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WOW! I mean WOW – what more can you say about Kenny Rogers? Yeah, there were a few runs in this game, and Carlos Beltran made his debut as an Astro tonight.
This night belonged to Kenny Rogers. Get the feeling that if this was an NL park game, he would have gone 3 for 4 with a HR, too.

I started scoring this game when the game started. My regular work hours are 9AM to 6PM. My wife was working late, so I had planned to meet her during her dinner break, which was 6 to 7. OK, we went extra innings. I figured that was not a big deal, as it was 4PM. Thought I’d have plenty of time. As it inched closer to quitting time, I started to get worried. So, I left work at 6PM, and they were just starting the 16th inning. As I drove up to where I was meeting my wife, the 15th inning just ended – I really thought we were going to win this several times, but our best shot was the bottom of the 16th – bases loaded with one out. We failed. So I met my wife for dinner, and figured I’d just retro score the game when we were done. At 6:55 when I drove her back to work, the game was still going on! I dropped her off at work, and as soon as she got out of the truck, Soriano hit his GW home run in the 18th inning. I did have to retro score the 16th through 18th innings, but it was still cool to hear the end of the game.
Three years ago (almost), my wife and I were at the last 18 inning game, one the Rangers won 8-7 over Boston on Aug 25, 2001. That was one wild game, but given it started at 7, it was done just short of 2AM. I loved it. I’m sure I would have loved this game had I gone to it, but I also probably would be dead tired given the fact that it lasted 6 hours in the sun during the day. But hell, I love extra inning games, and REALLY extra inning games are great! Given there’s so much to talk about on this one, I’ll just list several bullet points I noticed – in no particular order.

• Hank Blalock had 9 at bats – tying a Ranger record
• The Rangers had 23 hits, which tied a team record.
• We tied the team record for most innings played in a game – 18.
• This was the longest game both in innings and time in the majors this season (so far).
• Brian Shouse got his first major league win (in 112 appearances)
• We blew it bigtime in the 15th inning. BIG TIME.
• We now have 6 wins in a row – a season high
• We’re now 11 games over .500 – a season high
• Edgar Martinez walked 5 times in this game, twice intentionally.
• Seattle used all their relief pitchers – had to use Jamie Moyer (tomorrow’s starter) to finish the game.
• The batteries in my Palm ran down almost to zero because I had the backlight on and the game took too long. ;)
• The length of this game was longer than the first two games in the series combined.
• Rod Barajas now has three more HR this season then he had in his entire career before this year.

It is nice to have this kind of roll going into the Astros series, especially since the Astros acquired Carlos Beltran – that happened right as I was finishing up this story. ;)

I did not score the game this evening – I spent most of the game hanging out behind section 5 with Hank’s Homies. ;)  Got there a little bit before the game started – and then I hung out there till the end of the fifth. It was fun hanging with the Homies. I mostly took pictures of them, as they didn’t have any, but the guys were cool. I got eye blacked up, and we had a blast. I had to leave as I was meeting someone else at the park, so I went and met him, and then went to my actual seat, which was in Sec 327. By that time I was really tired, and didn’t stand for the 7th inning stretch, as I had “stretched” all the game already. ;)

The game itself was great – although watching it from a different part of the park meant my perception of it was different, and I was having a hard time following the ball most of the time. The top of the lineup duo of Hank Blalock & Mike Young seem to be at it again, pushing across a run in the first. It actually stayed that way for awhile, with Bierbrodt and Franklin pitching well, making outs when they had to. Seattle tied the game in the top of the fifth, and took the lead in the sixth, but we stormed back with a 5 spot in the bottom of the sixth to put it away.

This game for me was less about the actual game than standing out in left shouting “Go Hank” and clapping my hands more than I can remember in quite awhile. :)

We’ve now won 5 in a row. We’re 10 games over 500 for the first time this season, and damn, it feels good to be thinking (even remotely) that the playoffs might be an option.

Brett Carre: Last night I actually went to this game. Me and my buddy thought it would be cool to head up there to catch the FIRST place Rangers.

If you are a Ranger fan it was a great game. We got off to a 1-0 as the dynamic duro did their deal. A Yougn double followed by a Blalock single. It stayed a pitchers dual between Ryan Franklin and Nick “Beer Braut” We trailed 2-1 going into the bottom of the 6th, but a 5 run inning turbed the tide as we took a 6-2 lead. It was nice to see us get 5 runs in one inning without a home run. It seems the last week or two all of our runs were coming via a home run.

Ahhh, first place. When the Rangers are in first it seems like the air is fresher, the food tastes better, and life is just a billion times better. Since we are in first I have come up with a phrase for this team to take on for the rest the year: “Get er Done!” Thats all I got.

