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OK, it’s not a traditional sweep, but we swept the doubleheader. :)
We won game two, but not nearly as convincingly as Game 1. John Rheinecker took the mound for the second game, and went five innings. He gave up 5 runs (4 earned) on 6 hits, 5 walks (way too many), and 3 strikeouts. Two of those 6 hits were home runs. It wasn’t particularly a good outing. Still, after the drunken euphoria that was game 1, I think this performance got overlooked. :) Frank Francisco wasn’t particularly good, either. 0.1 innings pitched, three walks, two earned runs. Ugh. The rest of our pen threw shutout ball. The last two (Benoit & Wilson) were the big deals. Benoit had a weird line, in that he gave up no runs, but had a blown save. I’m sure Francisco loved that. Anyway, CJ Wilson got the save, and probably will compete in spring next year with Aki to be the Rangers closer in 2008.
The Orioles pitching wasn’t great either, but not nearly as mind bogglingly awful as they were in Game 1. The starter (Olson), and the second reliever (Hoey) combined for 6 innings, giving up 8 hits, 9 earned runs, and walking 5. The other two relievers (Bradford & Walker) gave up nothing.
Offensively, it was a lot of singles for the most part. We had 11 hits in all, and just one double. Michael Young was 3-5, Sammy Sosa was 2-5, Nelson Cruz was 2-5, and Travis Metcalf was 2-3. In fact, Metcalf was the one with the double, and drove in four RBI. That’s a combined eight RBI for Travis in the doubleheader.
What a night. 39 runs also sets a modern record for runs scored in a doubleheader. It was a record setting night in Baltimore. All seven hours worth at the park.

Just how do you write about this game? There’s just so much to write about.

The game started at 4PM when I was still at work. I had to mow the lawn tonight when I got off of work at 6, and I figured with the doubleheader going, game two would be starting when I got home and got started on the yardwork. I have to say I was not expecting game one to still be going when I was pushing the lawnmower around.

But it was. As the game went on and on, I started thinking about what I would write. Usually when the Rangers win big, I have some variant of “Rangers beat…”, “Rangers blew out..”, “Rangers destroyed…”, but none of that applies. I mean, how can any of those things apply when you score thirty freakin’ runs? THIRTY! That’s just nuts! That’s the most runs scored by anyone in 110 years. It’s a record for most runs in a nine inning game in the “modern era”. The Rangers broke seemingly every one of their own records in offensive categories. What’s most amazing to me about this game is that we only scored runs in four of the innings. There were five innings where we put up a zero. We had just 14 runs going into the top of the 8th inning, so we scored 16 in the final two frames (all of which was lawnmower time). Also, in one of those strange statistical aberrations, Wes Littleton got a save in this game. : I just don’t know how to describe this game, and do it justice. There’s just so much to talk about, and a lot of folks who are a lot better than me in writing about these things will have something to say, so I’ll do something different. A few words about each Ranger player in the lineup:

• Frank Catalanotto: Frank went 3-6 with two runs scored, two RBI’s and two walks. Struck out once.
• Ian Kinsler: Ian went 3-7 with three runs scored, two RBI’s, and one walk. Did not strike out.
• Michael Young: Michael went 2-5, scoring once, and was one of two players without an RBI. Now has 151 hits for the season.
• Travis Metcalf: Travis didn’t start the game, officially went one for one (he did walk and score twice). But the one was a big one, a grand slam for his four RBI.
• Marlon Byrd: Marlon was 2-5 with four RBI’s. He walked twice, and scored all four times he was on base. One of his two hits was huge, was the other grand slam we got this game. As a bonus, Byrd’s slam won someone $25,000 on TV.
• Jason Botts: Jason had a weird line. He went 3-7, with two RBI and two runs scored. He also struck out four times, qualifying him for the golden sombrero.
• Nelson Cruz: Nelson went 2-7 with two runs scored, and two strikeouts.
• David Murphy: David had a nice running play in the ninth beating out a ground ball to second. It was very Pete Rose in it’s execution, and allowed more runs to score. He did have five hits (5-7), he scored five, and drove in two.
• Jarrod Saltamacchia: Jarrod went 4-6 with two home runs, 7 RBI’s, one walk, one strikeout. Was quite nice to see 7 RBI’s from your #8 batter.
• Ramon Vazquez: But not as impressive as getting 7 RBI from your #9 guy as well. Vazquez had two home runs as well on his 4-6 night, scoring four times, and struck out once.
• Kason Gabbard: Kason started the game for us, and went six innings. He gave up seven hits, three earned runs, walking one, and striking out three. Since I listened to this game on the radio, it was hard to tell “how” he pitched, but you can’t argue with the win. Another quality start – he’s been a good pickup.
• Wes Littleton: Wes came in and finished out the game, going the final three. That’s where the oddly awarded “save” for him came from. No runs allowed, just two hits, walking one, and striking out one.

