G158: Rangers retake 2nd place with 6-4 win over A's

This game was pretty much evenly matched for quite awhile. Was 1-1 after 2, 3-3 after two, and then a pile of zeroes. The A's put up a run in the seventh, and then we retook the lead, retook second place as well.

Dustin Nippert took the hill today, and was "meh". I've written how surprised I was with his pitching the second time around, and this looks like a downswing, although it is his last appearance of the season, so it will probably weigh heavy. Dustin went 6.1 innings, gave up six hits, four earned runs, on three walks and four strikeouts. Two of the six hits were home runs (Jack Cust, Joe Buck), so he was done in by the longball. Our pen (Wright, Madrigal, Francisco) was pretty good, going 2.2 innings, combining for zero hits, zero runs, and zero walks. That was an nice performance.

Offensively, the big shot was a two run home run by Hank Blalock, whose shot came in the bottom of the seventh, and gave us the lead we never relinquished. We had several guys with multiple hits. One had three (Bradley), and four guys had two (Young, Byrd, Blalock, & Cruz). Three were doubles, and all the rest (save for Hank's HR) were singles. Of the starters, only Laird & Metcalf had no hits.

Was a pretty nice come from behind win to retake second place in the division.