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We did something I was quite surprised we did. We bombed Mark Mulder. Coming into this game, he was something like 17-4 I think with an ERA right around 4. One of his 4 losses was to Texas earlier in the season in Oakland. This time we got Mulder for 8 earned runs (including two home runs) over his 6 innings pitched. What surprised me most about the three home runs were not that two of the three were off Mulder. It was how hard they were hit. All three of them seemed liked HR’s that just got out of here really fast. All of them appeared to be no doubters.
Drese got the win with another quality start, going 6 innings and giving up just two. If we can hold on this afternoon with Kenny Rogers, who has an excellent record pitching in Oakland, we can leave Oakland down only three in the standings. Seattle’s helping too, but allowing us to get closer to Anaheim as well.

I’ve decided I’m not going to talk about the problem with the chair throwing. In fact, all future news stories about it will be linked on yesterday’s game coverage. It’s an ugly incident for sure, and I’ve decided that I’m not going to continue to talk about it.
Right now, I have to go to a meeting, so I’ll post this, and update my summary later today if I get time. If I don’t, it was nice to see a big win, although there was no pitching on either side, it would seem. :)

Last night I was watching the game on TV. About halfway through I decided to go into my computer room and listen to the game on the radio, so at about the fifth inning or so I stopped watching TV. In the top of the 9th I started watching TV again. More on that later.
This game was annoying me. We balked in a run (after two consecutive balks), hit a batter, gave up two home runs, gave up a sac fly, gave up a run on a walk, and a good ol’ single up the middle. We certainly weren’t boring in the runs we gave up. Juan Dominguez had the double balk maneuver, but I didn’t think he pitched all that bad. Wasn’t great, but wasn’t bad. I mean he did have a quality start – 6IP 2ER. Our pen though was very much not like the 2004 edition. Fracas aside, Frankie Francisco gave up a run in an inning. Mahay gave up 2 in 0.1 innings. Cordero gave up two in his 0.2IP. Not good.
We tried to win it. Soriano had the first and last runs of the game – both solo home runs. Both of Soriano’s were quite meaningful – they both had a lot of meaning behind them. Mark Teixeira continued his hot streak. Tex went 4 for 5, scoring twice. He had two doubles, a triple, and a solo shot for his lone RBI. He is by far our best offensive player at the moment. However, the most offensive part of the night belonged to Frankie Francisco.
In the ninth inning, I was listening to the radio, and Eric Nadel said “A fight has broken out in the Rangers’ bullpen”. So I immediately went back to the living room. I always TiVo every Rangers game just in case something happens (even if I don’t intend on watching it). This was the reason why. I got to see all of what the Rangers coverage showed of a melee between our bullpen and the fans in Oakland. I’m sure most of you have seen it by now, as I’m writing this at 6PM on Tuesday evening. However, the short of it is that we saw all the Ranger players run over there, and a big pileup with our guys jawing with the Oakland fans. Then the bad part. Frankie Francisco tossed a chair into the stands, and it hit two people, one woman bore the brunt of it, and TV coverage showed her bleeding fairly well from her nose. There was a 20 minute delay while security talked to Buck, the umpires and Ken Maccha. It was a mess.
Francisco was arrested on Tuesday morning, and has a court appearance on Wednesday. In my opinion he deserves to be tossed out for the rest of the season. Is he totally responsible? No. The jackasses in the fans who were taunting them are as much to blame, IMO. Yes, Francisco should be held accountable for the chair. However, the asswipes who were taunting them are the ones who REALLY caused it (and to a lesser extent stadium security which didn’t stop anything). Players get heckled and insulted all the time. That’s part of the game. Players can take that. However, for a player to respond this way there has to be some really serious crap going on. Not the usual “Your momma, you guys stink, you’re gonna lose, etc..” I’d wager it was into racial garbage, and really nasty stuff. Buck Showalter had said there were problems earlier in the game, too.
Of course we finally heard from the guy who started it. He said this in an interview.. “There was absolutely no profanity at all, just normal heckling, like ‘who’s going to take the loss?’ ‘you’re going to lose the game’ And apparently the guy who threw the chair and injured my wife wasn’t even in the bullpen in the game. Its just sad that professionals would act like that, I mean, these guys are 6’5″ we were fearing for our lives. I’m just going to concentrate on looking after my wife right now”. OH YEAH RIGHT. Like only that would have provoked someone into throwing a chair. You lying piece of shit.
Again, as much as Francisco deserves a huge penalty for throwing the chair, the fans who started it and the failure of Oakland security to prevent it from ever getting that far are to blame as well. Stupid fans. I guess the guy who threw the cel phone at Carl Everett last year in Oakland didn’t really do that, it was Carl doing it to himself, right? Jackasses.
More Stuff:
Addtl link on fight at mlb.com
Link with video of fight on mlb.com

