Recently in 2004 Game Recaps Category

The last game of the season ended on both a bright note and a scary note. Unfortunately, they're the same thing. Chan Ho Park pitched the way he should have been pitching. Which means we'll probably try and go with him again next season. Damn. On the other hand, he pitched really well again in a park that he always pitches well in - Seattle. I wonder if something could be worked out where we send Park to Seattle for something. Park does well there, Seattle has to know that. Park went 7 innings, gave up no runs on 2 hits (3 BB/3K). A stellar performance (unfortunately).

Francisco Cordero got his final save of the season, his 49th. A record breaking season for him, as no Ranger reliever has ever had that many saves. He looked good, and fans seemed to like it when he came in. I think we have this position solved for awhile. :)

We didn't have a lot of offense ourselves, but we had enough to get three runs across. Texas 2-4, but didn't score, or get an RBI. Nix had a HR, and Huckaby had a double. Mike Young drove in the other two that Nix did not. As I said, not a lot of offense, but enough.

And the season comes to a close. By every account, this was a huge success, we didn't drop out of the race until after Game #158 of the season - a major accomplishment. Buck Showalter should be manager of the year.

I also sincerely hope that Rudy Jaramillo comes back next year. He's a great portion of our success, and I would hate to have him leave. As I've said before, if he left to get a manger's job, I can't fault him for leaving for that. However, if he leaves and becomes a hitting coach somewhere else, then I'll be pissed. If he takes a lateral move, it means the Rangers didn't do enough to keep him.

Kenny Rogers had a career season, winning 18 games. His previous was 17 wins, but he topped it by one this year, and in my opinion should have been a 20 game winner, but he had a few leads blown for him. :(

Mike Young went 3-5 with a home run and 4 RBI's to lead the Ranger hitting attack. We also had a home run from Mench, and a 3-5 game from Teixeira and Mench. Hell, Manny Alexander went 2-3 with an RBI and 2 runs scored. We had a total of 16 hits with five doubles. A nice offensive display.

For a meaningless series, the games certainly seemed to be lively. Last night was Ichiro. Tonight was Edgar Martinez, who had a ceremony for his career tonight. He also took one pitch over at third base, his position for a long time before becoming a permanent DH.

161 down. One to go.

Ryan Drese has run out of gas, he's gotten bombed the last few starts he made of the season. However, I don't think his season can be called anything less than a total success. He had a spectacular season.

However, this game wasn't about the Rangers really. We were witness to Ichiro Suzuki's record breaking 258th hit of the season, breaking an 80 year old or so record by Mr. George Sisler for hits in a season. Not a record to be taken lightly (although some wankers in the press are). Was really great to have seen that.

The final home game of the season ends on a good note, with a 6-3 win over the Angels. Rookie starter Chris Young pitched well, going six innings, giving up three runs, and looking like a good candidate for next season's rotation. The home season ended the way it started, with RA Dickey on the mound pitching well. Too bad RA didn't pitch all that well inbetween the start and end of the home schedule most of the time. :(

Of the 81 games at home this season, we won 51 of them, tying our best season for home winning record at 51-30. Overall, an outstanding season at home. Now if we can just get rid of the Gold Club behind home plate, things might go better.

Vlad Guerrero continued to be on a torrid streak here, having another two home runs today (he went 4-4 in this game). That gave him a 12 for 17 streak during this series, with a total of FIVE home runs in this series (two 2 HR games). Amazing.

However, the best part of the game by far was the "Thank you" lap the Rangers made around the stadium at the conclusion of the game. A very nice touch by the team, and probably won them a few season ticket holders for next year by doing that. I'm sure a lot of fans (and Randy Galloway) might see it as a cynical move, but I very much liked it - to me it showed there was some heart there. And that's always a good thing.

The party is over, as we were formally eliminated from the playoff race with this loss.

The only other thing I'll write about the game is that it was nice that Mike Young set a new Ranger record for hits, getting his 211th in the bottom of the ninth. He's also the only Ranger ever to have more than one 200 hit season.

I suppose the thing that bothered me most about this game is that we have the season on the line. We're up against the wall, and we're sending Chan Ho Park out there. The biggest pitching disappointment in the entire history of the franchise, and we send him out there to save our slim playoff hopes. If there's anything that will dash the goodwill of Ranger fans, it's got to be that. I really hope the Park experiment is cut loose in the off season. It will cost Hicks a gob of money to do that, but he is NOT helping us, and as we move forward from this season, I can't see Park playing a part in it (a good one anyway), so after three years, it's time to cut him loose.

We lost this game mostly because of the four home runs given up by our pitching. Two by Park, and two by John Wasdin. Two of them were by Vladimir Guerrero, who definitely seems to have a power stroke here in this series.

After this loss, I said to my wife, "Well, we're not technically out of it, but we might as well be". There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of fire in there right now.

Aw dammit! Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing.

P.S. Bases loaded, nobody out. We get nothing.

This was bad. Bad bad bad. At least it didn't do any overall damage, we're still only two out of first with 7 to go. Still workable.

I was at this game, it was my final season ticket game of the season, was nice to see all my usual friends around me who had tickets too, so if any of you read this - hi! Was a great season. Hope to see some of you in October. :)

Chris Young started off great, was pretty dominant through the first three, except for a solo HR in the first. Wasn't as much of a see-saw in terms of the score, but it sort of felt like it sitting there. When Young faltered, RA Dickey came in and save for one walk, was perfect in his 3.2 innings of work. Spectacular. We needed it too, with our pen mostly drained.

Offensively, we had just enough. Not a ton, but some power from Soriano, and a few almost home runs and a triple from Mike Young were all we needed to get this win which brings us back to two out.

A back and forth game. There were a ton of pitchers on both sides. Seattle used 6. Texas used 6. I thought Showalter had a bit of a quick hook with Benoit - I thought he could have at least finished 5.

I'm not writing much because I fell asleep (twice) on the sofa watching this game. Even with TiVo, I could have backed it up, but I was so groggy, I just gave up and went to bed.

Shame we couldn't pick up the win, as it drops us to 3 back now.

WOW! What a finish! An absolutely amazing win in a great game means we now are only 2 games out of first place with 10 games to go in the season.

I spent most of the morning at the law firm that represents my company, so when I returned, I didn't have much time to pay attention to the game. I was buys doing work work and didn't pay much attention. I know the game changed hands a few times, and when Park gave up a HR ball three pitches into the game I wasn't filled with a lot of excitement about our chances for a sweep.