My wife and I got to the game much later than I normally do. I’m normally in my seat at 6PM for a 7PM game, I didn’t leave Garland until 6PM for this one. Got there just in time to see the first pitch ceremony, which was thrown out by a surprise – Geddy Lee and Alex Liefson of Rush. That was a cool surprise – they’re in town for a concert on Wed night.
As the game got started, I sat there thinking what a lot of folks are right now. It’s June 22nd, and the Rangers are in first place!! That was a nice feeling, and it must have translated to the field, as we got out early. We loaded up the bases in the bottom of the first, and Teixeira singled in a couple, and we never looked back. Ryan Drese pitched as well as I’d seen him this season. He did give up a longball to John Olerud, but bases empty – and there’s no shame in giving one up to Olerud.
Rod Barajas continued his power stroke, jacking his 10th of the season, more than tripling has career season high, and we’re not halfway through yet. That’s the third game in a row for Barajas with a HR. The team record is 5, set twice last season by Carl Everett & Arod. However, the big stamp of this game came in the 6th, when we put up a 6 spot, highlighted by a 3 run triple by Mike Young.
There was some great defense in this game, and some not so good (two errors by Soriano). Overall, was a nice game, the weather was nice, in the mid 70’s at the ballpark. For June 22nd, there was nothing wrong with this night at the game at all, especially the time it took to play. Started at 7:09, and ended at 9:27. Nice quick game. Hell, even the garlic fries were great!!

Kenny Rogers did his usual surrender of a run or two in the first inning, but was brilliant after that. In fact, the whole game was a pitcher’s duel, not terribly a lot going on for either side In fact, the game score remained 2-1 in favor of Texas until the bottom of the ninth when Cordero blew his second save of the season. Annoying, but I didn’t feel like we were going to lose – just had a good feeling by this point. I did feel bad for Kenny, he should be 11-2 now, and the two no decisions he had this week were both on blown saves by Cordero – his only two.
In the top of the 11th, Hank Blalock jacked a two run home run to win the game (in fact, our other two runs came on a two run HR by Barajas). That’s how it ended. A 4-2 win over the Marlins.
So we swept the defending World Champions on their turf. After losing all three to the Reds, I have to say this is very encouraging. We could have rather easily been 6-0 on this road trip, we played well against the Reds, just not well enough. Against the Marlins, we found the ways to win, and we come back home just one half a game out of first. At this point last year, we were 21.5 games out. What a turnaround.
The other thing for me personally is that since I’m from Philadelphia, having Florida lose all three games here puts the Phillies in first place, and drops the Marlins to second – \o/ :)

First off, the pitch counts on my own score stuff aren’t right. The reason is that the rain delay that happened in the middle of the game forced my recording to not have the entire game. I always bump baseball games by an extra hour, but that wasn’t enough – I got cut off I think after one out in the top of the 8th. I had to retro score the end of the game.
Too busy on Monday to really write a lot, but it was nice to see Cordero get another save. This was the game I full well expected to lose, I didn’t think we’d beat Dontrelle Willis, but we did. We also jacked a few home runs off of him (Mench, Barajas). Was a bit of a sloppy game, with 5 errors. Our two came on the same play – one of those plays you see in pee-wee baseball, with the ball being thrown all over the place, allowing everyone to score. Ugh.
Nice to come out on top, though.

The pitching carousel is swinging again – this time stopping on John Wasdin, with Erasmo Ramirez getting off and sitting on the AAA bench. And it looked like Carlos Almanzar might have to do the same thing, as he did his “stick my hand up after a ball hit up the middle” move again, and had to come out of the game. This is probably one of the biggest uses of the DL I can remember in years. It might not be numbers wise, but it sure feels like it.
Given the way the last few games have gone, as we got to the 6th inning with a lead of only 2-0, you expected them to blow it. But we didn’t. Wasdin was quite good, and probably will get another start because of this performance. Almanzar, Francisco, & Mahay combined to throw two shutout innings in relief to seal the game.
Offensively, it was nice to see Fullmer in there doing well, as is bat has been hot lately. Defensively, we turned four double plays (including one to end the game) – something that’s always nice to see. Soriano had a great leaping snare of a line drive late in the game, too.
This was a well played game, and it reminded me a lot of the way we were playing in April.

Disappointing. That’s about all I can say about this one. Good thing Anaheim and Oakland lost too, otherwise it’d be more disappointing. I suppose the annoying this is that we got beat by a pitcher who makes a $2.5 million salary – of which the Rangers are paying $2.2mil of. :(
I don’t hold out a lot of hope that we’ll turn it around against the Marlins, either. One amusing thing, I had the game on MLB.com’s Gameday while I was listening, and briefly saw this. Got a laugh out of it.

Sigh.
Good:
Nick Bierbrodt did better than I think anyone expected.
Couple of solo home runs
The rest of the AL West lost, too.
The bobblehead joke with Tom Grieve on TV
Bad:
No one on base for the couple of home runs.
Bullpen didn’t do it’s job
When one of my “good” things is a bobblehead joke.
We’ve lost three in a row again