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This is a game that no one saw unless you were there, or were watching Toronto coverage. For some reason this game wasn’t televised. Thing is, I probably wouldn’t have watched much of it anyway, as it was Week 1 in the NFL. Now I don’t like the Cowboys, I was watching other teams on the satellite. I love baseball, but there’s something about opening weekend. It’s just awesome. :)
It was nice to see Mark Teixeira get two home runs – his power has really come on, and at the right time too. We swept the Blue Jays, scoring 27 runs over the three games. Nice to see. We’ll need all of that as we go into Oakland where we realistically have to come out of there with at least a 3-1 record, otherwise, we won’t have enough games left, IMHO to overtake the lead in the division. It could still happen, but it’s not terribly likely.
The Philadelphia Eagles are 1-0! \o/ :)

This was a game I attended. As it was September 11th, there was a big military salute at the start of the game. It was a nice ceremony, but I wonder why Buck Showalter gave his jacket to one of the vets – I wonder if Buck knew that kid.
Anyway, the game had a bit of everything. Power, defense, plenty of offense, and a really nice comeback win for the Rangers. I felt bad for Kenny Rogers, as he should have had his 17th win of the season. He’s got 4 starts left, and he has to go 4-0 to get to 20, which I’m sure everyone was hoping he would. Either way, I feel barring a meltdown, he’ll break his previous record of 17 wins (in 1995).
I’m not writing much about the game, as there wasn’t a lot to say for me beyond it was nice weather, the Rangers won, and the lead flipflopped about half a dozen different times it seemed.
It was nice to see the offense get in gear, as we’re about to hit the most important part of the season, if we still want to get to the post season. I just hope it all doesn’t get lost since we’ll be batting first the next seven games.

Well, I’m back. I’ve spent most of the last week sick. In fact, I’m still not right today, but it’s the best I’ve felt in a week. I just didn’t have the energy to do any of that. Additionally, I’ve kind of burnt out on scoring the games. The only ones I’m going to score for the rest of the season are games I’m going to.
For this particular game, it looked like Ryan Drese was pitching like he did earlier in the season, not the last 3 or so outings of his. He was pretty strong, and went seven innings, gave up just one run (a home run to Carlos Delgado), and striking out seven with one walk. The Eraser and Jeff Nelson followed up with an inning each, both giving up one earned run.
Miguel Batista was not the pitcher we saw in Toronto where he just shut us down. He gave up 10 hits in 3.1 innings of work, 7 runs, and had 3 wild pitches. It helped us get out to the win, which we needed, especially as Oakland lost.
Offensively, we were led by Kevin Mench who is swinging the bat VERY well now. Kevin had two solo home runs in this game (that gives him 5 in his last 5 games), All told, Kevin went 3 for 4 with 2 RBI and 3 runs scored. A great night for him. He was backed up by Teixeira who had a two run bomb of his own into the upper deck in right. Barajas was also 3 for 4, it was just a nice night for the offense with a total of 17 hits.
I’m sure like most people after the White Sox series, you were feeling pretty gloomy, like “this is it”. The best case scenario is that we come out of the Toronto series two games back of Oakland (or Anaheim, as they might pass Oakland if the A’s keep losing). However, that’s best case scenario. I think we’ll come out of it 4 back, which is manageable, but still a tough assignment going to Oakland and Anaheim. We can still do it, but it’s not looking good for the home 11 right now.