I didn't really get to start paying attention to the game until the 8th inning. We were down 3-2, and then we went down 4-2 when Jeff Nelson gave up a home run ball - the third we gave up today. Then after a 10 or 11 pitch at bat, Blalock jacked a solo home run to bring us back to one run. Following that, Mike Young (who went 4-5 and is now 6 hits shy of setting a new record for hits with a season - he currently has 205) doubled down the line to bring the tying run to the plate. Ken Macha walked Mark Teixeira intentionally (which was his second free pass of the game, his 5th in the game, and a new Ranger record for walks in a 9 inning game). That brought up Brian Jordan who grounded out, in what sounded like a DP ball on the radio. So now we've got runners at the corners with two outs. Down a run.

Up steps David Dellucci who has been in an 0-20 slump or something like that. Dellucci gets down with two strikes. We're down to our last strike, and he then jacks a double (I don't remember where it went exactly), which scored both Mike Young and Brian Jordan to win the game in walkoff fashion.

My words here simply cannot do justice how cool this win was. I wish I was there, and I might have been had I not had to spend all morning at a lawyer's office. We're done with Oakland for the season. Next up is Seattle. Bring it on!

We won again on Eric Young's first home run of the season - what a great time for it.

I can't spend much time, as I just got back from the law firm who represents my company (spent the morning there), and I need to go do some work now. :)

As I write this, it's 5:30PM and I realized I totally forgot about today's update. I have to leave in 10 minutes, so I have just enough time to slap together an update, but can't write much.

I was at this game, and boy was it great to see us spank Mulder again for the second time in a week. It was capped by Mike Young's grand slam which was most awesome in person. If the hit that McLemore botched in the first inning wasn't called a hit, it would have made the grand slam his 200th hit of the season. He's got 201 now, and needs 10 more in the last 12 games to set a new Ranger record. That's probably pretty likely to happen.

Anyway, Drese got the win, the Rangers got the win, and the bullpen didn't give up anything. A really nice win that seemed like a no doubter from the start. And Owen, it was a blast going with you, we should have done that more this season.,

As is Ichiro's pursuit of the all time hits record as well. It's possible that might happen when we finish up the season in Seattle, although if Mr. Suzuki gets a couple more 5 hit games like he did last night, it won't be a problem.

We did something we haven't done in about four years or so. Won a 1-0 game. I mean. WOW. There were a total of NO earned runs at all this game, as the one we got was unearned due to a Guerrero muff in right field of a fly ball. I thought Saturday's 2-0 win was great, but this was better. Four pitchers for another shutout. Was really great. I just wish we could do this to the A's. Speaking of that...

We come back home to play the A's this week. It's make or break time now, I think. If we lose the series at home against Oakland, that's probably it for the season, I would think.

Wow! Just when I thought things were looking to cave in on the season (suspensions, Soriano gone, didn't gain any ground on Oakland), this happens. A 7 pitcher 6 hit shutout of the Angels in their stadium. The best thing I can do is to copy the pitching line here:

TEXAS                        ip       h   r  er  bb  so  hr    era
J Benoit                      4       2   0   0   3   6   0   5.83
E Ramirez (W, 5-3)            1 1/3   0   0   0   0   1   0   4.41
J Nelson (H, 8)               1       0   0   0   0   2   0   5.48
R Mahay (H, 13)                 1/3   0   0   0   0   0   0   2.67
D Brocail (H, 3)              0       2   0   0   1   0   0   4.87
B Shouse (H, 9)                 1/3   0   0   0   0   0   0   2.50
F Cordero (S, 45)             2       2   0   0   1   3   0   1.83

The best part is that Benoit came in and gave 4+ innings of two hit shutout ball, something I wouldn't have expected from him. This wasn't as great as that 6 pitch no hitter the Astros had against the Yankees recently, but this was great! I was at the office at the time, but I did get to listen to a good portion of it. Was really nice - wish I was home to watch it on TV. There may yet be a road to the playoffs, but time is definitely running out. We need to step up and stop treading water like we've been if we want to get to the dance in 2004.

When this game started, I thought we were going to walk away with it. We had a couple of home runs in the first inning, and were up 3-0 right away. But our pitching couldn't hold it. Chan Ho Park gave up 5 runs in his 5 innings. RA Dickey gave up 3 runs (2ER) in his two innings. And Frankie Francisco, appealing his suspension, gave up a solo shot. Longballs did us in. We tried to come back with a couple in the ninth, but it wasn't enough.

However, the bigger news of the day was the handing down of suspensions by Major League Baseball for the fracas in the bullpen last Monday. Frankie got 16 games, which is effectively the rest of the season, but I think it was declared to be 16 so that if he has a failed appeal, the games will carry over into next season, too. Doug Brocail got seven games, Carlos Almanzar got five games, and hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo got five games. All are appealing, and were in uniform for tonight's game.

Additionally, it was found out that Alfonso Soriano is out for the rest of the season. There's a lot of speculation that he may have played his last game as a Ranger. There's a lot of options available if we want to go that way, but I'd be surprised if Ranger brass has made the decision on that for 2005 already.

N/A

We did something I was quite surprised we did. We bombed Mark Mulder. Coming into this game, he was something like 17-4 I think with an ERA right around 4. One of his 4 losses was to Texas earlier in the season in Oakland. This time we got Mulder for 8 earned runs (including two home runs) over his 6 innings pitched. What surprised me most about the three home runs were not that two of the three were off Mulder. It was how hard they were hit. All three of them seemed liked HR's that just got out of here really fast. All of them appeared to be no doubters.

Drese got the win with another quality start, going 6 innings and giving up just two. If we can hold on this afternoon with Kenny Rogers, who has an excellent record pitching in Oakland, we can leave Oakland down only three in the standings. Seattle's helping too, but allowing us to get closer to Anaheim as well.

I've decided I'm not going to talk about the problem with the chair throwing. In fact, all future news stories about it will be linked on yesterday's game coverage. It's an ugly incident for sure, and I've decided that I'm not going to continue to talk about it.

Right now, I have to go to a meeting, so I'll post this, and update my summary later today if I get time. If I don't, it was nice to see a big win, although there was no pitching on either side, it would seem. :)

Last night I was watching the game on TV. About halfway through I decided to go into my computer room and listen to the game on the radio, so at about the fifth inning or so I stopped watching TV. In the top of the 9th I started watching TV again. More on that later.