Of course the flip side to all of this is the Orioles pitching. Given the Rangers scored thirty runs on twenty nine hits, you would have thought the Orioles would have brought in a position player to throw some of this game, but that didn’t happen. The Orioles threw just four pitchers out there. Here’s their stats:

1. Daniel Cabrera: 5 innings, 9 hits, 6 earned runs, 1 walk, 4 strikeouts, 2 home runs
2. Brian Burres: 0.2 innings, 8 hits, 8 earned runs, 1 walk, 1 strikeout, 1 home run
3. Rob Bell: 1.1 innings, 5 hits, 7 earned runs, 3 walks, 1 strikeout, 1 home run
4. Paul Shuey: 2 innings, 7 hits, 9 earned runs, 3 walks, 5 strikeouts, 2 home runs – Paul Shuey was interesting, as five of the six outs he got were strikeouts – an intersting little stat.

When I was in the back yard when the Rangers were getting runs 20-30, I was just shaking my head. It was just amazing – listening to Eric & Victor was quite the pleasure. When Vazquez got the three run home run to get to #30, I just said “Oh good Lord” out loud to nobody in particular. It was quite impressive. In fact, my brother called the house while I was outside and asked my wife if we were watching. My TiVo did not pick up the schedule change for the doubleheader, so when I got home, I started recording, so I got just the 8th and 9th innings on TiVo. Listening to Josh Lewin was quite interesting, too. Some of my favorite quotes by him were “It’s an Xbox game come to life”, “It’s a 100% massacre”, and some others that I can’t recall right now. I also caught a few minutes of Baseball Tonight right after the game was over, and they had Tim Kurkjian on the phone. His voice was quite interesting, he was almost speechless trying to talk about it. Never quite heard a baseball guy talk like that about a game before.

What a win. I suggest going to the major baseball sites (mlb.com, ESPN, Dallas Morning News, etc) and read the pros talk. There will be a LOT (an awful lot) to read about this one in the next day or so.

Simply amazing.

UPDATE Dec 2019: I had to edit this page today to move the pictures on the page from one location to another.  Re-read my thoughts.  12 years later, I can still remember where I was when the 30th run scored.  Also, my single favorite thing about this game is that all 30 runs were scored in just four innings.  We put up zeroes in five of the nine innings!

He was’t quite near as dominant as Johan Santana, but he tried. Bedard was pretty good though. He went seven innings, gave up just five hits and two runs. He struck out 11 Rangers, though. Couple that with the game against Santana, and the Rangers struck out 30 times in two games. The Rangers had a total of five hits in all. Two were by Marlon Byrd, and two were by Nelson Cruz (the fifth by Jason Botts). That was it. We were shut down again.
Padilla was as the MLB recap said “no match” for Bedard. Padilla went 5 innings, gave up seven hits, six runs, and four walks. No strikeouts, and two home runs. Not gonna get it done that way.

The Rangers and Orioles game was rained out on Monday. It will be made up as a doubleheader on Wednesday. Not that exciting of news, but hey… :)

Johan Santana. That was all you can say about this game. Santana just dominated the Rangers in every way possible. In eight innings, Johan gave up only two hits (both to Sammy Sosa), and struck out 17 batters, setting a new personal best, and a new Twins franchise record. It was totally dominating. Sosa actually almost tied the game, the pitch before he hit a double in the seventh he jacked a ball that just missed the left field foul pole by a couple of feet. It was mildly amusing to see closer Joe Nathan get booed for the 9th inning. I personally would have loved to have seen Santana go out there for the ninth, and if he gave up any kind of hit, then bring in Nathan. I would have loved to have seen Santana get 20 strikeouts. The way the Rangers were flailing up there, I thought it was a real possibility.

