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Again, I refuse to call them the Los Angeles Angels. They’re in Anaheim. Sorry Moreno.
I think pretty much everyone figured that John Lackey was going to last more than two pitches, and he’d be the good pitcher he really is. Last night was certainly the chase there. At least for awhile. Through the first four and two thirds, Lackey was putting up zeroes. We had a few chances, but he always danced his way out of trouble. Then came the fifth inning.
Elvis Andrus tried bunting for a single, but hit it poorly, it went straight towards the pitcher, so he was thrown out. After that, Ian Kinsler struck out swinging. Looked like another Lackey style inning. Then, as Josh Lewin said, the wheels came completely off. Seven straight Rangers reached base. After two outs! Here’s a rundown:

1. Single by Michael Young
2. Single by Josh Hamilton
3. Home Run by Andruw Jones (on a two strike count, if I remember right)
4. Double by Hank Blalock
5. Walk by Marlon Byrd
6. Walk by David Murphy
7. Wild Pitch, scoring Blalock
8. Single by Saltamaccha, scoring Byrd & Murphy

After that, John Lackey was pulled from the game. He was relieved by Mark Bulger who stopped the bleeding in that inning. That was a six run outburst, all after two outs in that inning. Most impressive.
Overall, our offense managed fourteen hits. Only one guy took an ofer, that being David Murphy. But even David managed a walk, and scored, too.
Pitching for us was led by Dustin Nippert, who looked quite different with that beard. Also, he appeared to be wearing a rather thick necklace, which may have been new. The reason I think that is that he had a big tag of some sort on his left shoulder. It was either from his uniform, or the necklace. It was gone after the first inning. :) Anyway, Nippert was making his 2009 debut, and wasn’t terribly great. He didn’t survive the fourth inning. Gave up seven hits and a walk for three runs overall. The run output wasn’t horrible, but seven hits in less than four innings is not. He was “meh”. I’ve seen worse lines, but was really far away from even “just good”.
That forced our pen into action early. Derek Holland threw two innings of relief, and allowed just a single hit. He also allowed a run, but it was unearned. In what would have been his final batter, Saltamacchia dropped an easy popup in front of the plate. Holland was relieved, and Jason Jennings had some issues getting guys out (he walked two more, loading the bases before getting out of it). Anyway, Holland was quite good. Two innings, 19 pitches, no runs. The rest of the pen only allowed a single run, and that was from Frank Francisco, who gave up a solo home run in the bottom of the ninth. While Jennings didn’t allow any runs, he had some major control problems, and probably should have had a few runs on his book the way he pitched. Darren O’Day & CJ Wilson looked good, too.
The first game of the formal second half of the season put us back into a tie for first place with Anaheim.

I don’t think anyone expected the Rangers to beat the Angels every game between now and game 162. However, for some reason this loss seems bad. Probably because of the way that Kevin Millwood pitched. Or more to the point did not pitch.
Kevin’s been great this year, and has been chronicled already, should have been on the All-Star team pitching roster. This game however, was not of the same calibre. Kevin did toss five innings, but during those five innings, he gave up nine hits and three walks for a total of all nine earned runs. Was a stink job. It lowered his record to 8-6, and kept him from having 10 wins before the All-Star break, something of a goal I think everyone had for him. Still, he’s doing well overall, and provided this isn’t the start of a trend, it can be overlooked. Jason Grilli & Doug Mathis (who I just found out a couple of days ago switched uniform numbers in June) followed up and threw scoreless relief.
Offensively, the big night was by Josh Hamilton. Josh returned to the lineup for the first time in awhile and went 2 for 4 with a double and a single. Struck out twice, too. Ian Kinsler got a hit again for the first time in about two years with a home run in the seventh inning. it felt good, but you got the impression it was “little too late”.
So we lost the game. The only positive thing about losing in Anaheim is that you don’t have to sit through the stupid rally monkey nonsense. Although, as bad as the Rally Monkey is, it at least isn’t just assinine. Which is a word that describes this Angels fan. Check out this jackass on Youtube. I wouldn’t go there and insult him in his comments, as that would be as bad as what he does. Just vote his video one star.

