I probably wasn’t the only one watching this game thinking Kenny was nervous in the first inning. He gave up a double, a single, and a home run, and we were down 3-0 after just one out into the game. Quite honestly, I expected more boos out of the crowd. I think it would have happened if Kenny had not apologized a couple of days ago, but I’m tired of talking about that situation. But after that, Kenny settled down nicely, as those were the only runs he gave up. Kenny wasn’t totally sharp tonight, he did give up 8 hits (no walks), but pitched well enough to earn his 10th win of the season.
Offensively, we exploded for seven runs in the third inning on a barrage of hits (I think 8 in a row, three of which were home runs) after there were two outs in the third. Gary Matthews got it going with a home run to left that TV quite clearly showed was foul, but was ruled a home run – even after the umps got together and discussed it. If that was ruled foul, and Gary was out after that, we wouldn’t have gotten any of those 7 runs. So thank you Blue. We tacked on two more in the fourth, and three more in the sixth to go up 12-3. I was feeling quite comfortable. Kenny was rolling. Mark Teixeira had two home runs, 6 RBI, and 4 hits overall. Things were good.
Until our bullpen decided to roll over and die in the 9th. Kameron Loe was good in the 8th, but in the 9th, Juan Dominguez & Doug Brocail came on. Between the two of them, they faced 7 batters, and got no one out. We gave up a 7 spot to match the one we ourselves got earlier in the game. We managed to hang on, mostly because Francisco Cordero had to come on after our 9th inning debacle allowed it to become a save situation again.
We got the win, but it shouldn’t have been anywhere near as close as it was. The Angels lost again too, so we’re back up to 6 games down. If we can sweep tomorrow, we could go into the break 5 games down, which I think is better than most of us anticipated after the first two games of the Anaheim series here two weeks ago.
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