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As good as it was to see a win, I can’t help but think of the fiasco up in Boston. A 25-8 game. It was 14-1 after one inning. The Red Sox got 10 runs before they got their first out. A Florida pitcher had to be carried off on a stretcher with his head immobilized because he got hit in the head. People were throwing at batters – there were two dugout empties, and at least one ejection. Man, if I was at that game, I’d certainly feel I got my money’s worth. Here’s the details of that game.
Anyway, my favorite moment of our game was actually the pinch hit appearance by David Matranga. My wife and I have checked out several Round Rock Express (Astros AA team) games over the last couple of years, and we always saw David Matranga down there. Well, he finally made it to the show last night. And he clocked a home run in his first major league at bat – I got all excited about that.
On our side, we were hitting the ball around the field like a pinball. We had several shots that hit a wall and went rolling – one was good for a triple for Arod. It was a back and forth and pretty close until the 9th inning, actually. Joaqin Benoit was OK – he got pulled probably earlier than he normally would, but that seemed to be a consequence of National League play. Raffy had a very nice, very majestic, and an absolute no doubter home run in the seventh inning, scoring three. The Astros had four home runs, but none were big problems. Raffy also turned in some nice defense in the field, too. Overall a nice game that felt more in the Rangers control to me watching it than the score indicated.
Overall for the Silver Boot contest, we’re down 3-1, and a total of 12 runs. We need to win by a total of 12 runs over the next two games to take the series.
Juan Gonzalez is still a Ranger; he needs to go – release him Here’s more on that mess.

I guess we got too high and mighty on that two game winning streak, and needed to be brought down. What other reason could there be for a game where we lose 13-0 and give up four home runs in the span of 10 batters? Certainly can’t be our pitching. Feel free to insert a joke about our third round draft pick being in attendance to witness it. Feel free to insert a joke about the Rangers Captain pitching later this season.
Mark Mulder looked like a Cy Young award winner, that’s for sure. He allowed only 3 hits all the time he pitched. Hard to do anything against him when he’s on like that.
On the positive side, Ron Mahay was great. He gave up a single to his first batter, then nothing afterwards. Looked sweet!
The Juan Gonzalez trade is still undecided; he needs to go.
Game notes here; additional notes here.

We won, but God knows we tried to blow it giving up 2 runs in the top of the 9th. If that text looks familiar – it should. I wrote it about the previous night’s game. It applied again. We went ahead big with a nice rally in the 6th, 7th, & 8th when we scored a total of 7 runs to take a 9-6 lead. So we bring in Urbina again. He proceeded to do what he did the night before – give up runs. Two this time, and then proceeded to get the save. It really reminded me of some of John Wetteland’s saves. :)
We had the longball going, with a solo shot by Arod on the first pitch he saw in the first, as well as two of them by Raffy later in the game during the big rally. That was nice to see – hell, even Raffy got a bloop hit to left. He’s also shown bunt a few times, so hopefully he’s at least trying to beat the shift.
The Juan Gonzalez trade is still undecided, and while my virtriol from yesterday about my “no Juan” picture has calmed down, I still think he needs to go.
And finally, a very scary moment early when Carl Everett’s bat went flying into the stands and hit two people. A 4 year old kid, as well as a 15 year old girl. Both were taken off the field. Carl was extremely shaken up, and my wife and I both commented that it’s terribly obvious that he has feelings and a heart, otherwise he wouldn’t have reacted the way he did when it happened. Play was stopped for awhile during which medical attention was given. We heard later on that the 4 year old went home fine, and the 15 year old was still at the hospital, but will most likely not need anything more than stitches. One comment I’ll make about the situation. Folks who are down in those seats where things like this happen tend to be the least attentive fans there. They’re what a friend of mine calls the “boob job & cocaine crowd”. In other words, people who have too much money. Where I’m going with this is that they’re on cel phones, talking about some biz thing and not paying attention, generally. In my opinion, four year olds should NOT be down there, because they have no clue what’s going on, they’re just “there”. And as such, they have no comprehension of the danger they’re in. I don’t think parents should put kids THAT young in harm’s way. I know I wouldn’t.
Hey, two in a row, and we’re only 21 games behind the Mariners now. Here we come! :)
Game notes here, and additional notes here.

