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Early on, I thought we were in trouble.
Matt Harrison was anything but sharp. He gave up four runs in this game, two of them in the first inning. A third in the second inning, and the final one in the fifth. That he was even out there in the fifth to give up that last one was a bit of a surprise to me. He was totally ineffective.
Jake Peavy, on the other hand was pretty dominant through the lineup in the first three innings. In fact, other than walk to Mike Napoli in the second inning, Peavy would have gotten through 1-9 perfectly, 9 up 9 down. Peavy actually started into the fourth inning like that, too. First two guys down.
Then the wheels fell off. Michael Young singled sharply into left field for the Rangers first hit of the game. Was a clean hit, too. OK, that was done, but it seemed like that hit took all the air out of Peavy oddly enough. Nelson Cruz followed that up with a double down the left field line, scoring Michael Young. OK, we’re on the board. Napoli walked again for the second time in the game. It set the stage for Mitch Moreland, and in a swing that reminded me of Hank Blalock’s shot against Eric Gagne here some years ago in the All Star game, Mitch jacked one out to right center field for a three run home run, giving us the lead.
After the home run, Peavy settled down a bit. 1-2-3 in the fifth, but the sixth.. nope. Josh Hamilton had an epic at bat in the sixth. It went ten pitches, and he fouled off something like five or six pitches in a row. Forget the exact number, but it was at least five of them. On the tenth pitch of the bat, he tattoed one that was a total no doubter off the bat. The right fielder looked a bit, but barely moved. Went 3/4 of the way up the crowd in right. Solo home run, and a great battle. Mike Napoli also singled this inning, at least personally earning his base with his bat this time. Mitch Moreland followed it with his second home run of the game and his fourth & fifth RBI’s of the night. As I have Moreland on a couple of my fantasy teams, that was a good night for me.
That was the end of the scoring, the White Sox didn’t do anything in their last four frames, and the Rangers didn’t add any more. But it was over, anyway.
Tateyama had come on in the fifth inning, and put out not a huge fire, but picked up Matt Harrison. Tateyama was quite good this night. 2.2 innings pitched, the only thing he allowed was a single walk.
Mike Adams & Neftali Feliz also pitched perfect innings too – one each. The pen was rock solid tonight, showing it’s much improved variant since the trading deadline.
This was a solid win, one I think we needed after the disappointment of the walkoff in Anaheim the night before. Feeling good about the rest of this series.

Well, shit. Didn’t like that at all.

Ian Kinsler comes through late in this game, and doesn’t do his “Capt Uppercut” thing. He blooped a single late in the game to give the Rangers a 4-3 lead over the Angels. Given my continuing lack of Cable TV, I didn’t see it, but I did see the highlights. Nice win.
It started off with the first real pitching challenge the Rangers would face in this series, CJ Wilson vs Ervin Santana. And CJ outdid Santana. Look at the lines:
Wilson: 7 IP, 5H 2R, 1ER, 1BB, 6K, 110P
Santana: 7.2IP, 10H, 4R, 3ER, 4BB, 4K, 129P (1HR, too)
That’s pretty much the story there. Was worried about this match a bit, mostly because of Santana, but our guys took care of it.
The Rangers’ offense was pretty spread out. Twelve hits in all, only Elvis took an ofer. Everyone else had at least one. Kinsler had the two RBI’s mentioned above. Josh Hamilton & Mitch Moreland had the others. Moreland’s was a solo home run in the 6th.
Speaking of home runs, the home run given up by Kohi Uehara in the bottom of the 8th ended up being harmless, but at the time I wasn’t thrilled with it, because it cut our lead from 4-2 to 4-3. Little too close, but that was the end of the scoring.
The Rangers are now SEVEN games up on Anaheim for the division lead. Even if we lose the fourth game, I’m quite happy with taking 3 of 4 from Anaheim here. I was hoping for that, but expecting a 2-2 split in this series, so we’re good.

