When you’re in last place for the better part of four years, you take particular pleasure in a series sweep of anyone. It’s positively orgasmic when the series sweep is against the Yankees, and the cigarette afterwards is the fact that it happened in the Bronx! I can’t say the losses came for a more deserving team. The Rangers pulled off a feat that they have never done in the 42 years this club has been in existence (counting the Senators days, too). That’s take a series sweep of the Yankees in New York (of 3 games or more).
The story of today was John Thomson. He pitched a 3 hit complete game, giving up just a lone run. He walked 5 (a career high), and threw 134 pitches (also a career high). He lookd great, and quite frankly, he looked like the pitcher we’re paying $13 million a year to who has given us squat. Thomson is starting to look like an awesome pickup – if he continues on like this, he should be signed to a couple of year contract! Of the three hits Thompson gave up, two were to Soriano – the entire rest of the Yankees lineup was held in check. Spectacular.
What’s more surprising is that we scored as many runs as we did off Mike Mussina. Going into this game, he was 7-1 with an ERA of 2.02! He gave up four runs in his seven innings (3 earned). It raised his ERA to 2.22. ;) Arod came out of his slump going 2-4. Carl Everett & Raffy also had two hits each, but the big one was Juan Gonzalez’ 2 run home run which gave us the lead we never relinquished.
A nice moment happened before the game when Roger Clemens presented Raffy with a plaque commemorating his 500th home run – and he got a standing O from the Yankee Stadium crowd of 50,000. I wish they would have shown all of that on TV.
We now have 12 games against the Devil Rays & the Orioles. We have a habit of playing down to teams we’re supposed to beat. I hope that the sweep of the Yankees prevents that from happening, I’d really love to pick up some ground, and possibly come out of those 12 games at 500.
