A win against the Yankees! That’s always a good way to end a game. I didn’t get to see it unfortunately. Fox Sports Southwest in my area screwed up again. The game was nationally televised on ESPN, and that was blacked out, and FSS was supposed to be showing it. Well, the showed the damn Astros game again. Methinks it’s time to write to someone about it. :( I was flipping back and forth between the radio and television, as my wife and I were watching a movie, as well as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
About the Rangers game.. :) We did it primarily with the big inning again. Those are always fun to see, but I prefer a more even win. A win is a win, but for me they seem better when you don’t get all your runs at once. The Yankees started it off again with a home run (we seem to give up a lot of them to these guys), but Todd Zeile evened it up again with a solo home run. Jorge Posada put the Yanks up again with another home run in the 5th, and then we got a couple right back with a Lee Stevens double and a sac fly by Goodwin. Lee Stevens continues to look really good, which might make things difficult for Johnny Oates when Raffy is ready for the field again.
We got into the 7th, and when the Yankees are leading after 6, they’re virtually unbeatable. Then we had another 5 run explosion. It was capped off (IMHO) by Juan Gonzalez’ two run single with the bases loaded – finally delivering in the clutch (they had walked Greer to get to Juan). Zeile (who I really really like this year) then doubled and scored two more. All this put the Rangers ahead for good.
Munoz pitched very well, earning a win (Clark continues to be somewhat unreliable to ineffective, which doesn’t seem like the promise when he came here), and John Wetteland got right back on the horse after last night. He did give up a solo home run to Tino Martinez, but that was about it, earning his MLB leading 7th save.
All in all a good win, but I would have preferred the win be more even, not with a 5 run inning again.
Commentary by Jim Meeks:
It wasn’t pretty, but the Rangers hocus-pocused their way to victory Wednesday over the Yankees.
Coming from behind, the Rangers made the most of their hits in the later innings – especially key were hits from Lee Stevens (who continues to hit left handed pitching well) and Juan Gonzalez, who’s power is MIA but still has 16 RBI (about half of what league leader Manny Ramirez has) and is on pace to drive in over 120 for the year.
The Rangers – like the Yankees yesterday – clawed their way out of a hole. The 7th inning was pivotal as they leveled what is usually the Yankees dead-pan bullpen. They battered lefty Mike Stanton, then took on Jeff Nelson. When the inning was over, they had plated 5 runners on 5 hits.
The rubber game of the series is Thursday..