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My annual trip out to the Ballpark for the July 4th fireworks show was not disappointing. The fireworks show was one of the better ones I’ve seen at the Ballpark – and the show on the field was great, too!
We beat the Mariners who are what, about 200-3 this year? It was a great feeling, the crowd was really into it, especially when Raffy jacked a home run, as well as Mike Lamb’s home run (first of the year). Game felt great, and Rob Bell looked pretty good this game. He’s looked pretty uneven in his Ranger appearances so far this year, but this one looked good – probably the reason we traded for him was for pitching like this.
However, it wasn’t a complete sail – in the 9th inning, we had Zim in to close, and when they started the inning, I said out loud “7 batters till Ichiro hits a home run”. Had to explain it to my wife, and said something like “Well, it’s a save situation, and Zim will be in. Ichiro has two BIG home runs off Zim this year”. Sure enough, the inning got to Ichiro. Narron did something interesting, and pulled Zim to get to Venafro who got the job done.
Talk radio went nuts the next day over that move, but I agreed with it – Zim had already been burnt by Ichiro twice, might as well play for the win, instead of the heart attack. :)

The second half of the season started pretty much like the first half went. Darren Oliver pitched pretty mediocre in this game. He seemed more like last year than he did this year, although he wasn’t TOTALLY awful. Ryan Glynn pitched in relief to do nothing to endear himself to the Rangers; turns out he was put on waivers and then assigned to AAA when no one else claimed him. I suspect he won’t be here next year, or will be given a shot in spring training, but that’s about it.
On the positive side, Arod & Pudge (I refuse to call him IRod) hit back to back jacks in the fourth – but that was the extent of the scoring for us. Yeah, we scored two more, but they weren’t “exciting” runs. :)

This was a particularly annoying win. Going into the game I held a deep desire to see the Rangers sweep the Mariners. Didn’t think it would really happen, but I thought I’d take a stab and hope anyway.
Into the ninth inning, I thought I was going to get it – at least the start of it. Then Zim put the first two runners on base, making it feel like Wetteland again. However, right after that, Pudge gunned down McLemore who was trying to steal, and then right after that, Zim got a K for two outs. We were down to almost the last strike when Ichiro came up and jacked a two run homer to tie the game.
We then blew it in the 10th by bringing out Petkovsek, who doesn’t seem to handle pressure well (at least to my eyes). Oh well, a potential win for us turns into the 60th win of the season for the Mariners.
At least Mike Young continues to dazzle in the field – what a great pickup. Especially now that Loaiza has turned into Loaiza for the Blue Jays.

Another well pitched game. Excluding last night, we’ve gotten some really decent pitching (overall) lately. However, as the game progressed, I felt that we were going to go down to a 1-0 loss. Mark Mulder was spectacular, allowing only a couple of hits – at least until the 7th. Rick Helling too was awesome. He didn’t get the win (as per usual), but he pitched brilliantly, allowing only one run over his 6.2 innings (and 125 pitches).
Bo Porter of all people managed to connect for a 3 run jimmy jack in the bottom of the 8th to put us up for the win. That certainly felt good – especially being there. Zimmerman got the save, but not before he pulled a Wetteland, and put two men on (second and third, no one out). He then popped out one guy, and struck out two more for the save and the win!
Got to sit through my first rain delay of the season. I was at this game, and it didn’t start until 8:40 (1:35 after the posted start time). Had a friend with me who doesn’t usually come to baseball games, so it was nice to shoot the shit with him.