This game was annoying me. We balked in a run (after two consecutive balks), hit a batter, gave up two home runs, gave up a sac fly, gave up a run on a walk, and a good ol' single up the middle. We certainly weren't boring in the runs we gave up. Juan Dominguez had the double balk maneuver, but I didn't think he pitched all that bad. Wasn't great, but wasn't bad. I mean he did have a quality start - 6IP 2ER. Our pen though was very much not like the 2004 edition. Fracas aside, Frankie Francisco gave up a run in an inning. Mahay gave up 2 in 0.1 innings. Cordero gave up two in his 0.2IP. Not good.

We tried to win it. Soriano had the first and last runs of the game - both solo home runs. Both of Soriano's were quite meaningful - they both had a lot of meaning behind them. Mark Teixeira continued his hot streak. Tex went 4 for 5, scoring twice. He had two doubles, a triple, and a solo shot for his lone RBI. He is by far our best offensive player at the moment. However, the most offensive part of the night belonged to Frankie Francisco.

In the ninth inning, I was listening to the radio, and Eric Nadel said "A fight has broken out in the Rangers' bullpen". So I immediately went back to the living room. I always TiVo every Rangers game just in case something happens (even if I don't intend on watching it). This was the reason why. I got to see all of what the Rangers coverage showed of a melee between our bullpen and the fans in Oakland. I'm sure most of you have seen it by now, as I'm writing this at 6PM on Tuesday evening. However, the short of it is that we saw all the Ranger players run over there, and a big pileup with our guys jawing with the Oakland fans. Then the bad part. Frankie Francisco tossed a chair into the stands, and it hit two people, one woman bore the brunt of it, and TV coverage showed her bleeding fairly well from her nose. There was a 20 minute delay while security talked to Buck, the umpires and Ken Maccha. It was a mess.

Francisco was arrested on Tuesday morning, and has a court appearance on Wednesday. In my opinion he deserves to be tossed out for the rest of the season. Is he totally responsible? No. The jackasses in the fans who were taunting them are as much to blame, IMO. Yes, Francisco should be held accountable for the chair. However, the asswipes who were taunting them are the ones who REALLY caused it (and to a lesser extent stadium security which didn't stop anything). Players get heckled and insulted all the time. That's part of the game. Players can take that. However, for a player to respond this way there has to be some really serious crap going on. Not the usual "Your momma, you guys stink, you're gonna lose, etc.." I'd wager it was into racial garbage, and really nasty stuff. Buck Showalter had said there were problems earlier in the game, too.

Of course we finally heard from the guy who started it. He said this in an interview.. "There was absolutely no profanity at all, just normal heckling, like 'who's going to take the loss?' 'you're going to lose the game' And apparently the guy who threw the chair and injured my wife wasn't even in the bullpen in the game. Its just sad that professionals would act like that, I mean, these guys are 6'5" we were fearing for our lives. I'm just going to concentrate on looking after my wife right now". OH YEAH RIGHT. Like only that would have provoked someone into throwing a chair. You lying piece of shit.

Again, as much as Francisco deserves a huge penalty for throwing the chair, the fans who started it and the failure of Oakland security to prevent it from ever getting that far are to blame as well. Stupid fans. I guess the guy who threw the cel phone at Carl Everett last year in Oakland didn't really do that, it was Carl doing it to himself, right? Jackasses.

More Stuff:

Addtl link on fight at mlb.com

Link with video of fight on mlb.com

This is a game that no one saw unless you were there, or were watching Toronto coverage. For some reason this game wasn't televised. Thing is, I probably wouldn't have watched much of it anyway, as it was Week 1 in the NFL. Now I don't like the Cowboys, I was watching other teams on the satellite. I love baseball, but there's something about opening weekend. It's just awesome. :)

It was nice to see Mark Teixeira get two home runs - his power has really come on, and at the right time too. We swept the Blue Jays, scoring 27 runs over the three games. Nice to see. We'll need all of that as we go into Oakland where we realistically have to come out of there with at least a 3-1 record, otherwise, we won't have enough games left, IMHO to overtake the lead in the division. It could still happen, but it's not terribly likely.

The Philadelphia Eagles are 1-0! \o/ :)

This was a game I attended. As it was September 11th, there was a big military salute at the start of the game. It was a nice ceremony, but I wonder why Buck Showalter gave his jacket to one of the vets - I wonder if Buck knew that kid.

Anyway, the game had a bit of everything. Power, defense, plenty of offense, and a really nice comeback win for the Rangers. I felt bad for Kenny Rogers, as he should have had his 17th win of the season. He's got 4 starts left, and he has to go 4-0 to get to 20, which I'm sure everyone was hoping he would. Either way, I feel barring a meltdown, he'll break his previous record of 17 wins (in 1995).

I'm not writing much about the game, as there wasn't a lot to say for me beyond it was nice weather, the Rangers won, and the lead flipflopped about half a dozen different times it seemed.

It was nice to see the offense get in gear, as we're about to hit the most important part of the season, if we still want to get to the post season. I just hope it all doesn't get lost since we'll be batting first the next seven games.

Well, I'm back. I've spent most of the last week sick. In fact, I'm still not right today, but it's the best I've felt in a week. I just didn't have the energy to do any of that. Additionally, I've kind of burnt out on scoring the games. The only ones I'm going to score for the rest of the season are games I'm going to.

For this particular game, it looked like Ryan Drese was pitching like he did earlier in the season, not the last 3 or so outings of his. He was pretty strong, and went seven innings, gave up just one run (a home run to Carlos Delgado), and striking out seven with one walk. The Eraser and Jeff Nelson followed up with an inning each, both giving up one earned run.

Miguel Batista was not the pitcher we saw in Toronto where he just shut us down. He gave up 10 hits in 3.1 innings of work, 7 runs, and had 3 wild pitches. It helped us get out to the win, which we needed, especially as Oakland lost.

Offensively, we were led by Kevin Mench who is swinging the bat VERY well now. Kevin had two solo home runs in this game (that gives him 5 in his last 5 games), All told, Kevin went 3 for 4 with 2 RBI and 3 runs scored. A great night for him. He was backed up by Teixeira who had a two run bomb of his own into the upper deck in right. Barajas was also 3 for 4, it was just a nice night for the offense with a total of 17 hits.

