If there ever was a game to bring some good feeling back (even just temporarily after falling 8.5 games back), this was it. 8 home runs, 18 runs, 15 hits, at least one hit by every starter. At least one run scored by every starter. A call that went our way (the home run by the angels that was denied). This was a good game.
Chris Young only went 5 innings, but given the temperature out there, and the fact that he had almost 30 some odd pitches in the first inning probably contributed to that. Young also struck out 7 in his 5 innings. He’s looking pretty good at the moment. Juan Dominugez pitched two innings of shutout relief. Overall, I say our pitching was pretty good today. Not awesome, but pretty decent.
Offensively, where do you start? As I said above, 18 runs on 15 hits. That means we had a total of 7 hits that weren’t home runs. Of those 7, three were doubles. Kevin Mench had three home runs, matching Alex Rodriguez’s team record for that. I also thought Victor Rojas got extremely excited at Mench’s third home run – I was listening over the internet at work, and had to laugh – his voice got so excited, I think he overloaded his microphone being too close. Enjoyed that, Vic! :)
We’re still 6.5 games out, and headed to Seattle. Kenny Rogers is in tow, but as I write this (3PM on Fri), the verdict on his punishment is still not delivered from Bud Selig. So whether Kenny pitches at all on this trip (he’s supposed to go Sunday) remains to be seen. I would have preferred going on the road with a better record than we got. We’re still 6.5 games behind the Angels. That’s a daunting proposition as we don’t play them again directly till the end of September. Still, it could have been a lot worse. After game two of this series, I think most Ranger fans expected us to lose all of ’em and be 10.5 games back.
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