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Well, tonight marked the major league debut of a former Ranger manager’s cousin – Sam Narron. I always like watching major league debuts. Partly because I like to see a kid get a shot, partially because of the chance that something very cool could happen (like Brian Sikorski against the Yankees a couple of years ago). Anyway, Sam didn’t fare too well tonight, going 2.2 innings and giving up four runs. I hope he’ll get another shot, as I can’t imagine a major league debut is good for a pitcher’s nerves.
He wasn’t helped by Eric Byrnes, who is batting something like .625 against us this year – Byrnes had two home runs, both against Narron. Byrnes also had a double in this game I believe, and was hit by a pitch, so he was on base most of the night. However, after Narron departed, that ended. Surprisingly, Joaquin Benoit came on, and pitched 4.1 innings, and gave up NO runs, on two hits. He was everything we always wanted him to be. Out of the bullpen. That seems to be where he does best anymore. Might be time to think about him being our long man for a long time. ;)
We didn’t get much going against Rich Harden for the longest time – we didn’t get any runs until the 5th inning when we pushed across two. One was on a Blalock single, and the other was a gift on a wild pitch. That was all the scoring on both sides until the bottom of the 8th, when we broke through for a 5 spot to take the lead on two two run singles by Laynce Nix & Mike Young. Tex also had a solo home run in that inning – so we had a nice win on a big inning, not powered by a big home run.
Two other small things. It was damn hot out there. Yeah, I know it’s Texas, but still – I never really feel uncomfortable out there, even on some of the hottest nights. Tonight I was so uncomfortable, I contemplated leaving the game early. I don’t know if it was where I was sitting (section 212), but I did not enjoy the game from that aspect. I did, however, enjoy the retro uniforms. Hell, even Rangers Captain had a retro uniform on, too, which made me chuckle.
The end result tonight? We’re back in first place.

This was an interesting game for me for a few reasons. First, I had just come back from a trip to Philadelphia. I visited the new Phillies park up there, and I was attending my first Ranger game in a bit. I didn’t see them on TV for a week, and haven’t listened on the radio, so I enjoyed being back at my home ballpark. Second, I was part of the group that was in the Ebbets Field Luxury Box (the second deck one out in left field) with a bunch of folks from Jamey Newberg’s site. That was cool.
I did score the game, but even with that, I felt kind of disconnected from the game, as a lot of time was spent talking to folks, and just generally hanging around. Because of that, I won’t write about the specifics of the game, but there is one good thing to add.
If there ever is a time to be in a luxury box, it’s when you are in a rain delay. :)
We did fall out of first place, and sad as that is – I’ll add this. If I told you we’d be in 2nd place only half a game out of first the day before the trading deadline, I bet you would have thought I was insane. Even if we never get back to first, and miss the playoffs, this will be a great season.

Not much good happened in this one. We lost 11-1, and got a total of three hits, two of them by Eric Young. The Angels, on the other hand had 10 runs and 16 hits.
However, the really bad news was that we lost Ric-Rod for awhile. He was hit in the arm by a line drive off the bat of Robb Quinlan. Later on, they said he had a broken elbow, and is on the DL “indefinitely”. That’s really not good, as he was I’m sure you know was viewed as the permanent third starter. That’s just not good.
One interesting thing happened in this game you don’t often see. The Angels moved their DH in to play the field, which means they surrendered the DH – the pitcher was officially required to bat, although it didn’t happen as Anaheim used a PH in that spot in the ninth.
In case you missed it, this is my last update for about a week, as I’m going home to visit family and check out the new stadium the Phillies have. See you on June 30th as I’ll start up updates again when the Rangers come back home.

I didn’t start watching this game until 11:45PM last night, so I wasn’t in the mood to score it – in fact, I whizzed through watching the whole game in about 40 minutes in high speed on my TiVo. ;)
What I did see this game was a lot of pitching. Escobar struck out about 600 Rangers tonight. Ryan Drese didn’t allow a whole lot himself over his 7 innings. A well pitched game all around.