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It was a thrilling win, if nothing else. Yet again, we’re letting a team that we should be crushing get into the game. We were losing 1-0 after two, but we led until the bottom of the 7th, when the Twins went ahead 4-3. We were down to our last out in the 9th inning when Tom Kelly tried to play percentages, and walked Pudge to get to Raffy. That was a mistake, because Raffy made ’em pay for it with yet another game winning hit. This one a double to right center, scoring Royce Clayton, who was already on base, and Pudge all the way from first. It was a sweet win, but I don’t think we should have put ourselves in a position where we had to win the game like that.
I admit to not knowing a bunch of the small details of this game, because for the first time all season, I got to see my hometown Philadelphia Phillies on TV! I grew up in Philly, and have always been a Phillies fan, but down here, I don’t get to see ’em. They got shellacked, 12-2, but I had fun watching them, and I’d flip over to see what the Rangers were doing. I only saw the last 3 innings of the Ranger game solid.
This win makes us 11-0 against the Twins in 1999. If we win on Wednesday afternoon, it will be the first season sweep in forever (that I can remember) of an opponent. I’m hoping we can get one big win, because after this, the “really bad” team stretch is over, and we’ve only played .500 against them. Not good at all.
Magic number is down to 11. My wife and I have four games left to go to at the Ballpark in the regular season. Of the upcoming homestand, we see one game from each series, and I’m hoping that the Rangers can clinch it when we’re there. Would be nice. Hey, it would be nice if we could clinch it with a win, instead of backing in like we have in 1996 and 1998. :)

Well, we won. However, it wasn’t the prettiest of games for many reasons. We lost a few players for a few days with injuries. Rusty Greer got hit in the eye with a ball during warmups, and is out for a few. Luis Alicea sprained a muscle during the game, and is out for awhile. Jeff Zimmerman also came out of the game early with muscle tightness.
Add to that the fact that we let the Royals get back in it to send the game to extra innings isn’t good. Add to that the fact that the 10th was given to us on a silver platter by KC (errors, wild pitches all over the place), and leads me to believe that we shouldn’t have won this game either.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take the win, and I’m glad to get out of KC, but I don’t think we deserved the win. I’m hoping we can do better in Minnesota, and then have the team healthy on Friday when the DRays come to town.

Ugh. No commentary again. Three in a row to the Royals while the Yankees were also swept? This is sad.

Ugh. No commentary again.

Ugh. No commentary.

The name of this game was John Burkett. I read in the news reports that Burkett was booed when he came on at the start of the game – I didn’t see it, as I was at my bowling league for the start of the game. When I came home, the game was already 3-0. When Burkett was pulled, it was really, really nice to see him get a standing ovation – made me feel really good. Teared up a bit. :)
Tim Crabtree got the pitch of the game when he struck out Manny Ramirez with the bases loaded to preserve our shutout. That was the biggest single moment of the game, although Burkett’s pitching was stellar.
We’re 29 games over 500, and going further into uncharted territory. We did spoil the Indians clinching their division. They won it after they had left the Ballpark already and had packed up their champagne – HAHA! :)
The AP story says that two fans were married in the stands – I wonder who they were. :)
It was announced that Mark Clark will not be activated for the rest of the year – hopefully he can get it together next year, and contribute.

I don’t have much time to write this – I’m really busy at work today. Was an awesome baseball game, and I was even thinking this before Pudge hit the home run to win the game. This was one of those games that if we had lost, I wouldn’t have minded it, but it was great that we won!
Couple of roster moves – Mike Simms was active for the first time all season (although he didn’t play), and Rafael Palmeiro was out of the game (as well as tomorrow) with a hand problem leftover from being hit in the hand in the first game of the double header the other night.
The Rangers are now 28 games over 500 for the first time ever. We could end up winning 100 games this season – it’s not all that unlikely. After this game, there are 22 games left. If we win 16 of these 22, we’ll have 100 wins. It’ll be an awesome season. It still is a great season, but I’d like to push through and win 100 games.

I have to say, I wasn’t a big fan of Jeff Fassero coming here. And I suppose I’m still not. But, after last night, he didn’t seem any worse than some of the pitching we’ve thrown out there. Plus he’s a lefty, so I guess that can help. Jeff went 5 innings, giving up 6 hits and two earned runs. Not all that bad, really. He wasn’t pitching poorly when he was pulled, so I was surprised that he was. Read this morning in the DMN that Johnny Oates had him on a pitch count total, which was the reason he came out when he did.
Danny Kolb came on to relieve Fassero, and gave up just about as much as Fassero did, but in only 2/3 of an inning – not a good outing here. After him came the forgotten man in the bullpen, Mike Muñoz. Mike pitched very well, going 1 2/3, giving up just one hit, and nothing else. Tim Crabtree also pitched, giving up nothing, and Wetteland got his second save of the day (For some reason, the box score doesn’t list Wetteland as having pitched). Overall a decently pitched (if not great) game by the Rangers. Was a little surprised by Fassero, but given his history in ’99, I’ll save my excitement for later – like a shutout against the Yankees in the playoffs. :)
Our offense this game came from the longball. A three run shot by Rusty in the third gave us the lead, and a huge shot by Juan with Rusty on in the 5th was all we needed. There was another one in between these runs (a sac fly in the 4th), but game two seemed to be long ball offense. Was nice to see Rusty get another, and Juan to hit one instead of his usual swing and miss on a slider low and away. :)
A long night of watching baseball – was slightly over 6.5 hours. I would have sat through it at the Ballpark, but hey, I don’t want to torture my wife that much. It was enough she watched through most of it with me on TV. She’s great. :)

Well, after last night’s rainout, Jeff Fassero got pushed off to game 2 of the double header. The starter was Rick Helling.
After an extremely quick top of the first, we blew out to a big lead in a hurry. After a passed ball that let Alicea score (and Juan to first on strike three), Jim Parque plunked Raffy in the hand to load the bases. Todd Zeile came up, and smacked one over the center field wall. It wasn’t a monster home run, it didn’t get up onto Green’s hill, but it was enough to get over the fence for a grand slam! That put us up 5-0 after the first inning, and it was 6-0 after the start of the second when Royce Clayton belted one over the 407 sign in right center field – the deepest part of the park. We also got two more in the 6th when Pudge doubled home two runners. However, the runs in the first and second seemed more dramatic to me. – It was nice to get Rick Helling some run support, though – something he’s not gotten all year, and has kept his win loss record down.
Rick Helling was doing really well – his only mistake through 6 innings was a solo home run ball in the fifth inning to Chris Singleton, and another solo shot by Carlos Lee to lead off the seventh. After the start of the seventh, Rick seemed to lose it a bit, allowing a few more hits, and two more runs. Venafro came on to finish out the 7th, and start the 8th. After a triple, Zimmerman came on, and would have gotten out of the inning unscathed, but an error by Royce Clayton allowed another run to score.
Scarborough Green came into the game as a pinch runner and was promptly picked off first. D’oh!
That closed out the scoring at 8-6. This is a game where we let the White Sox get back in it by small stupid things, when they shouldn’t have. We outplayed them for the most part, and let ’em creep back into the game. Fortunately, we had enough going offensively to overcome it. Wetteland came in and allowed only a single to get his 38th save of the year.