I'm sure like most people after the White Sox series, you were feeling pretty gloomy, like "this is it". The best case scenario is that we come out of the Toronto series two games back of Oakland (or Anaheim, as they might pass Oakland if the A's keep losing). However, that's best case scenario. I think we'll come out of it 4 back, which is manageable, but still a tough assignment going to Oakland and Anaheim. We can still do it, but it's not looking good for the home 11 right now.

I didn't see or hear most of this game, as I was first grocery shopping, then spending some time with my wife who wasn't feeling well. Listened to the end of it where I found more enjoyment in watching the Yankees get annihilated over on another channel, anyway. ;) Besides, Torii Hunter was busy destroying us.

I'm not ready to proclaim us done yet, but a feeling of dread is starting to creep in. We can either do good against the AL West in September, or get buried. Either way, I never expected us to even be here at this point. This season is a success no matter what happens from here on out.

Also, I've kind of slowed down on scoring the games. It was starting to burn me out, so I'm only going to be posting scorecards from games that I actually am at and score from this point out.

N/A

N/A

Sorry for the lack of updates the last few days, been horribly busy at work, I didn't even have time to put a page together, and I just figured I've give myself a mini break as we head down the stretch.

We got a little bit of revenge last night against the Orioles, as we beat 'em 6-4. Surpisingly, we got another decent starting pitching performance from someone you weren't expecting it from - John Wasdin. Wasdin went six innings, giving up 2 runs on four hits, striking out four and walking two. A really nice performance. Our pen was it's usual good self, except for Carlos Almanzar, who had a bit of a rough time out there (0.2IP, 3H, 2ER, 1BB). But, we got the job done.

Speaking of the pen, Francisco Cordero got his 40th save last night (in 42 chances). It was his 20th consecutive save in 20 chances, which beats the streak he had going earlier in the season. A most pleasant surprise there. I don't think anyone doubted his ability, but I think most everyone thought he wouldn't be this good for another year or so.

Offensively, we were led by Eric Young. Eric went only 2 for 2 officially, but he also walked twice, had a stolen base, two RBI, and was everything your leadoff guy wants. I'm not ready to proclaim him our leadoff guy, but he usually does good there, and he did get the job done tonight.

As usual, the other teams around us in the playoff hunt won again, so we're not making up any ground. Was also interesting to see Steve Busby back in the TV booth tonight. I just wish he could be the backup instead of Bill Land. Bill's a bit too boring for my tastes.

N/A

The game was 7-4, although it was 7-1 through two outs in the bottom of the 9th. The game feels like we lost 15-1, actually.

Johan Santana. That's about all that needs to be said about this one.

Fire's out. The winning streak is over at 8, tying a mark we set earlier this year.

Fortunately, the A's also lost today, so we remain .5 games out.

Unfortunately, the Angels did win (although they swept the Yankees in the process), so they're now tied with us for second, also at .5 games out.

Zack Greinke was masterful. He looked spectacular, and he did look like a high school kid out there, quite young looking. If he can keep that up, he'll be an awseome pitcher for a long time.

Erickson was ineffective, giving up way too many walks, and a grand slam. Calvin Pickering, just called up today to replace former Ranger Ruben Mateo who was DFA'ed before the game, had the grand slam, as well as a second home run and 6 RBI total. Benoit wasn't terribly great either, giving up a few more runs in his time on the mound. He was supposed to pitch Tuesday, but that's not going to happen now, we need another starter for Tuesday's game - likely the guy from the minors who was talked about (can't remember his name right now).

Oh well. Disappointing, but I can't say I'm unhappy with a 9-1 record over the last 10 games.

We got two runs, but we really didn't deserve them - one came on a balk, and right now I can't remember how the other showed up (sac fly, I think). It really feels like we got shut out.

Not much time to write. 8 in a row. Manny Alexander came through with a big hit, and Tex hit his 30th home run. Cordero was shaky again for the second day in a row, but still got the job done. Sunday afternoon we go for the sweep - would be our 9th in a row, and three consecutive series sweeps.

Not a whole lot to write about for this one. Ryan Drese labored a bit in the first inning, but settled down, and only allowed five hits and three runs over his 7+ innings of work to get the win - his 11th, and a career high. Almanzar and Cordero came on and didn't allow any runs, but Cordero was a little shaky this outing; still got the save.

Offensively, we didn't have much going on overall. We only had a total of four hits the entire game. However, THREE of them were home runs (one three run by Mench, and two solos by Dellucci), which accounted for all of our runs. One of Dellucci's was a cool one into the fountain in right field.

We've won seven in a row, but aren't making any progress, as the A's and the Red Sox are winning as well.

Six in a row. Two sweeps in a row. 4 games left till bald TV announcers. Although it's not as big of a stretch for Tom Grieve. ;)

I was at the game with my wife last night, and we were in some really good seats (Sec 29, Row 15), which I got hooked up with from my ticket agent. We had a great front row (well, almost) seat to watch the 6th Ranger win in a row, and the second consecutive series sweep, as well. I figured coming into this game that we'd lose, because Kenny Rogers hasn't been pitching well since the All-Star game. More though the fact that the Indians are a high powered offense, and had lost a couple in a row, including the absolute stomping we gave 'em on Tuesday. However, that was unfounded, as Kenny Rogers went 6, giving up two runs.

Offensively, we were powered by three home runs, that drove in all five. One by Dellucci, and then two by Blalock - one solo, one two run. And on a night when Blalock's wife was in labor, Tom Grieve & Josh Lewin "called" both Blalock home runs, and the Hanks' Homies were on the field with Hank before the game.. Was a great night for #9, that's for sure! There was no movement in the standings as both the A's & Red Sox won. However, it's got to be great going out on the road behind 6 in a row, and two sweeps in a row.

Oh, and this morning on The Ticket, one of the guys (forget who) compared the Rangers to a cockroach - a great analogy. They just won't go away!

Anyone who follows me and this site knows that I love baseball, and always love going to the ballpark to attend games. I go to a ton of them. By my count, I'm going to 34 games this season at the Ballpark (been to 25 already). Why is that important? Well, of all the games I am going to this year, I miss the history setting night - DAMMIT! :) Here's a short list of some of the cool stuff that happened at Tuesday night's game.

