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This was actually a pretty well pitched game through the first 5 and a half innings. The Sox were up 2-1 at that point, and both El Duque & Kameron Loe were pitching well.
Loe had gone 6 innings, giving up two runs on four hits with 3K, and 1BB. A pretty good outing. El Duque was just a little bit better until the bottom fell out in the 6th inning for him. His line when he exited the game was 5IP, 6 hits, 6 earned runs, 1 walk, 6K. He also allowed three home runs. Two of them came in the 6th (Young, Soriano). The other was a leadoff HR to David Dellucci in the first inning. We did tack on three more runs in the bottom of the 8th, but the game was essentially over.
Scott Feldman made his major league debut in this game, pitching the ninth. He was perfect. Struck out two, got a flyball out. Nice start there.
It seems we are back on a bit of a roll in terms of winning. Too bad it’s too late.
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We had nothing this game. In fact, we didn’t score any runs since the fifth inning of the first game of the DH. So our bats went pretty quiet for the last 12 half innings they batted. Jermaine Dye did Mark Teixeira’s thing in this game, having two home runs and 6 RBI’s.
Brandon McCarthy looked pretty good. He went 7.2IP and gave up no runs on just two hits. He was spectacular. I think the only thing that kept him from a complete game was his pitch count, which was 117 when he was pulled. It was nice to see Ranger fans applauding him – I know there were Sox fans there, but there was more applause than that. Hell, I applauded him, although I know he couldn’t see me. :)
Edison Volquez, a guy who seems to make Jamey Newberg go all gooey made his major league debut last night. I was at the park for the recent major league debuts and wins of Justin Duchscherer & Brian Sikorski. But my luck didn’t extend to Volquez. He looked like a rookie making his debut. He seemed to be trying to overthrow a lot of his pitches. There were flashes of brilliance, and as rookie debuts go, I would have to say it went pretty well. Not great, but not awful, either. Volquez went 4.2IP, allowed 6 hits, 5ER, walked two, and struck out three. I would hope he’d get another look before we sent him back. There were moments where you could see the electric stuff, and why the team is high on him. But he is after all a kid making his major league debut. Have to factor that in there as well.
From the “Oh, shut up” department comes another whine from the White Sox. This time it was the usual suspect, Ozzie Guillen who complained about Jermaine Dye being hit. I know you need to stick up for your players and all that, but I don’t think anyone thought that we were throwing at the White Sox batters (in particular Dye). There was nothing to be gained by it, and the guy throwing the pitch (Erasmo Ramirez) wasn’t even touched up by Dye – it made no sense. So Ozzie Guillen can join Mark Buehrle in taking a sip from a big cup of “Shut the hell up”. Obviously the lights weren’t working.
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This game can be summed up with just a few short words. Crappy starting pitching. Mark Teixeira.
Neither starter could hold a lead – both teams scored in the first 5 half innings, and through the end of the fifth, only the bottom of the third and the top of the fourth went scoreless. Jon Garland went 4.1IP, and gave up 7 hits, 8 runs (5 earned), and 3 walks. Not a stellar performance. Coudln’t have been the lights, as it was all daytime. Joaquin Benoit didn’t fare much better. He was pulled after three innings, and during his time, he gave up 5ER on 9 hits in 3IP. Not good on either side.
However, pulling Benoit was a good move, as he was replaced by CJ Wilson, who seems to have figured it out the last few apperances, as he’s been outstanding. He was really great in this game, too. He went 5 innings, giving up just two hits and one run. He looked sharp, threw strikes – was everything you want in a pitcher. He even got his first major league win in the game, which was nice.
Mark Teixeira was the star of this one. He went 3 for his first 3 at bats. Two home runs, a double, and six RBI’s. Definitely lead our team in this one.
Funny thing is that after the fifth, we couldn’t score anymore. That continued into game, two as well!
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The kid vs. the Cy Young winner. That’s how I started the report on Sunday’s game. It’s close to being the same for Monday’s game, too. Juan Dominguez vs. Mark Buehrle was not something you expected a positive outing from, but that is definitely what we got. Here’s another comparison of pitching lines:
Dominguez: 8IP, 7H, 2ER, 2BB, 3K
Buehrle: 7IP, 9H, 4ER, 1BB, 4K (3 unearned runs, too)
These lines just feel “backwards”. But we’ve gotten good young starting pitching recently, and that’s good. I think the goal now should be to end the season at .500.
We got to Mark Buehrle early, scoring two in the first, another in the second, and then three more in the fourth. We capped the scoring with an additional run in the fifth. Buehrle didn’t seem sharp at all, and then came out in the press afterwards claiming the Rangers “cheat” at home. That seems like whining about losing to me. I’m not claiming any team is beyond cheating, but to claim the other team cheated right after you lost just strikes me as sour grapes. The White Sox didn’t help themselves either by comitting four errors in the field, and allowing three unearned runs. That’s probably where the difference in this game was.
Tex continues to be hot, going 3 for 4 with 2 RBI’s in this game. One of the RBI’s was his 100th, which makes him the fifth Ranger to have consecutive 100 RBI seasons. We had a couple more home runs this game, one was from Kevin Mench, and the other was one from Mark DeRosa which was most definitely wind assisted. DeRosa has done a nice job this past week. I’m not sure if he fits in for 2006, but for the remainder of this season anyway, he seems to be doing his job well.
