This game’s tone was set almost immediately. On the second pitch of the game, Brandon Inge hit a home run over the left field wall. Then Magglio Ordonez. Then Chris Shelton. Then Shelton again. Then Craig Monroe. Then Marcus Thames. And shortly after that, R.A. Dickey was pulled out of the game. Dickey tied a major league record for most home runs allowed by a single pitcher in a game. Later on in the game, Brian Shouse allowed one too, so we gave up 7 home runs to the Tigers. That’s a lot of flyballs. Dickey faced 18 batters, and six of them got home runs. Not good at all.
Dickey’s knuckleball looked nothing like the one that Wakefield threw against us. His allowed a lot of runs too, but his at least moved like a knuckleball. Dickey’s ball tonight looked more like a slow hanging slider. From the looks of it on TV, it seemed like I could hit. It didn’t look good at all. The only possible saving grace (and probably the only thing that allowed Dickey to be in there long enough to give up 6 of them) is that 5 of the 6 were solo home runs (the 6th was a 2 run job). If there were runners, I’m sure he would have been pulled sooner. The guys on Baseball Tonight said tonight that “R.A.” stood for “Runs allowed”.
On the positive side, Ian Kinsler had a great night, going 3 for 3 (and a walk) with his first career home run, plus he deked RF Magglio Ordonez on the basepaths and got a double out of a ball that by rights should have been a single. He looked quite good tonight offensively. He did bobble a couple of balls, and also comitted the first error by the Rangers. But he did look good out there, despite the error. Mark Teixeira also went 3 for 4.
Mike Young (who had another error in the same inning as Kinsler) went 3 for 5 with a 3 RBI double in the bottom of the ninth. Mark Teixeira was also 3 for 5 with one RBI. The only other two hits by Texas were Phil Nevin & Adrian Brown. We had a couple of guys with a lot of hits, and not many scattered through the rest of the lineup.
Fabio Castro made his major league debut tonight in relief of R.A. Dickey. Castro went 3.2 IP and gave up 2 runs (only 1 earned). His line wasn’t great, but he did pretty well in his major league debut. No obscene lines (like 6HR allowed).
Yeah, we lost this game from the beginning, but it wasn’t near as annoying to me as the 2-1 loss last night.