Scott Feldman led the way to a sweep of the Tampa Bay Rays and a continued tie with Anaheim for first place. Scotty was quite good, going six innings, allowing just three hits and two runs (only one was earned). He did have a few too many walks (four), but gave up no longballs, and pretty much kept Tampa in check.
In fact, the three hits that Feldman allowed were all singles (Crawford, Burrell, Gross). Our bullpen (Jennings, Wilson, Francisco) all pitched a perfect inning to hold the game and grab the win. Really nice pitching in this game. Hopefully we can keep it up when we hit the road on Monday.
Offensively, we didn’t have a ton going on either, just eight hits in all. Which is better than what Tampa got, but isn’t an onslaught like the previous game. David Murphy was by far the best in this one with three of the eight hits. It was a singles brigade, with just two doubles (Young, Salty) being the only hits that weren’t singles. Despite the number of hits, only three guys took ofers (Kinsler (again), Blalock, & Cruz).
Was one of those “just enough” games for the win and the sweep.

When we came into this game, I wasn’t looking forward to the pitching matchup. Not that I didn’t trust Derek Holland to do a good job (well, OK maybe I did a little), but I knew David Price. I remembered him from the playoffs and World Series last year, and was expecting him to shut us down. Which was something we didn’t need as we seem to be just getting going again after a slump.
Much to my surprise we unloaded on Price and the Rays. Price was just destroyed, and the most telling stat of all is he allowed more walks than outs recorded. Five walks in just one inning and a third. Three hits, five walks, and six earned runs. Yeah, that was pretty awful. In all that, only one home run, but it was a big one – a three run shot to Andruw Jones. I do have to admit to being surprised by that, as I figured Price was going to keep us contained. Epic fail there.
On the flip side, Derek Holland was OK. Six runs, seven hits four earned runs. Most of the damage there was the longball. Derek allowed a solo home run to Jason Bartlett in the second. However, the one that skewed his pitching line was the three run home run to Dioner Navarro in the fifth. Take those out, and it wasn’t too bad, but you can’t base a pitching line on “just take out those two guys”.
The Rays used three relievers. The first one (Lance Cormier) also didn’t fare too great, although not nearly as bad as Price. Cormier went three innings, and gave up four hits and three earned runs. One of which was a solo home run to Nelson Cruz.
Chad Bradford was next, and didn’t give up anything, so naturally, he was in for the shortest time, just two thirds of an inning. The last reliever was Jeff Niemann, who didn’t give a home run, but did allow three more runs (on six hits).
Our offense was extra base oriented. Four doubles, a triple, and two home runs accounting for half of the 14 hits we got. Elvis Andrus & Ian Kinsler took ofers, but everyone else was on the board from the starters. David Murphy & Nelson Cruz led the way with three hits each.
Overall, a nice win. Sweep coming up on Sunday night perhaps?

Yesterday was Tommy Hunter’s 23rd birthday, I believe. I know it was his birthday, not sure of the number, but that’s really irrelevant. He started the game for the Rangers, and looked pretty decent last time out. So he took the mound on his birthday (with his family in the stands), and threw a pretty decent game this time out, too.
He went 5.1 innings, throwing 90 pitches. I missed when he came out of the game, so I’m not sure of the situation, but the one runner he left on base didn’t score. Didn’t seem like a huge jam from the boxscore, but I missed that part of the game. Anyway, Hunter allowed just three hits and one run. He also walked three and struck out five. Not exactly dominating numbers, but definitely good enough for the win, which was his first in the majors.
That was held up by our bullpen, who backed up Hunter with 3.2 innings of no hit, shutout relief. Jennings & Wilson held it for Frank Francisco who bounced back from his meltdown in the return to the closer’s job. Frankie threw one inning, allowed no hits and no walks, striking out one for the save. Nice to see this kind of pitching. Wish it would have been more consistent in June.
Offensively, we didn’t have a ton going on. While Tampa Bay only had three hits the whole game, we didn’t do a ton better. The Rangers had just five hits. All five of our hits were against Tampa starter Scott Kazmier. Their bullpen was as good as ours. However, it was enough. No Ranger had more than one hit, they were scattered, however, there was some power hidden in there. We had two doubles (Byrd, Cruz), and the big deal was suddenly power stroke heavy Hank Blalock. Hank hit a two run home run out over the center field wall in the fourth inning, putting us up at the time 2-0. Both teams added a single run in the fifth, and that was the end of the scoring.
Bit surprised that our offense is still in low gear, but the win was enough to tie us for first place with Anaheim again. Feeling good about that, as I’m sure most of us are.
To quote Jamey Newberg: Smoaklahoma! Here he comes. September callup? :)