• First win for Scott Erickson in a long time
• It was Buck Showalter's 700th win as a major league manager
• Mike Young went 3 for 3 with a walk
• We had 17 hits & 16 runs
• All the starters had at least one hit
• Four guys scored 3 times (M Young, Soriano, Teixeira, Mench)
• Kevin Mench almost hit for the cycle

Oh yeah. Mark Teixeira hit for the cycle. It was a very cool moment - in the excitement of having 16 runs at the time, Tex's pending cycle was something that kind of snuck up on me. Josh mentioned it on TV, but I didn't pick up on it until it happened, so I had no kind of emotional buildup. It was definitely cool. Some quotes by Tex after the game said he didn't want to show up the Indians being up 16-1 or something like that. I'm sure he could have done a curtain call for the fans, and the Indians probably wouldn't have minded.

However, the best thing is that our offense seems to be getting back on track, and I'm not just talking about the explosion of this game. Overall, the "vibe" - at least to me feels to be like it's coming back, although Blalock still hasn't joined the party yet. This is good, as we're coming into the home stretch, the time when we have to play well. The time when we play only AL West is coming up soon, and it'll be a catfight till the end, I'm sure.

The game was actually more of a dominating performance than 16-4. It was 16-1 up until the ninth inning when Doug Brocail gave up three runs in the top of the 9th. That's about the only real bad thing of the night.

One last thing about the first paragraph, and going to more games. It's starting to look like the Dallas Cowboys are going to be moving to Arlington - or at least the real possibility exists. If that happens, it will make parking at the Ballpark hell for awhile as the location is supposed to be "next to the Ballpark". Not to mention the hell it'll be when there's a Cowboys game and a Rangers game at the same time. I sure hope they improve the roads around there. Cowboy traffic is a nightmare. However, if they build the rumored Dart high speed train out in that direction, I won't care, as I'll be taking the train all the time.

I didn't get to watch very much of this game - my wife and I had company over last night, and the baseball game wasn't on the agenda. When the company left, I was pretty tired, so I whizzed through the game in about 20 minutes on my TiVo. A nice comeback win. A few thoughts: Callaway looked a bit rusty in the first, but seemed to get it together. Perhaps he can be someone to help down the stretch. Goodness knows he can't be any worse than all the kids we put out there.

Brian Jordan appears to be looking like he might be able to help as well. We're not talking an OBP of .475 and a slugging of .850, but at least someone who won't strike out every time.

No change in the standings as everyone around us in the division and the wild card won, too.

Anyone think if they get to 10 wins in a row Josh & Tom will shave their heads like was talked about on TV last night? ;)

Well, this Sunday afternoon brought a nice day to the Rangers, who have definitely had a hard time with the "dog days" of August. We swept the Devil Rays, which was nice as division leader Oakland lost. In fact, everyone moved up. In fact, the AL West is essentially a three way tie, as right now, the Rangers and Angels are .5 back of the A's. We're technically in second place due to percentage points. What makes it even more interesting is that we're tied with the Red Sox for the lead in the AL Wild Card race, too. Most interesting, as we're rounding the corner into the final stretch of the season. The only thing that concerns me is our recent wins are against the Devil Rays & the Tigers. While a win is a win, you'd rather them be against better teams. Yeah, there's the story about they're all Major league teams, but let's face it. Beating the Yankees and the Red Sox is way different than beating the Devil Rays & the Tigers.

The game itself was led by pitching aberration Ryan Drese. I call him that, because no one is supposed to be able to pitch like this at our ballpark. He has a home ERA of like 2.1 something, which is the best in all of the American League. He's top 5 in overall ERA. It's amazing. I said it before, and I'll say it again. I was way wrong on Ryan Drese. I wanted him out of here almost as bas as most people wanted Chan Ho Park out of here. Drese appears to have figured it out.

Our outfielders appear to be picking it up again, especially since the change in lineup Buck did a week ago or so. Dellucci is doing great in the #2 hole. I've always been a proponent that it shouldn't matter WHERE you bat in a lineup, your job is to hit the ball. However, if it makes them play better, than go for it. Blalock is really starting to concern me, though. Laynce Nix had a home run today, and looked a lot better overall. Mark Teixeira added a home run in the bottom of the eighth. That solved a couple of things. First, it took away a save chance for Cordero, who probalby needed a day off, not to be pitching three days in a row like that. Second, it just proved how amazing his power is this year - he's got more HR than his rookie year, and he spent 4-5 weeks on the DL. If he had a full number of at bats, I believe he'd be in the lead for homers in the league. Assuming he gets a full season next year? Look out. I just know it'll cost us big time when his contract is up for renewal in 2006, as he has Satan as his agent.

Oh, and they keep talking on TV about how we have 9 guys with 10 home runs or more. If we get a 10th, it will tie a major league record. As of right now, the 9 guys with that many home runs are Teixeira (28), Blalock (24), Soriano (24), Mench (16), Mike Young (14), Barajas (13), Nix (13), & Fullmer (11). The next one is Gary Matthews, who has 9. I figure he's good for one more the rest of the season, so that will give us our record tying 10. If we wanted to break the record, it might be a stretch, as the next closest guy is Herb Perry, who has 5. We only have two other guys on the roster with any home runs at all, and they're Jordan with 2, and Adrian Gonzalez with 1, and he's not even in the majors. So unless Herb goes on a tear and gets 5 the last 6 weeks of the season, I doubt we're getting to 11 guys.

One other thing. The Devil Rays have some absolute greased lightning on the bases. Carl Crawford was bad enough, but this new kid they called up? Joey Gathright? I don't know if I've ever seen anyone run that fast - it was absolutely amazing. Oh, and BJ Upton? He was born two YEARS after I graduated high school, and I'm double his age. ACK!

Boy, this game started off ugly. In the top of the first, Bacsik gave up three hits, and hit two batters. Surprised we only gave up two that inning. We stormed back to take the lead in the bottom of the second behind a two run double by Brian Jordan, who is doing well the last week or so, perhaps he's turned it around. Would be a nice boost in the last 6 weeks of the season.

However, we couldn't hold it. Nor could the Devil Rays hold the lead once they took it back. This game went back and forth with runs scored in 6 of the 10 half innings between the first and fifth. In fact, the last run scored in the bottom of the fifth when Kevin Mench hit a home run to left off of Devil Rays reliever Franklin Nunez, who was making his major league debut (he got the loss, too). Soriano made a great double play, tagging a runner and throwing to first. There also was a goofy 1-3-6-1-4-6 pickoff play, too.

