A very nice day at the Ballpark for a game. Sunny, cool, a perfect Sunday afternoon. Of course, I left with sunburn on the right side of my face because I never remember to use sunblock. :)
Anyway, Rick Helling came out and threw a LOT of pitches. I was scoring the game, and for some reason, the number of pitches really seemed to concern me – he was at 75 through the first three innings. Rick gave up runs in the top of the first, a disturbing trend in just about every game the Rangers have had so far this season. However, that was about it for him. He did give up another run later in the game, but he seemed like he was never totally in control. He had 7 strikeouts in 6 innings, but really seemed to have to work for everything he got. What I didn’t realize is that I looked at the line score right before he came out, and realized that he had only given up four hits over 6 innings – and one of the runs was unearned (via one of three Alicea errors on the day). It didn’t really seem like he was overpowering at all at the game, but the line score shows it – only 2 earned runs over 6 innings, and 4 hits. A “Quality Start” by the technical defintion of the word. :)
On the other side of the coin, we got a long ball from Raffy, but the rest of the game was hits here and there that happened to be bunched together at the right time. We had three doubles and a triple in the game – coupled with some walks, we got more than enough runs across the plate. I liked the offense today – we scored runs, but it wasn’t all on the longball (in fact, Raffy’s solo HR was the only run from a long ball).
Relief pitching was great, too. Venafro only pitched to one batter, but Francsico Cordero looked great, and Jeff Zimmerman looked the most dominating I’ve seen him all year so far (including spring training). John Wetteland should have had an easy inning, but the third Alicea error of the game allowed two unearned runs to score, making the game a bit closer in the score than it should have been.
Overall a great game on a Sunday afternoon. I love my new season ticket seats – they have such a great vantage point – there’s nothing you can’t see from where I sit. On to the Bronx on Tuesday. Ugh.
