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As I’ve said many many times before, I detest going up against young pitchers on other teams, making either their major league debuts, or have only pitched a game or two. These guys knock us out. Tonight was no different.
We went up against KC rookie Bobby Keppel. who I believe was making only his third or fourth start. And, true to form, he kept us off the board. It wasn’t for a lack of trying though; we had several balls to the warning track that died just before going over the fence. Still, we were shut out for 8+ innings.
Keppel went into the ninth, and gave up a single to the first batter he faced, Hank Blalock. Following that, Buddy Bell went to his bullpen and brought in Ambiroix Burgos. While I understand Bell’s decision to go to the pen in the ninth with your rookie protecting just a two run lead, the Royals’ pen has the worst ERA in the American League (what a stunner), with about a 6. Burgos came in, gave up a single to DeRosa, struck out Wilkerson, and then hit Mench, loading the bases. Kinsler hit a sac fly to break up the shutout, making it 2-1. Barajas was down to 0-2 with two outs, and blooped a single into left, tying the game at two.
Bell brought in Elmer Dessens to try and stop the bleeding, but it didn’t help. Gary Matthews Jr, who I hope gets an All-Star nod, doubled to left, scoring Barajas & Hairston (who had run for Mench). That put us up 4-2 for the eventual win, amidst rather a lot of boos from the few fans who were there in Kansas City.
John Koronka had the ball for us. Koronka, who has been one of 2006′ better surprises has slipped a bit his last couple of starts. He did however pitch pretty well this game. He went 6.1 innings, giving up two runs (QS) on 6 hits with 2BB, and 1K. He got a no decision, but i think he needed to have a good outing line score wise. I don’t think he was in danger of losing his job or anything – but you don’t want to have too many bad starts in a row.
Our bullpen was much better than KC’s (again, not hard). Alfonseca, Otsuka, & Cordero pitched, and din’t give up any runs. Now Otsuka set up Cordero, but I think that only happened because we scored a bunch of runs in the top of the 9th to take the lead, I think the idea was to get Otsuka work in the 8th, and that was it. I don’t think this was a formal change back to Corder as closer.
Oakland lost, so our lead in the West is back to 4 and a half games. I still maintain it’s not great, as we have the worst record of any of the six division leaders, but it’s still nice to say “First place Rangers” again. Been awhile since I could say that.
Also, I got a laugh out of what MLB.com’s game wrapup had as a headline for this game.. Fab four sings in No. 9 I doubt whoever wrote that will see this text, but if you do, it made me laugh. :)

First off, let me say it was nice to see the Rangers win in Kansas City. It seems to me that we’ve had this mental block there where we can’t win in recent years. Course this year with the Royals already 150 games back and 0-500 this season it seems, we had a shot. :)
Texas retains their hold on first place with a win in Kansas City. Kevin Millwood took the hill for Texas. On the road this year, he’s been the same pitcher he was last year, no walks at all (until tonight), and a bunch of strikeouts with an ERA under 3. At home he’s been well, not that pitcher. But on the road, he’s been great. Tonight he labored a lot. His overall line shows a quality start (7 innings pitched, 2 earned runs, 7 hits, 5 K, 1 BB), but he really labored. He had I think over 60 pitches (or clsoe to it) after 3, and from some of the camera shots they were showing of him in the dugout between innings, he seemed flushed, like the heat was a bother to him. Still, you can’t argue with the ultimate line, and that’s the mark of a good top of the rotation guy. Even when he’s not dominating, he finds a way to get the job done, and he did. A well deserved win, I thought.
Offensively, we got several more doubles (4, Young, Tex, Mench, & Laird) – we’re leading the AL in doubles as a team. Our home runs are down this year, but our doubles are way up. Speaking of home runs, we got a couple of those, too. One from Brad Wilkerson (filling the 666 nonsense we’re hearing about today – Uniform #6 got a HR out of the 6 hole on 6/6/06), and one from Ian Kinsler. Kinsler’s double was alomst another home run, so he had some nice power tonight, as well as three RBI’s. We had 11 hits in all, and they were nicely scattered – only Mark Teixeira didn’t get at least one hit.
As for Kansas City? Well, they still have a nice ballpark even if it’s been bombed with advertisements the last 5 years or so. It is still a park I want to travel to see. Oh yeah, the other memorable moment for Kansas City reliever Danny Bautista uncorked a wild pitch that bounced off the ground and ended up (according to Josh Lewin) about twenty rows into the stands. That reminds me of that old classic baseball clip you see in blooper reels of a Yankees pitcher (forget who now) who goes to pitch, and the ball goes flying way out of his hands straight up, and lands on that screen that is behind home plate in Yankee Stadium, and rolls back down towards the field of play. If you’ve watched enough blooper reels, you should know that pitch. It’s been that kind of year for the Royals when I remember that kind of thing for them in a game, and not anything “good”.