We won, but God knows we tried to blow it giving up 3 runs in the top of the 9th. Mark Teixeira looks good, and I have to admit, I was on the bandwagon that said he should be in the minors. He’s certainly turned it around, and I enjoy seeing him come up to bat. Carl Everett jacked a home run off of Chad Bradford again. That’s Carl’s third I believe, and Bradford has given up just 5 home runs total to everyone – I think Carl pretty much owns him.
Our kids have pitched awesome the last few nights. Ramos last night, Mounce before that, and Benoit (although he SHOULD pitch better as he has more experience). It’s funny how a few good pitching performances change your outlook. We may not need the horse to pitch after all. :)
However, the news of the day was the Gonzalez (almost) trade. I wrote about it in my forums already, so you can just check out that thread here – don’t really need to repeat myself here. I’m now firmly in the camp that Juan needs to go. If he decides to force the issue and stay here, he should be released.
Anyway, it’s a sad state of affairs when a win gets zero talk at all – it’s like “The Stars are letting Derian Hatcher walk – the Rangers tried to trade Juan – and oh yeah, we won”.
Game notes here.

Well, shit. Tony Mounce was great. That’s about it.
Can we put this guy in to help out? Please?

Game notes here.

Lost 7 in a row. Lost 19 of last 21. About to set a franchise record for futility going all the way back to 1972 when we first moved here from Washington DC. Jay Powell sucks. I think the horse can pitch better than what we throw out there. Pick one. As bad as it seems, I get the feeling it will get worse – I don’t think we’ve hit rock bottom yet, as bad as things are. :(
Actually, Joaquin Benoit was quite good Sunday night. At the start of the game, I thought he had a shot at the 3 or 4 year old record of a Ranger pitcher not getting 10 strikeouts in a game. He came close (he had 8). He looked quite good, quite sharp until he appeared to run out of gas in the sixth – which is far more than we’ve gotten from a starter lately.
We got our only run on a very long Mark Teixeira home run the bottom of the first inning to (GASP) give us a lead. It actually stayed that way until Benoit gave up two runs in the 6th and was pulled.
Given there’s not much else to write about, what’s with the crappy player intro music? There’s some really horrible player music now – what’s that garbage that’s being played before Kevin Mench’s at bats? Ewwwww…

We made this a bit interesting late, but the game was nowhere near as close as the 9-5 score indicated. We were losing after the first pitch of the game, a home run to Craig Biggio, and that pretty much was it for the game. The Astros scored in innings 1-6, and we scored 4 in the 7th & 8th, but even with those, the game felt like it belonged to the Astros from the second Biggio hit the home run.
As usual, a team throws a kid making their major league debut against us, and he’s great. Rodrigo Rosario went 6 innings, giving up 2 runs (only 1 earned), and overall had us baffled. When we do that, the other team gets 7 runs in 3 innings and 80 pitches off our guy. Sigh. Any chance we can take this team down for a server upgrade and a reboot? It might do some good, as would my suggestion about putting in the horse.
Also, I don’t know if anyone noticed, but out in left field in this game from Sec 201 or 202 or so, someone had hung a white banner with nothing on it From where I was sitting, it really looked like someone was throwing in the towel – like it was a surrender flag. I called in to the post game show and asked them about it, they had a chuckle, but didn’t see it themselves. If anyone knows who hung that, have them email me, I’d love to talk to them. :)

OK, the Astros come back to town for the Lone Star Series. Does the change in opponent make a difference? Hell no . We lost 12-3. It actually was closer than that until the 9th inning when the entire team seemed to Jay Powell; giving up 7 runs in the top of the 9th to effectively remove any real chance we had of coming back to win this.
I was there. There wasn’t much else to write about – except I got a pretty decent hat as a giveaway item. Oh, and someone popped by again (dude, I’m sorry I keep forgetting your name) to say hello to me. I also seem to have abandoned scoring games on paper, and have gone to scoring games on my Palm PDA using a program called Scorepad.
What? Write about the game? Feh – there’s nothing worth writing about, except maybe Arod had a home run. :)
Game notes here, and addtl notes here.