Edison Volquez pitches today for the first time ever as a Ranger. I bet Jamey Newberg is more excited than he probably is letting on. :)
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The kid vs. the Cy Young winner. Who is supposed to come out on top in these? Yup, the Cy Young guy. Chris Young vs. Johan Santana was a match up that worried me. I figured as soon as we gave up a run or two, that’d be it. Santana would shut us down and that would be the end of the game. Yeah, I know if you’re reading this, you know how the game turns out, but look at these numbers: Which of these pitching lines is which?
Pitcher A: 7IP, 3H, 6K, 2BB, 0ER
Pitcher B: 7IP, 3H, 6K, 3BB, 1ER
They’re awfully close, the major difference is the earned run figure. The second one was Johan Santana and the first was Chris Young. In his last 3 or 4 starts, Chris Young seems to have rediscovered himself. Which is good, as he’s about to break the Rangers rookie record for wins, he needs just one more. The only run the Twins scored was against Erasmo Ramirez who was called up in favor of Justin Thompson yesterday. But Chris Young out dueling Johan Santana was something I think most Rangers fans were not expecting to happen, so it’s particularly nice to see.
We won the game on a walk off hit by Blalock, after Jesse Crain got himself in too much trouble. The Twins were playing double play depth instead of in, which probably cost them the game based on the ball hit. Nice win, nice series, even the loss felt good, despite it being 7-2. With the exception of the 11th inning on Saturday, I felt we dominated the Twins.
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There’s two things to talk about regarding this game. First, let’s talk about the game itself. Was a match up of veterans. Kenny Rogers vs. Brad Radke. Brad Radke went 6 innings, giving up 5 hits and just one run. Kenny Rogers went 6 innings, give up 6 hits and NO runs. We were up 1 to nothing going into the seventh, when John Wasdin gave up a run to tie the game. But we picked up a run in the bottom of the 8th to go up 2-1. Then Cordero comes on and blows the save by giving up a run in the ninth, tying it at 2. I generally dislike extra innings from the aspect of we tend to lose them. I like them because we get more baseball, though. :)
We should have won the game in the bottom of the 9th though. Gary Matthews led off the bottom of the 9th with a double. Sandy Alomar then tried bunting, and failed. Twice. He popped up a bunt foul, and then tried a second time and bunt popped up to the Twins’ first baseman. Ugh. Dellucci and Young couldn’t get the job done either, that was pretty much it. We didn’t do much of anything in the 10th and 11th either. But the Twins did. They pounded Brian Shouse & Steve Karsay for 5 runs in the top of the 11th capped off by Jacque Jones’ home run. We lost 7-2 on a game we SHOULD have won. :( To make matters worse, we had a stupid out in the bottom of the 11th as Phil Nevin did get on, but was doubled off first to end the game after a Sandy Alomar hit ball ALMOST went out in left, but Nevin had run all the way around to third by that point, and was doubled off first. What a way to end it.
The other thing to talk about was the heat. I was at this game, and this is the kind of weather that demands that we move our Summer games back to 7:30 at night. Why exactly are we playing all these day games in the summer? I remember a quote in the press a year ago by Buck Showalter about us supposedly trying to take care of our natural environment in that regard, but come on – this is nuts. I walked through the concourse, and it was surprisingly cool (it usually isn’t). But the seating bowl. Wow. That was damn hot. It was hovering around 100 all day and mostly brilliant sunshine. Way too damn hot. They announced the attendance as 25 thousand something. Yeah right. There was at most 10,000, and unless they were all the way in the few rows down the bottom, they were all up in the shade. I know I was. My regular season ticket was 328-5-1. No way, I was up in 328 Row 22 (three from top). The folks who sit across the aisle from me in my regular season tickets were there too. Got a good idea from the lady that sits there. She had a cooler full of ice, and towels. Throw some ice cubes in the towel, and use it to cool yourself during the game. That worked surprisingly well. I figured it would be a “OK, that’s nice, but I’m still hot”, but the ice and the shade kept me pretty cool. But I shouldn’t have to do that, we shouldn’t be playing in heat this bad.
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Wow. This one was all about the pitching, which is something that is nice to see for next year, but would have liked to have seen more of it when it counted when we were still in the race. Kameron Loe got a start. According to the press, he’d been asking for a start opportunity. He’d been operating out of the pen his entire time in the majors. Generally when you ask for things, you had better deliver. Boy did he deliver. He went only five innings, but that was fine, given he hadn’t been stretched out. The five he went was great. Only five hits, no walks, and five strikeouts; but NO RUNS given up. And then CJ Wilson came on, which wasn’t a good sign given how much he’d been lit up this year. But he matched Loe, going 4 innings, gave up no walks, only ONE hit, and no runs. Wow. What a performance by both. Probably felt better for Wilson more so than Loe.
Offensively, we had three home runs, Mark DeRosa went 3 for 4, bla, bla, bla. This game was about pitching, and wow did we get some. The only downside is that it was against the Twins, who probably could be out hit by Rangers Captain at the moment, but a 6 hit shutout is something I’ll take any day.
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