Seventeen hits. Seven runs.
Derek Holland going 8.2 innings.
Let’s kick the Angels in the head. That was a great game! :)

The Rangers go into Anaheim up four games on the Angels. While it’s definitely not a season clincher – it’s just mid August. Still, being up four and going into Anaheim for four games is an important series. While I have to admit to dreaming about sweeping before we played a game at all, I don’t think many Rangers fans expect that. I think you kind of expect a split, and hope for 3-1, and dream for 4-0. We’re playing too good for anything less than 2-2, I think, so at a split we still leave with the same four game lead.
The Rangers have a habit of not doing good against guys making their major league debuts. So the guy the Angels threw out there we had a shot at. Garrett Richards was making his SECOND major league start. Against Alexi Ogando, I figure this was our best shot at a win given the matchups in the series. However, we didn’t get a chance to test that too much, as Richards came out of the game after the fourth batter of the game.
We got some offense early with a leadoff double by Ian Kinsler. After a throwing error by the Angels, Elvis Andrus had an RBI infield groundout for the first run. The Angels answered back in the bottom of the second with a single/double combo by Hunter & Wells to tie the game at 1. The Rangers however got it right back in the top of the third with another double by Kinsler, and then a double by Hamilton. We never looked back.
That’s because the offense exploded in the fifth with a six spot. It was highlighed by back to back home runs by Nelson Cruz & Mike Napoli. Those two home runs were the first two batters faced by Anaheim reliever Rich Thompson, too.
The Angels added a few more runs in the fifth & seventh to make it a bit closer, but the six run inning was an deflator for the Angels, I’d wager.
Alexi Ogando got his 12th win of the season after going 6.1 innings. Bit high on the walks (8) and runs (4), but he got the win, which is ultimately the entire point. Uehara & Lowe kept the Angels under check after that, so we took the win on Monday night.
Five up in the West now.

The Rangers scored three runs in the top of the first and never looked back. Well, OK, they did when the A’s scored four in the bottom of the sixth to tie the game. But it’s a lot cooler to say “they never looked back”. :)
The Angels lost, so we’re going into the big four game series with them up four games. Most impressive.

The Rangers took care of Oakland again, although in this game, the runs didn’t come early, they came late. The game was scoreless going into the sixth, as Colby Lewis & Trevor Cahill pitched a pretty good pitcher’s duel. Even after six it was just 1-0. After 7, it was 2-1.
Colby actually came out earlier than I figured he would. Just went 6.1 innings, but had 101 pitches. A little high, but I didn’t think he needed to come out then. Still, he got out with just one run allowed. No other runs were scored.
The Rangers offense woke up late, and put up a three spot in the 8th and a two spot in the 9th to give us a 7-1 win.
Everyone had at least one hit in this game – Kinsler & Hamilton had two each. Kinsler’s two hits were both doubles. Napoli & Elvis also got into the doubles party, too.
Nice win.

Before the Rangers got to Oakland, CJ Wilson mouthed off about what he doesn’t like about Oakland. Which is pretty much everything. The mound, their fans (for not showing up), etc.. There were some negative CJ Wilson signs in the stadium, but it didn’t matter, as CJ shut ’em down.
He went six, giving up just four hits and one run. Walked a few too many (three), but struck out seven. Got his 11th win of the season, lowering his ERA to 3.28. Tateyama, Lowe, & Feldman followed him up, and each threw a scoreless inning.
The Rangers offense was fairly concentrated. We put up a six spot in the second inning, and then a three spot in the fourth. Most of which came against former Rangers pitcher Brandon McCarthy. Brandon had to come out of the game when Endy Chavez nailed him in the knee with a batted ball, that bounced all the way into the Rangers bullpen, which is quite a haul in Oakland.
As we work in the AL West, it’s nice to see us beating up on Oakland & Seattle. We should do that as the defending AL Champions.