G94: Luis Mendoza much better; Rangers beat ChiSox, 7-2

After his last start, Luis Mendoza looked pretty bad. This was a complete turnaround. Mendoza looked like the guy he did at the end of last season. Great sinker, really good command. His last game was just bad, this one was just good. His overall line was 6 innings pitched, three hits, one walk, just one earned run, and EIGHT strikeouts. He was quite good. Kept Chicago off the board for the most part. It was quite a night and day vs his last start.

Our entire staff was pretty good. The White Sox only had five hits in all. Three of them were extra base hits, which accounted for the runs. Carlos Quentin had a double off of Mendoza for one of the RBI's. The other one was a solo home run by Jim Thome off of Josh Rupe. No shame there, Thome is a big time home run hitter. I'll take the performance of our staff. Combined, we went nine innings, just five hits and two earned runs with eleven strikeouts. Warner Madrigal was the only one who didn't have a great outing. He only went two thirds of an inning, walking three. However, he was bailed out by a play at the plate.

For the second straight game, Brandon Boggs threw out a runner at home. Plays at home plate are in vogue this past week with the Rangers, and you almost kind of hope it happens now, don't you? :)

Offensively, we were all over Gavin Floyd, the White Sox starter. He only went 2.2 innings, giving up five hits and SEVEN walks. Two home runs, for a grand total of six earned runs. We had two home runs this game. One, a solo shot by Chris Davis in the second inning, and a two run shot by David Murphy in the third. We didn't have a ton of hits (just nine in all), but we were seriously helped by the walk. With the Sox pitching giving up eight of them, including one with the bases loaded, that helps a lot.

Josh Hamilton had three hits, and Michael Young had two. Ian Kinsler also had a hit, extending his hitting streak to 22 I think it is. Strange hit, though he hit the ball deep into the hole at short, and at the time we had a runner on second. The shortstop was really going away from first, so he threw to third. Our runner was safe, and they called that a hit. It probably would have been had the shortstop threw to first, hence the call. But it was an odd hit.

Speaking of odd, I have to go back to the Chris Davis home run. Usually when a home run ball is hit out onto Greene's Hill, there's a pile of (mostly) kids going after it. Well, this one only really had one guy running after it. He was out there way early, and there wasn't a trail of people after him. There was one guy sort of in the area, but that was it. The guy caught it in his glove. Josh & Tom talked about it. What was amusing is that this guy was a web gem on Baseball Tonight too. I wonder if this guy knows that? :)