We probably should have scored more, as did the Devil Rays, we both left a lot of players on board. Both sides committed an error, and our bullpen was great again. The game ended with a thrill, as Gerald Laird threw out the major league steals leader Carl Crawford to end the game.

We go for the sweep tomorrow.

A win is a win. I'd like to say it's a great win, like a 2-1 win over the Yankees, but it wasn't. 5-3 over the Devil Rays is still a win, and right now, we need wins any way we can get them. It's absolutely amazing that on August 13th, we're still only 1.5 games out, and in the hunt of things. Earlier in the season, I didn't want to get worked up because I felt it was too soon. OK, NOW I believe in it. It's 6 weeks to go, and we're in the playoff hunt. Our rotation is in shambles, and we're still here. I would think that Showalter would have to get consideration for manager of the year for all this.

Anyway, about the game. Kenny Rogers took the mound, and Kenny's last few starts have been unlike the start of the season for him. It was getting to the point where I think people were starting to think that Ryan Drese was the only reliable starter we had now. Kenny stepped up a bit. He wasn't masterful, but he did go long enough to keep us in the game, and get his 14th win of the season. I think those dreams of him having a 20 win season are gone. It mathematically still could happen, but I don't see him winning 6 more for the rest of the season. My guess is he wins 17-18 now. Prove me wrong, Kenny!

Offensively, we scored 3 of our 5 runs on two home runs. Another alarming stat. We are not the club we were at the start of the season, when we'd drive in a ton of runs w/o home runs. It seems to be back to traditional Ranger baseball, whack it lately. Tex & Dellucci had the other RBI's, besides Nix & Sori's HR's.

Our bullpen was good, although not as lights out as it was in the past. Cordero had to pitch 1.1 innings for the save, and he made it interesting; he even mixed in a balk. But he got the save in the win - and I guess that's the bottom line. We won the game.

N/A

N/A

I don't have much time to write about this, so here's a few highlights.

1) Drese was great
2) Kevin Brown lost to the Rangers again
3) THE YANKEES LOST!

That about sums it up.

Ugh 2. We got swept in Baltimore and will now limp home to meet the Yankees. This could get real ugly.

Ugh.

Lost to the Orioles. Erickson was "OK" in his first Ranger start. Rodrigo Lopez was awesome. That's about it.

Ugly from the start. The only good thing to say about this game was that our pen was pretty decent once we got into the guys who are normally out there.

A really quick, nicely crisp moving game lead to a Rangers sweep in Detroit, and our retaking of first place, with our 60th win of the season. I know a lot of the local press in spring training was saying this was about all the wins we'd get total, as they were saying 100 loss seasons. Ha!

Ryan Drese earned his eighth win of the season, and did it in a way we don't normally do. Nice, quick pitching, and a low scoring game. All told, there were 3 runs, and 13 hits for both teams. Thing is, both teams had a few other opportunities to score, and didn't. The Tigers had the bases loaded twice, and didn't get anything, and we had bases loaded once, I think, and we didn't get anything, either.

Drese, and Ledezma for the Tigers were cruising along through five, when Ledezma came out due to a pitch count limit. Esteban Yan came in, and gave up a solo home run to Soriano to win the game. Our bullpen (Mahay, Almanzar, Cordero) was spectacular, not allowing any runs on the way for CoCo's 33rd save of the season.

A really nice, very National League feel to this game.

I have to say I wasn't thrilled at seeing another in our line of starting pitchers (the 14th this season now) go out there. I was thinking "Oh great - here's another guy who will get pasted and sent back to the minors". I was wrong about that. Mike Bascik went 7 innings, gave up just four hits, and NO runs. He walked no one and struck out four. Was a stellar performance. Sure, it's just the Detroit Tigers, but still. It was an impressive line. I'd say he earned himself another start with that.

Another Ranger that had a good night was David Dellucci. He went 3 for 5 with an RBI, and two runs scored. However, the best night probably was by Laynce Nix. Nix was 3 for 3 with 2 RBI's, a walk, and three runs scored. He also had a couple of diving catches in centerfield, and an assist on a putout at home plate. Was definitely a good night for the boy from Midland.

The Yankees also won, which brought us back to just half a game out of first. The Red Sox also lost, which gave us a 1.5 game lead in the Wild Card race. Things are looking good. I think I might allow myself to believe, even given the shaky state of our rotation.

This game ended up well, but there were a few warning signs in it for me. First, the obvious one. Mike Young. He had to sit out with a problem with his back. As the local media outlets are saying, no one really knows when he'll be back. Hopefully it's today, but if it's not today, that's a bigger flashing red light to me. He's been the person who has almost always been good for a hit or three a game. He's also the only player for which we don't have a realistic option. If we have to put him on the DL, it creates another problem, as none of the other 25 man roster guys are true Shortstops, so we'd probably have to move someone else at the same time. Not good.

The other problem was Kenny Rogers. He seems to pitch well, then give up or let the lead get away, which is what he did last night. We ended up getting the win, but Buck had taken Kenny out before an inning was over, so Kenny couldn't get the win. He's still pitching well, and god knows he still plays his defense (he had three great defensive plays last night), but something is starting to scare me there.

Offensively, Eric Young did really well, going 3 for 5 with an RBI (the GW RBI), and a run scored. He wasn't tested much in the field at SS, but offensively he provided the spark we needed. We had two home runs - one from Teixeira and one from Mench. The one from Tex was a "true" Comerica Park HR, the Mench one would have been an out in their old park configuration. Either way, those coupled with the EY hit were enough to give us the win - our pen was it's usual stellar self in holding up the back end.

Not much time to write about this one, but there wasn't much to write about anyway. We were shut down for the most part by Mark Redman. He allowed just one run on 6 hits over 7 innings. Nick Regilio for us didn't pitch too badly, either, but we usually score more than that for our pitchers. :)

Well, the news of the day was the trading deadline, really. Oh yeah, the Rangers played, but they were really squeezed by the home plate umpire, and we likely lost because of it - or at least in part. We did get a home run out of Brian Jordan, which was a bit of a surprise.

Back to the trading. We got Scott Erickson from the Mets. He was already DFA'ed by the Mets, so it's not like a huge trade - we're only giving up a minor league PTBNL for this, so it's not likely it will be anyone important. I like that for the most part we stood pat. We tried to trade Brad Fullmer, but his injury prevented that move to the Padres. We almost traded away AA 2B Ian Kinsler and another prospect for Larry Walker and a lot of cash. That's the kind of move we didn't need to be making. Fortunately, Walker rejected the trade with his no trade clause.