This all overshadowed a great pitching effort by Kevin Millwood. Millwood deserved to win this game the way he pitched. 7 innings, four hits, one run. Few too many walks (five), but you can’t argue with 7 innings, one run allowed. He’s been very good lately, and hopefully can carry this over into 2008.

But this game wasn’t about the Rangers, realy. This picture below sums it up, in my opinion.

Ranger pitching was the star of this one. Kameron Loe came off the DL, and threw five innings of shutout ball. It wasn’t the most crisp outing I had ever seen (three hits and five walks), but it was enough to get the job done. The Rangers turned three double plays this game, so that helped a lot. Loe was followed up by Mike Wood (2IP), Frank Francisco (1IP), Joaquin Benoit (1IP). Of the three relievers, there was only one walk issued (Francisco), and no more runs, so Ranger pitching was pretty well today.
It’s nice to see because of the quote that came out in the paper over the weekend from Thad Levine (I think, I can’t recall for sure as I write this) saying that the free agent pitching class this off season is going to be rather thin, now that Zambrano is off the market. The quote said something about if there’s a great deal available, they’ll get involved, but wouldn’t be surprised to see the Rangers make no free agent pitching moves. We’ll need a lot more days like the one we got today before that will be swallowed without complaining by knee jerk radio call in Ranger “fans”, swallowed by the Ticket, and especially Randy Galloway.
Boof Bonser (my vote for silliest name in all of the mlb) was not good. In 4.2 innings, he gave up 7 hits, 5 earned runs, and 3 walks. Of the hits, two of them were home runs. One to Saltamacchia, and one to Marlon Byrd. Byrd had a great night. Went two for 4 with the aforementioned home run. He drove in four runs in all.
Michael Young was 2-3 keeping his average at .305. He has 149 hits, and with about 40 games left, he won’t have much time to go cold if he wants to hit 200 again. It would be a nice feat considering how horrendous the start of the season went for him.
Always nice to see a shutout thrown by our boys.

You know, I enjoy great pitcher’s duels. In all honesty, that’s what this game was. Both Kason Gabbard and Carlos Silva pitched really well. Between the two of them, they combined for 13.2 innings, and combined gave up 10 hits and two earned runs. A pretty good pitcher’s duel. Even the pens were pretty well stacked in the stats categories. But as I’ve written about many times here, I’m no fan of extra inning games. I’m OK if we can get by inning #10, but when we lose extra inning games (which is a lot), it always seems to happen in the 10th. If we can get by that I feel better. It’s a bit irrational, I admit, but there it is.
Kason Gabbard pitched really well again, seemingly having no ill effects from the game he had to come out of early not too long ago. Kason went 6.2 innings, gave up five hits and one earned run. Walked three and struck out three. He deserved better than this. He left with the score tied, and I felt like he should have gotten the win, especially against Carlos Silva, who has historically (although not in recent vintage) been a pitcher that gets bombed a lot. The only real good moment was a towering majestic home run for Saltamacchia, his first in a Ranger uniform. Frank Catalanotto had three hits in this game, but none counted for anything. There were only three other hits in all total for the rest of the team, we were pretty much shut down.
As for the end of the game.. That’s what I get for thinking Jamey Wright had figured it out. The Twins won the game in the 10th on a “walkoff wild pitch” by Wright, allowing the winning run in. That brings up a silly statistical issue I have. The wild pitch technically counts as an unearned run. Screw that. It was the pitcher’s direct fault that the run scored by throwing it away. The rules need to be changed to make that an earned run. I don’t have the exact rulebook text in front of me, but I believe it says something along the lines of a run is unearned when it scores due to no fault of the pitcher. Feh – tell me the wild pitch wasn’t Jamey Wright’s fault – that should be an earned run.
A quick note to a big Red Sox fan of mine… How’s that Gagne trade workin’ out for ya right now? ;)