I got pretty sick on Friday evening, and it carried over through Saturday and into Sunday.
Because of that, I fell asleep watching Friday night’s game three seperate times, and Saturday night’s wasn’t much better. While I was conciuous I was dealing with some issues that decorum prohibits me from discussing here. Suffice it to say my mind wasn’t all there. I’ll look back at the games, and write something quick about them.
Friday: (W: 4-3) Kameron Loe & Jon Garland had similar lines, going 6 or so innings, giving up 3 earned runs (although Loe gave up twice as many hits (10-5) as Garland did). The bullpens were the story here. Chicago’s gave up one run, ours none. That was the difference. We had one home run (Wilkerson), and three doubles tonight (Tex, Young, & Matthews). Francisco Cordero picked up the win (his 5th), and I think puts him up there with our team leaders in wins. Otsuka got his 10th save. [ MLB.com Recap ]
Saturday: (L: 8-6) Vicente Padilla was pulled early in this game after throwing only 3.1IP. He gave up 7 hits and 7ER on 3BB and 4K. That was pretty much the game there. Chicago put up a rather ugly 7 spot in the fourth inning, and while we got a ltitle momentum back with a 3 spot in the top of the fifth, we couldn’t rally enough. We lost the game 8-6. Gary Matthews continued to be hot going 3 for 5 with 2 doubles, and a run scored. Blalock & Young were also 3-5. We had 13 hits overall, but it just wasn’t enough, we couldn’t overcome the pitching of Padilla tonight. [ MLB.com Recap ]
Sunday: (W: 10-2): This was the game I knew the least about actually. I was feeling better Sunday, so I did some errands. I did hear parts of the game as I was driving around town, but it’s hard to get a grasp when you hear half an inning here, a few batters there. Looking at the line, John Rheinecker pitched his second great start in a row, and is now 2-0 with us. Rhien went 8 innings, giving up just 2ER on 7 hits with no walks and four strikeouts. Another well pitched game from him; hopefully that can conitnue, as I can’t see us sending out someone who is pitching that well. We bombed Mark Buehrle to the tune of 6 earned runs over 7 innings pitched. Mark didn’t help himself with four walks, either. Jerry Hairston Jr got into the action, and did make an error in his first Ranger game. Hairston went 0-4, but did walk once and scored. Mark Teixeira was red hot this game, going 4-5 with two doubles. But as hot as he was, it didn’t compare to Gerald Laird. Laird was 4 for 5 also, but had two doubles AND two home runs with 4 RBI’s. A great day for Gerald – hopefully the tide starts to turn back to him, as I don’t think Barajas will be here next year. Time to give Gerald his job back that he lost due to injury. [ MLB.com Recap ]
Tomorrow night we go into Kansas City for game against the woeful Royals. I’m sure we’ll lose 2 out of 3, as we seem to have a mental block that disallows us from playing good there.

Mama said there’d be days like this.
There’d be days like this momma said.
OK, it’s game 53, and we haven’t had much in the way of total shellackings. There’s always a handful of those you have to suffer through in a season. Nothing much good generally comes out of them. This night was no better.
No one escaped. We sent four pitchers out there (Koronka, Benoit, Bauer, Wilson), and all four of them stunk up the joint, although Benoit the least of them. The combined line for the four pitchers was 9IP, 18 hits, 14 earned runs, 6 walks (although none by Koronka), and 6 strikeouts. Koronka gave up the lone home run allowed by Ranger pitching.
The only good bit was in the fifth inning when Gary Matthews Jr hit a grand slam, I believe our second in two days. I also seem to recall that we now hold the major league record for grand slams or something in 2006.
As ugly as this game was, we still took two out of three, and a series win is always good.

I didn’t see much of this game, as I had some household responsibilities tonight. I did see some of it, and from the Rangers point of view, I saw the most important inning, the third. I wasn’t happy at the top of the third when we were down 3-0, as Millwood seems to continue his streak of not pitching well in Arlington.
But then the bottom of the third Mike Young jacked a ball into the bullpen which put us within a run, we were down 3-2 at the time. Then Mark Teixeira singled. Hank Blalock followed up with another single, and then Mark DeRosa walked, loading the bases for Brad Wilkerson. Wilkerson hit what he says he thought was a sac fly to right, but it kept carrying and carrying and it cleared the wall for a grand slam. That put us up 6-2, and it felt good.
But then we tried to give it away from that point on. We had a total of four errors tonight. We hung on, and for the second night in a row, Carl Everett ended the game. Last night it was a fly to right, tonight it was a called strikeout that brought out just a tad of the Boston era Carl Everett. Course Raul Ibanez did his best Boston Everett impression in the first after being called out on a strike.
The Mariners seem again to be a “not much going on” team. They just look lethargic. If you want to see what Mariner fans are thinking, check out the USS Mariner site. They’re practically in complete revolt over there.
I don’t have much else to add to this, not having seen most of the game, but a win is a win. We’ve now won three in a row, and have a 28-24 record, and were technically 4.5 games up in the West at the end of the game. However, before we get all excited about that, it’s the worst record of a division leaader of the six divisions. A division lead is always a good thing, but when you’re the lowest seed in that department it doesn’t fare well for the playoffs, IMO. If you take the Rangers record and plop it into the other divisions, this is where they’d stand.
AL East:
Fourth place, behind Boston, New York, & Toronto, 2.5 games back
AL Central:
Third, behind the Tigers & White Sox, 6 games back
NL East:
Second, behind the Mets, 2.5 games back
NL Central:
Tied second with Reds, behind Cardinals, 5 games back
NL West:
Third, behind Diamondbacks & Dodgers, 2.5 games back
While it’s fun to say we’re in first place, it’s not the greatest first place. If we were 10 games over 500 or something I might be more excited about it. It’s a cautious excitement for now.
Also, congrats to Chris Young, who came close to a no hitter, taking it into 8 tonight against the Rockies.