs. As good as Derek seemed when he came up, he seems positively pedestrian now. He’s young, I can pass it off, but you would have loved to have seen one of our kids lead us to the playoffs, eh?
Really – not a lot to say about this one. Felix Hernandez was great, we couldn’t mount any offense. Meh.

So Friday night’s game was rained out. Saturday night’s game probably should have been. So we get to Sunday. We have a doubleheader to play. Due to some insane television coverage rules (I think), the DH was scheduled to start at 12:05. Due to the rain still in the area, the game didn’t start till just about 5PM.
The game was finished in two hours and eighteen minutes. Why? Tommy Hunter. He threw a complete game on just 102 pitches. The breakdown was 68 strikes and 34 balls. The Mariners managed just six hits, and just two runs. it was not totally dominating, but it certainly was a really great performance. Something that’s needed given how many doubleheaders we’ve pitched. Nice to rest the rest of the pitching staff with a complete game in one of the doubleheader games.
Offensively, it was four doubles, three home runs, and five singles to account for the Ranger runs. Given how soggy the grass was, the home run by Chris Davis that landed on Greene’s Hill sank into the grass, and disappeared. Made me laugh. Made Tom Grieve laugh on the air, too. You can catch a little of that by watching the clip on mlb.com of the home run.
Not a ton to write about. Tommy Hunter was great. Our offense put up a seven spot. We won the game. :)

The Rangers were outhit 15-6. That’s the bottom line, really.
Kevin Millwood was ass. 3.2 innings, 8 hits, 2 walks,5 earned runs. He’s out of gas it seems, and I’m starting to see rumblings that the Rangers should sit him to not let him get to his vesting option. If they tried that, I could quite easily see Scott Boras raising a stink about that. I’m sure someone will write about whether or not Nolan’s “just shut up and pitch and stop whining about pitch count” mentality is causing this or not. But Kevin Millwood now is not the guy you want pitching a lot should we still manage to make the playoffs, which is more and more starting to not look like it’s going to happen.
I could write about the relievers, but I don’t want to. Millwood’s pitching performance was pretty bad, so I don’t feel like writing about Rangers pitching for this game at all.
If you want to look for something good, three of the six hits the Rangers got were extra base hits. Doubles by Kinsler & Davis, and a home run by Julio Borbon, which itself accounted for two of the three RBI’s. In fact, the other RBI was Borbon, too. So he had all three of the team’s RBI’s. Marlon Byrd had two singles. Not much else going on besides that.
Except rain. Lots of rain. They played through the game in a lot of rain until the bottom of the ninth when the Rangers had a man on first, and were playing in a swamp, more or less. Byrd had one of his two singles to lead off the inning, then Nelson Cruz hit a ball to short which was a perfect double play ball, except that Wilson slipped and fell, and Byrd slid past second base. It was a mess – it reminded me of the postponed Game 5 swamp in this past World Series.
Don Wakamatsu came out, and said something to the umpires, and play was put on hold, as the teams came off the field. The tarp was run out, but it had been raining on the field for a few hours, there was almost no point. The game was then called roughly an hour later, and it was over.
Granted, the Rangers were down by five there, but we did have two on with nobody out. I would have liked to have had the chance to keep going. Would have been nice to pick up the bottom of the ninth the next day or something like that. Would like to hear an official explanation for that or something.

Well, the headline says it all. Fridays’ game was rained out. It didn’t rain too hard around here, but it did in Arlington, as the game never got started. Was kind of looking forward to it, as well. I did spend the time with family. First putting my daughter to bed, then after that, played a little “The Bigs 2” on the Xbox 360, and when my wife was done putting the baby to bed, we watched a little “Man v. Food“. Man, that’s a great show.
Anyway, this will be made up Sunday as part of a doubleheader. That’s particularly annoying for me, because I have some church commitments I have to go to. I could probably postpone those, and go to the games, but since my family only has one car, that would deprive the rest of the family, and I can’t do that. Anyone want to pick me up in Garland, and go to the DH with me? :)
Kevin Millwood was supposed to pitch Friday night. He’s pitching Saturday, and Derek Holland & Tommy Hunter are pitching the doubleheader on Sunday.