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Before the Red Sox won their world series a few years ago, I used to love going to Red Sox games. Primarily because the games were usually good. It wasn’t a blowout one way or another, the games were well pitched, well played, and I usually enjoyed them. Then the Sox won the World Series, and their fans became equals on the “jerkoff” scale with Yankees fans, and made it no fun to go to the Red Sox games. Oh well. Had I gone, this game would have been one of those ones from the past. 4-3 game, well played, well pitched, and one I did enjoy watching on TV.
Dustin Nippert took the mound for Texas, and he did well under the baking August heat (why day games in August – WHY?) Dustin went six innings, allowing six hits and three walks. A bit too many, but it didn’t really hurt him – he only allowed two runs. Actually, as I look at the box score, it doesn’t seem *THAT* impressive, but live, it seemed better than the line. Doug Mathis followed up and allowed just one hit, but it was a solo home run, accounting for Boston’s third run. Beyond him, our two headed closer followed. CJ Francisco pitched two innings, allowing just one hit. Also struck out five of the six batters faced, which was nice to see, after the fiasco on Friday night.
Offensively, we didn’t have a ton either – with only four runs, there wasn’t a ton, but we did have eleven hits. We had a couple of solo home runs. One by Michael Young, and another by Taylor Teagarden, which appeared to bounce off the corner of the new video board ring in left field. We also had three doubles.
We had a couple of double plays, and… HECK WITH IT..
WE TOOK OVER THE WILD CARD LEAD WITH THIS WIN! GO RANGERS!

Holland again! 6.2 innings pitched, seven hits, two runs, three stikeouts. He actually kept the Sox under control. The two runs he allowed were two solo home runs (Bay, Martinez). He’s starting to feel to me like Cole Hamels did for the Phillies last year. Man, he’s good.
The big story for me this game was the speed on the bases. Elvis Andrus & Pedro Borbon were running all over the place. The two of them had a combined seven steals, and Ian Kinsler also had one. The eight steals sets a Rangers franchise record now for number of steals in a game. It was almost like videogame baseball, where you jack the running speed up to max on your guys, and push down the arm strength of the opposing catcher. Varitek had no hope. A friend of mine who is a Sox fan says it’s been that way all year with Varitek – he can’t throw anyone out, apparently. But MAN was it nice to see these guys run all over the Red Sox.
Ian Kinsler was back in the game, but wasn’t batting leadoff (Borbon was). Kinsler homered in his return to the lineup. He was also hit in the head with a pitched ball later in the game – not something that looked good at all, but at least it was’t Hiroki Kuroda of the Dodgers.
Overall, the Rangers had 12 hits. Just two were extra base hits (the Kinsler HR, and an Andrus triple). Everything else was a single. So not a lot of power, but way more than enough to hang a seven spot on the Boston pitching staff.
But the important part was that we beat the Red Sox, and are back to just half a game out in the Wild Card race.

WHAT THE …………..
P.S. Shut up, Dave.

I didn’t get to see any of this game. It started at 11AM, and by the time I realized it was on, it was mostly over. Normally I’d TiVo delay that, but since I forgot it was on so early, I saw the score in the middle of the game, and decided there was no point in watching then. :)
Scott Feldman got his eighth road victory of the season, and his 12th overall. That’s 12 wins in mid August. At that rate, he could quite easily get to 17. I can’t recall the last time the Rangers have had a pitcher with that many wins in a season. Anyway, Scott went 6 innings, seven hits, two walks, and six strikeouts. One run allowed – pretty solid outing for sure.
Hamilton keeps making moves offensively. 4-4 with a couple more doubles. His average is now up to .260. Andruw Jones also had a double, and Elvis Andrus homered. David Murphy had the last RBI on a sac fly.
As I didn’t see this one, I’m not saying a lot, but it’s nice to get out of there with a series win, altough I thought we should have swept Cleveland, tell you the truth. We come home to play Boston for the Wild Card lead in a three game series just half a game behind Boston.
GO RANGERS!
Edit: I looked it up. The last time someone had that many wins was Kenny Rogers in 2004, who had 18 wins. Kevin Millwood was close in 2006 when he had 16, though.

Tommy Hunter does it again. 7.2 innings pitched, 98 pitches thrown, six hits, no walks, five strikeouts, and NO RUNS! Tommy looked awesome again, and wow, is it refreshing having this much quality pitching from young guys. Always we had to grow our own, and man, 2009 makes it feel like we’ve finally got the message across. It’s exciting. Man, it REALLY is exciting.
Offensively, Josh Hamilton led the way with three of the nine overall Ranger hits. He definitely appears to have found his groove again, right around the time he said he was coming off his ADD medicine. Josh had two doubles, and two RBI’s in the game. Pedro Borbon also doubled, and the rest of our hits were singles. The other RBI’s were pretty spread out (Blalock, Vizquel, & Andrus).
But this night was about the pitching. Tommy Hunter was really great, and CJ Wilson came in and threw 1.1 innings of scoreless relief, not allowing his one interhited runner to score.
All was good this game. Kind of amusing though that this is the third straight game the Rangers have been involved in where one team was shut out. It’s also the second straight game with a 5-0 score, although not in the same direction. :)
Squeee indeed. :)

Well, this game was pretty much defined in the bottom of the third, when Dustin Nippert couldn’t get anyone out. Cleveland scored five runs that frame. That was also all the scoring for the entire game.
Neither team was exactly pounding the ball. Of the six hits Cleveland had, only one was anything but a single (it was a double). Of the seven hits Texas had, only one wasn’t a single (it was a triple). But enough of them came together in the third for Cleveland to push across five runs in one inning .
Dustin went six innings, despite that, and managed to strike out ten Indians in just six innings, so that was good. He only walked two, so overall he wasn’t too bad. Except for the third.
When your team loses 5-0, and the other pitcher doesn’t pitch a one hitter or something like that, there’s not much to say in recap. Not unless you’re getting paid to write about baseball, in which case you make the loss stories a bit more padded. heh :)