Who would have thunk it? Certainly not me the way I was ragging on Padilla earlier on Wednesday. I don’t think most Ranger fans were really frothing at the mouth at the chance of seeing #44 pitch again. I sat down last night to watch the game, and bam – bam – bam. Padilla struck out the side in the first inning. That was very unexpected. And then something else happened. I fell asleep on the sofa.
Next thing I knew, I woke up right before Michael Young’s double in the sixth, so I missed most of Padilla’s performance. But the first inning was quite good. In all, Padilla went five innings, giving up just four hits and EIGHT strikeouts – wow. There were 15 outs while he was the pitcher, and he struck out eight of them. That was a very nice number. He did give up one unearned run. This was quite the performance. I understand five innings and 80 pitches on first start back from the DL, I’m sure that’s the reason he came out when he did.
CJ Wilson had his first shaky save – although not really his fault. There was a throwing error by Gerald Laird in the ninth, as well as a ball that just ate up Michael Young. Took a wicked hop, and went over his head, but knocked him on his backside at the same time – you don’t often see that, no matter who the fielder is. Two runs did score in the ninth, only one earned. We were helped out by a double play to end the game.
Some nice defense as two Royals were thrown out at the plate, one by Nelson Cruz, one by Marlon Byrd.
Offensively we were led by a two run double by Michael Young, and a solo home run by Ian Kinsler – Kinsler’s home run ended up being the difference, as it was the fourth and final run we got.
Nice win, wish I wasn’t unconscious for most of it. :)