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I was out and about doing some shopping and visiting baseball card shops (I just started collecting cards again this year for the first time in about 20 years). I didn’t hear very much of the game at all, but I did manage to hear the top of the ninth while sitting in the parking lot in front of the Barnes & Noble in Dallas at the Northpark mall.
Was very cool to hear the call on the home run by Gonzalez. Was nice to see them pull out a late inning win – they hardly ever do that. Zimmerman didn’t pitch will, but shit.. It was his first bad outing. Perhaps the Ranger starting pitching disease is spreading. Hope not.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
I only got to hear the 8th and 9th innings of today’s game (on RealAudio) as I had just gotten off work at that time.
What I heard was the Rangers pulling out a victory when trailing after 8 innings for only the 2nd time in 20 tries.
Juan Gonzalez belted a 3-run shot in the 9th inning to put the Rangers up for good.
Jeff Zimmerman had a rare, poor outing.

A pitchers duel! This game rocked! I loved it, even though we lost. Helling made only one bad pitch all night, and it burned him. A 3 run home run to CJ in the late innings. However, Helling was masterful otherwise. Our normally huge offense didn’t cover the mistake, but we were up against another pitcher (Sidney Ponson) that really shut us down too, we were lucky to get the two we got.
Helling pitched the first complete game by a Ranger all season – unfortunately it was a complete game loss. :( There really isn’t a whole lot to say about this game other than Raffy remained red hot. Pitching was the story here, and there was little offense to speak of.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Great pitching will win most ballgames. Saturday, there was an exception to the rule.
Rick Helling pitched a complete game, seven-hitter. 99 times out of 100, Helling is going to win those type games. Friday is was one-uppped by O’s pitcher Sidney Ponson, who threw a complete game, six-hitter.
It was hard for either team to generate any offense. Raffy Palmeiro, perhaps the hottest hitter in baseball right now, homered against his former mates and for a while, the Rangers led 1-0.
Then Charles Johnson, who is red-hot himself as of late, blasted a 3-run homer off of Helling in the 7th inning. That was the ballgame.
This was the first game in the Major Leagues this year, where both pitchers pitched a complete game.

I had forgotten this game was on at work, and I turned it on right before the back-to-back-to-back home runs. Unfortunately, that’s about all I got to hear, as I was fairly busy with work. But I did get to hear that! :)
Our first day game win of the year.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
In what was most assuredly the most exciting Rangers’ game of the year to date, the Rangers took turns bombing ex-mate Bobby Witt and beat the Rays 7-6.
The Rangers belted 4 homers off Witt, including 3 in a row in the 5th inning, by Pudge, Palmeiro and Zeile. This ties a record the club set last year against the White Sox. It also tied a team record for most HR in an inning.
So while the offense clicked, Mark Clark again was – by normal standards – ineffective – but to Rangers’ standards, effective enough.
The key to the game however goes to the superb pitching of one Jeff Zimmerman, easily the Most Valuable Player so far this year for the Rangers – and perhaps the MVP so far in the league. He’s done nothing but record outs – important outs. Wednesday, his 2.1 innings began when Venafro allowed the tying run (6-6 at that point in the 6th) to score on an infield single/bad throw. Zimmerman came in, struck out Canseco and then proceeded to attack the Rays like an overgrown field in July – he simply mowed them down.
The Rangers hang on ever so tightly to first place as Oakland remains a heartbeat away.

Well, I was at this game, and I didn’t feel like anything really bad was happening. We went down 2-0 in the first inning, but other than a Canseco home run (like anyone could stop that right now), I didn’t feel like Morgan pitched bad at all.
We just couldn’t score. We left something like 14 runners on base all told, and it was really obvious at the game we weren’t connecting. Your offense can’t win every game, but you should get the runs when you get the chance. We didn’t last night. However, the double play killed us last night – we hit into five of them. Pudge hit into two himself! Ugh.
On another note, Zimmerman continues to impress. Last night, when he struck out Canseco in the ninth, I haven’t seen such a reaction. Not only to the strikeout, but Canseco took a really huge swing and missed for the first strike – he almost fell over. Man, did that get an ovation at the park!
Found out after the game that Burkett had been sent to the bullpen, and Mr. Cinderella story, Ryan Glynn had been given his spot in the rotation and will start next Tuesday in Tampa Bay.
Also, Mark McLemore left the game after the fourth with a sore knee. I really hope that’s not the same problem that’s plagued him the last few years. He’s had a kickass season, and I don’t want to see it ruined. I was starting to have hope that Mac might turn it around and get resigned – I like him.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Starting pitching has been the Rangers #1 enemy this year. They may have found out their #2 enemy in the game last night.
The Rangers grounded into a team-high 5 twin-killings Tuesday, including the ultimate deadly one in the bottom of the ninth, as the Rangers lost their third game in a row, 5-4 against the now-you-better-take-them-seriously Devil Rays.
Even though the Rangers had 14 hits and 4 bases on balls, they plated just 4 players. Texas leads the majors in grounding into double plays and last night was the first game of the year where you can point directly at the GIDP for this one.
Raffy Palmeiro went 4-5 with all 4 RBI and is now hitting .370. Rusty Greer had a hit and walked 3 times, driving up his OBA.
Mike Morgan, who pitched better than the numbers might indicate, was the games’ losing pitcher.

Ugh. After the second inning, I started watching the Stars game as well as the Pittsburgh Penguins game. I’m going tonight to game two – they had better not have a fiasco like this three nights in a row.
I feel bad for Burkett. I like him. I always have. It appears that unless lightning strikes, he’s done after this year.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
Let’s cut to the meat of the matter. This game can easily be summed up by this part of the boxscore:

Pitcher        ip h r  er bb so hr era(game) era(year)
Burkett (L,0-3) 4 8 12 12 5  2  3  27.00     13.24

John Burkett set a new Ranger record for most earned runs in a game, erasing Bobby Witt’s previous record of 11.
Rusty Greer popped a 2-run homer in the first and that’s about all Texas could muster. Rusty now has 36 RBI’s and he might be having his best season ever.