G56: Rangers take rubber game against Red Sox, 6-3

Vicente Pidente comes back from his being placed on waivers, and going unclaimed. I don't think anyone thought he'd start plunking Red Sox, but you always wonder, eh? Anyway, he was pretty good on Sunday afternoon. Seven innings, four hits, four walks, and two earned runs (three overall). Just 99 pitches for the namesake of the Padilla Flotilla. While I never thought he'd be gone this past weekend, one has to figure he's definitely done after 2009 here, if not traded by the end of July. Padilla did help himself out a bit by picking off Kevin Youkilis from second early on.

Offensively, we got to Daisuke Matsuzaka pretty good. In the 5.2 innings he pitched, we hit him for 10 hits and five earned runs. No Ranger walked, and eight struck out, so he wasn't totally awful, but still. That's a decent showing against one of the Sox' better pitchers. Three doubles, a triple, and two home runs powered the Rangers offense. The highlight was Nelson Cruz almost getting a cycle, just missing the single. Cruz & Murphy both had good days with three hits apiece. Michael Young & Omar Vizquel each had two.

Darren O'Day & CJ Wilson followed up with scoreless innings. Really liking O'Day.

We did it, we came out of the Yankees/Red Sox road trip with a 3-3 record. Not bad at all. Obviously you want to go 6-0, but realistically that's not happening. I think most everyone is satisfied with 3-3 against those guys. Shows we can hang, which might be useful if this first place thing carries us into October.

Sorry for the brevity - it's 3AM, and I'm tired. :)