I seem to have developed a pattern of updating series after they’re over, doing all the games at once. I need to get out of that. By the time I get to the third one, my mind has a hard time coming up with something unique to say about the final game. Such is the same here. We won, but all I can think of to write about was how Frank Francisco blew the save, and then we won on a walkoff home run in the bottom of the ninth.
One other thing worth mentioning: Julio Borbon got his first major league hit – and RBI at the same time. Also, from the TV coverage, they didn’t show the ball going back into the dugout – that usually gets shown for some reason.

Well, for the first time in a couple of years, I headed out to the Rangers game to retake the pictures for my seat selector feature here on my site. First done about ten years ago, it’s something I’ve always had fun with, but it is a heck of a lot of work. Once I get the pics all sorted out, I’ll update my online feature, and post a story about it.
Anyway, when that was over (I started at 5:10PM and finished at 6:48PM, downed 60oz of Gatorade, and two bottles of water during all of this), I sat down to watch the Rangers game. It’s only my third game of the season so far, but I always like just sitting in the last row of the upper deck with my Palm to score the game and my headphone radio. I enjoy those. If the park wasn’t so far away, I’d probably go to more. Anyway..
After an insanely long first two innings (an hour), I came to the conclusion that I’d be there for awhile. The Rangers scored three in the bottom of the first, and then gave them right back in the top of the second. It was 3-3 after two. Neither pitcher had much of anything on the mound, and both escaped some situations that would have made the three a much larger crooked number on the scoreboard.
Joe Saunders is a pretty decent pitcher, but not here. Before the game, one of the radio guys (get well Eric!) said that Saunders was something like 0-5 with an ERA in the 12’s in our ballpark. This game didn’t help. Saunders was hit pretty hard, giving up eight runs on five walks and six hits in just 3.2 innings. He was pretty bad. In fact, in the first inning, I really thought we were going to score six or seven and get him out of there with less than an inning pitched, but he escaped that.
Our offense was propelled by the home run. We had five of them in all. Four off of Joe Saunders. Kinsler led off the game with one. Marlon Byrd had a two run shot later in the first inning. That felt good, as a lot of ours have been solo home runs lately. What felt better though was the three run home run Byrd also had in the fourth inning, which was followed up by a solo shot by Nelson Cruz. David Murphy also added a solo shot in the seventh. The home runs accounted for seven of our nine runs.
Pitching wise, I have to say that Scott Feldman was pretty pedestrian, bordering on awful the first two innings. He completely failed in the shutdown inning, he just looked bad. Which is what makes innings three through six more impressive. After 57 pitches in the first two, Scott settled down, and pitched extremely well in 3-6. He needed about 60 pitches to get through the other four innings, and allowed no more runs. At one point he retired a ton of guys in a row – I forget how many. In fact, had his pitch count not been at 116 after six innings, he probably would have come back out – he was looking QUITE good.
Problem is our pen made the game seem closer than it really was. Going up 9-3 in the ninth, CJ Wilson coughed up a couple of runs. One was unearned, but still. 9-3 would have felt a lot better than 9-5, even though both resulted in a win, and us getting back to just one and a half games out of first.
Still kind of bummed at how far we fell in June, but the win helps ease that a little.