But the biggest story was the Nomar Garciaparra trade. I have to say I was a bit surprised by that. I figured he'd finish up in Boston and then walk in the off season. It's a bit disappointing on one level, as Nomah is my wife's favorite player, and he won't be coming here anymore as he's with the Cubs now. Of course, we could trade Soriano for pitching, move Mike Young back to second, and put Nomar at short here in Texas - yeah! ;)

This was also the induction ceremony for the second 2004 Rangers Hall of Fame game. While I never saw Fergie Jenkins pitch, or Buddy Bell play with my own eyes, I know them by reputation, and they both seem worthy candidates to be enshrined. There's also Tom Vandergriff, who brought baseball here in the first place - all of us fans owe Mr Vandergriff a debt of thanks.

Well, tonight marked the major league debut of a former Ranger manager's cousin - Sam Narron. I always like watching major league debuts. Partly because I like to see a kid get a shot, partially because of the chance that something very cool could happen (like Brian Sikorski against the Yankees a couple of years ago). Anyway, Sam didn't fare too well tonight, going 2.2 innings and giving up four runs. I hope he'll get another shot, as I can't imagine a major league debut is good for a pitcher's nerves.

He wasn't helped by Eric Byrnes, who is batting something like .625 against us this year - Byrnes had two home runs, both against Narron. Byrnes also had a double in this game I believe, and was hit by a pitch, so he was on base most of the night. However, after Narron departed, that ended. Surprisingly, Joaquin Benoit came on, and pitched 4.1 innings, and gave up NO runs, on two hits. He was everything we always wanted him to be. Out of the bullpen. That seems to be where he does best anymore. Might be time to think about him being our long man for a long time. ;)

We didn't get much going against Rich Harden for the longest time - we didn't get any runs until the 5th inning when we pushed across two. One was on a Blalock single, and the other was a gift on a wild pitch. That was all the scoring on both sides until the bottom of the 8th, when we broke through for a 5 spot to take the lead on two two run singles by Laynce Nix & Mike Young. Tex also had a solo home run in that inning - so we had a nice win on a big inning, not powered by a big home run.

Two other small things. It was damn hot out there. Yeah, I know it's Texas, but still - I never really feel uncomfortable out there, even on some of the hottest nights. Tonight I was so uncomfortable, I contemplated leaving the game early. I don't know if it was where I was sitting (section 212), but I did not enjoy the game from that aspect. I did, however, enjoy the retro uniforms. Hell, even Rangers Captain had a retro uniform on, too, which made me chuckle.

The end result tonight? We're back in first place.

This was an interesting game for me for a few reasons. First, I had just come back from a trip to Philadelphia. I visited the new Phillies park up there, and I was attending my first Ranger game in a bit. I didn't see them on TV for a week, and haven't listened on the radio, so I enjoyed being back at my home ballpark. Second, I was part of the group that was in the Ebbets Field Luxury Box (the second deck one out in left field) with a bunch of folks from Jamey Newberg's site. That was cool.

I did score the game, but even with that, I felt kind of disconnected from the game, as a lot of time was spent talking to folks, and just generally hanging around. Because of that, I won't write about the specifics of the game, but there is one good thing to add.

If there ever is a time to be in a luxury box, it's when you are in a rain delay. :)

We did fall out of first place, and sad as that is - I'll add this. If I told you we'd be in 2nd place only half a game out of first the day before the trading deadline, I bet you would have thought I was insane. Even if we never get back to first, and miss the playoffs, this will be a great season.

Not much good happened in this one. We lost 11-1, and got a total of three hits, two of them by Eric Young. The Angels, on the other hand had 10 runs and 16 hits.

However, the really bad news was that we lost Ric-Rod for awhile. He was hit in the arm by a line drive off the bat of Robb Quinlan. Later on, they said he had a broken elbow, and is on the DL "indefinitely". That's really not good, as he was I'm sure you know was viewed as the permanent third starter. That's just not good.

One interesting thing happened in this game you don't often see. The Angels moved their DH in to play the field, which means they surrendered the DH - the pitcher was officially required to bat, although it didn't happen as Anaheim used a PH in that spot in the ninth.

In case you missed it, this is my last update for about a week, as I'm going home to visit family and check out the new stadium the Phillies have. See you on June 30th as I'll start up updates again when the Rangers come back home.

I didn't start watching this game until 11:45PM last night, so I wasn't in the mood to score it - in fact, I whizzed through watching the whole game in about 40 minutes in high speed on my TiVo. ;)

What I did see this game was a lot of pitching. Escobar struck out about 600 Rangers tonight. Ryan Drese didn't allow a whole lot himself over his 7 innings. A well pitched game all around.

Nice comeback win! Too bad we had to come back in the first place, as Wasdin definitely pitched well enough to win. Wasdin got (technically) a quality start, and left with the lead, but unfortunately, a rare blown save for us - Frank Francisco was lights out his first inning, but gave up a HR ball to let the Sox tie it in the 8th. Almanzar came in, and put out the fire, as Francisco left two on base. Coco came in and was even more lights out, striking out the side to get his 29th save.

Teixeira's HR streak came to an end, but he got a hit in the bottom of the 8th to help us with the victory. Rod Barajas was hot tonight with three doubles, and Gary Matthews Jr had a two run HR as well. Not a spectacular offensive night - we had 6 runs on 10 hits, but we had ours when they mattered most, it seemed.

Nice night to be out at the ballpark.

The score wasn't even as close as 12-6, it seemed.

Benoit was crap. What a shock. We had three home runs (Matthews, Blalock, Teixeira). Tex's was his fifth in a row, tying a club record.

That's about all I have to say about this game.

Well, I was at this game last night, and I have to say through seven innings, it was a real snoozer. We had a single run through those seven - up to that point, Batista was pretty dominating. In the eighth, he appeared to run out of gas. He walked a couple, and then aided by an error by Carlos Delgado, we pushed across two runs, until Mark Teixeira came up, and jacked the first pitch he saw into the Rangers bullpen with the bases loaded for the win.

Yeah, some other things happened this game, but the grand slam was really the only thing that I bet most people will remember from this one. Was a really quick, very thrilling end to what I thought was going to be a real bore of a game.

