G9: Rangers sweep DH with 5-4 win in Game 2

The Rangers get over .500 for the first time since 2006 with this win. Hey, every other blogger, newspaper, writer is saying that, so I might as well too.

Kason Gabbard continued the streak of pretty decent starting pitching we've been getting so far this season. Now he wasn't lights out, but he wasn't Chan Ho Park/Mark Clark bad, either. 5.2 innings pitched, 7 hits and two walks. Three runs. Fell just one out short of a technical quality start. Most of that came in the sixth anyway. After five innings, Gabbard was leading 4-1, it was a pretty nice to see him do pretty well. In fact, when he was pulled, I didn't think he needed to; he didn't look that awful.

Jason Wright followed, and blew the lead, giving the Orioles their fourth run, which at that point tied the game and giving Wright a blown save in his ledger. He didn't pitch all that bad, either, but gave up his hits in the wrong place. In 2.1 innings, he only had two hits and one walk.

C.J. Wilson saved the game, which was cool because he saved game one of the doubleheader as well. 18 pitches; two saves in one day is quite a good thing.

Offensively, we got started by a solo home run by Michael Young in the first inning which barely cleared the right field wall. Milton Bradley also did pretty well with two doubles and a couple of RBI's. Adam Melhuse also had two hits. The rest of our hits were all scattered singles.

In all, a nice win. Wasn't terribly crisply pitched, but we had enough timely hitting to pull out the win in the bottom of the eighth inning.

I wish I could have been at the doubleheader.