When this game started, I thought we were going to walk away with it. We had a couple of home runs in the first inning, and were up 3-0 right away. But our pitching couldn’t hold it. Chan Ho Park gave up 5 runs in his 5 innings. RA Dickey gave up 3 runs (2ER) in his two innings. And Frankie Francisco, appealing his suspension, gave up a solo shot. Longballs did us in. We tried to come back with a couple in the ninth, but it wasn’t enough.
However, the bigger news of the day was the handing down of suspensions by Major League Baseball for the fracas in the bullpen last Monday. Frankie got 16 games, which is effectively the rest of the season, but I think it was declared to be 16 so that if he has a failed appeal, the games will carry over into next season, too. Doug Brocail got seven games, Carlos Almanzar got five games, and hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo got five games. All are appealing, and were in uniform for tonight’s game.
Additionally, it was found out that Alfonso Soriano is out for the rest of the season. There’s a lot of speculation that he may have played his last game as a Ranger. There’s a lot of options available if we want to go that way, but I’d be surprised if Ranger brass has made the decision on that for 2005 already.