Ricardo Rodriguez continues his streak - he now has 15.1 consecutive innings of shutout baseball - look out Orel! ;) Seriously, it was nice to see two really great performances in a row from him - could he be the third to the Rogers/Drese front end of the rotation? I hope so. If he is, it would have to really cheese off the Indians, as both Drese and Rodriguez used to be their property. Rrod went 6.1 scoreless innings tonight. They weren't exactly easy, though - only the first was 1-2-3. Several times they had two guys on base, but Rrod managed to get out of all of them. Our bullpen in this game (Shouse, Francisco, Mahay) combined to throw 2.2 innings of hitless relief - something really nice to see.

Offensively, we didn't have much going on at all. We only had six hits. Three of them were from Soriano, two from Mike Young, and one from Mark Teixeira - a three run blast in the fourth that whizzed right by the group of folks I was with in Section 10; that looked cool. We were out-hit 8-6 in this game, but we got the W, which is what counted.

As I mentioned above, there was a group of us at this game tonight. I organized this with several folks from my forums, and there were 19 of us out in Section 10 tonight. Technically, that doesn't count as a group by the rules, but my ticket guy said it wasn't worth losing the sale over a single ticket, so he got me in with 19. It was nice putting some faces to everyone, and while I didn't get to talk to everyone as much as I would have liked, I had a great time. We had two rows of seats (one of 8 seats, and one of 11 - this was one of those angled sections with odd rows, the one in front had just two seats in it), so that made it hard to be able to talk to everyone, which is what I had wanted to do. I might try and do this again before the end of the season, do this in a game in September. To all of you who came, thank you - I really enjoyed myself. Too bad about the mob scene at the Rawlings Grill. The place really is good, but they get overwhelmed when 43,000 people show up. :)

One other thing - someone there asked me about the software I use on my Palm to score games. It's called Scorepad, and you can check it out here. It's not cheap if you want the whole enchilada, but for what I do with it, I felt it was worth it.

The Rangers return to the Ballpark (newly trashed christened with more Ameriquest Field junk) after being on the road for several weeks plus the All-Star break, PLUS an extra day off after the all star break. Seems like we haven't played here since last season, which might be why they had a psuedo-opening Day feel around the park last night. Anyway, someone who seems to really love this place pitched here last night. Ryan Drese. I've done a complete turnaround on him - I said before I never was a fan of his, but he's proven me completely wrong. I wanted him gone from the moment we got him - not now, and I'm not afraid to say I was wrong about it. Drese has an ERA under two at this ballpark, which is a big accomplishment. He continued his ground ball mastery, and went 7 innings, giving up only one earned run, and was generally awesome.

So much so that it really kept the game moving, the entire game only took 2:15 to play, which is a very low figure considering there was a total of 13 runs scored, and 24 hits total. I suppose that came from the fact that there weren't a million pitching changes, and the ones that did happen mostly happened between innings.

We bombed last year's Cy Young award winner Roy Halladay to the tune of 6ER over 4 innings. Not surprising, as it was said on TV that his career ERA in this park was 8.8something. However, Halladay has not been pitching like himself the last few years, but I don't mind taking advantage of that. The charge was led by Lance Nix, who had a career day getting four hits. Soriano also had 4 RBI's, and we had three home runs (Texieira, Soriano, Nix). The home runs led to the attention of one of the Ballpark's newest uh.. "improvements" . The bell.

I'm not going to comment fully on this until I see it myself later today (Saturday) with my own eyes. Didn't look terribly overwhelming on TV. There were several changes to the Ballpark during the break, but I'll get into that more fully on my Saturday game commentary.

And in a bit of sad news, former Ranger friend Rick Helling was released by the Rangers after not doing too well in a comeback experiment in AAA. Rick has said he plans to retire - it's a shame it didn't work out, I would have loved to have seen him back in Arlington again.

-- Joe Siegler

There's plenty on the actual game itself, so you can read the coverage below, a few comments by me about the Ranger related stuff...

We had five All-Star players this year, a new record. Here's a quick rundown of what happened with them.

Francisco Cordero: Didn't play, but then again with the push to avoid tie games, some folks have to be kept out.
Kenny Rogers: Didn't play, but not surprising, as he was pseudo-hurt anyway. Probably would have had to go extra innings to see him.
Hank Blalock: Came in during the top of the 6th, went 0-2. Didn't do much, but nice to have him here.
Mike Young: Came in during the top of the 5th, also went 0-2, but made a fabulous defensive play.
Alfonso Soriano: Oh, went 2 for 3 with 3 RBI's, 1R, and one big three run HR. Named MVP of the game!

Not only did we have the top vote getter in the entire shebang, but he was named MVP of the game. I'm sure part of that stuff has to do with him being a former Yankee, but you know what? He's wearing our uniform now. Soriano was the first Ranger MVP of an All Star game since Julio Franco did it in 1990.

We did have five players in the game, but it seemed dominated by Soriano. I was quite surprised when he was named the MVP, as I didn't think there really was a standout player on either side - the standout performance was a negative one, that being Roger Clemens. As usual, my wife and I loved watching the player intros, which I think is the best part for a lot of people. Was it me, or did it seem really rushed? They seemed to spend less time on each player than they did before. Curt Schilling will get fined again, for writing on his cap - that's a no no that he seems to repeatedly ignore.

Last night, someone on my forums asked me what I thought the score would be. I generally don't like to predict All Star games, since there's too many variables, and too many players. Pushed though, I said "AL 7-4". I ALMOST got it right - it was AL 7-4 for quite awhile until Ortiz of the Red Sox screwed it up for me with a 2 run HR to make it 9-4.

Let's hope the second half goes as well as the first half does for us, and that Tom Hicks really does replace John Hart with Grady Fuson right away as was implicated on Tuesday in the Ft Worth Star Telegram. :)

No time to write about this game.

The less said about this one the better. I have only one remark. We got six runs. We got ZERO earned runs. That's how I explain being shut out and still scoring six.

Well, there's not a not to say here. We got shut out by the Red Sox led by a surprising performance from Bronson Arroyo, and some rather surprising defense by the Sox. We hit into three lineout double plays. We rarely see that, then there are three in one game! That pretty much set the mood of the game.

An extra special thanks goes out to Octavio Dotel, the A's closer, who blew a lead in the 9th in their game, and let us keep a 2 game lead in the West!

As this game went along, I was getting ready to make David Dellucci my star of the game. He went 3 for 4 with two home runs, a walk, 5 RBI's and three runs scored. It was definitely a career day as Victor Rojas called it.