G158: Rangers win well pitched game by 3-1 score

My last game of the season was going to be Friday night, but I fell sick on Friday afternoon, so I ate that ticket, and bought a cheapie one for tonight’s game (and moved to a better seat). Speaking of that, Victor Rojas said there was just over 30,000 at the park. No way. That might have been the number sold, but no way were there 30,000 in the park. I was there. Gotta love those numbers. :)
Anyway, I drove to the park expecting Jamey Wright to start. When I got there, I saw that AJ Murray was starting. OK, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, since he’s not one of my favorite pitchers, but I don’t actively dislike him, either. So OK, he’s starting. But he’s not a starter as such, so he won’t have a ton of stamina. Four innings, 70-75 pitches is probably what I figure he’d get. Well, we got better than that from Arlington John. His line was five innings pitched, five hits, one earned run, one walk, and four strikeouts on 73 pitches. His only blemish was a solo home run to Erick Aybar, which was his first career home run.
The home run by Aybar was actually the only extra base hit by either team. Combined the Rangers and Angels had 16 hits, all but one were singles.
Dustin Moseley started for the Angels, and he, like AJ Murray was making his first career start. Moseley was bit better in some regards than Murray, as Moseley didn’t give up any runs on four hits, although he pitched one less inning than Murray did. Then came old Rangers friend Darren Oliver. Oliver, who has been pitching well after the All Star break did not really pitch well tonight. He was’t awful, but the Rangers had just enough in the right places to combine it with a gift from Darren to get all three Rangers runs. The first Ranger run came on a balk by Oliver, scoring Kinsler. The other two runs came on subsequent singles by Blalock & Murphy. That was it for the Ranger scoring.
Michael Young was hitless, which was a bummer, I was hoping he’d go 3-4 while I was there to get 200 hits. Still, he needs 3 hits in four games, I’d say it’s a safe bet. Ian Kinsler however, did go 3-4 with three singles to left field. That was nice.
Bonehead move of the game goes to Reggie Willits who was on first when Orlando Cabrera flied out to David Murphy in right. For some reason, Willits had full jets on and was all the way at third when Murphy caught the ball, and he probably could have walked to first to double off Willits for an unassisted double play by the right fielder. He of course tossed it to Catalanotto for the Nelson Muntz double play at first.
It was a nice game. Well pitched, just enough offense to win, and the weather was pretty good, too. Plus I picked up a few of those free passes they were handing out so it will cover the games I go to in April & May (save for opening day).
On another note, JerryLandâ„¢ is starting to look more and more like a stadium. I’ve been watching it go up since they started real construction, and I can just imagine how much more finished it will look the next time I’m out in Arlington in early April. I will say this though. In the program tonight was a 6 page spread showing all the development that will happen inbetween and around the Ballpark and JerryLandâ„¢. I am NOT happy about it, as they’re eliminating almost all the really close parking. I need to digest it a bit more, but they’re calling this project “Glorypark”, and you can see some maps at the website for the overall project here. It will seriously change parking at the Ballpark. If you remember what it was like in 2003 going to games at Arlington Stadium when the Ballpark was being built, I imagine it will be those kind of nightmares all over again. I’m going to contact one of my friends at the Rangers and ask for permission to use some of the charts and diagrams and all that. At that point I’ll have a larger article on Glorypark with more to say.