Scott Feldman has probably been our second most consistent starting pitcher this season, behind I’d say Vicente Padilla. So what do you do with a guy like that in the second half? Put him in the bullpen. There was some talk during the All Star break that Feldman would be going to the pen in the second half. The stated reason is one that’s hard to argue with, I suppose. He’s apparently either at, or about to pass his largest number of innings pitched in his career, I think they’re trying to protect him. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but don’t pitchers get stretched out in that regard by being pitched, and not protected? I guess it’s only a mild complaint, but when you get performances like we got this game, you don’t want him in the pen.
Scott Feldman tossed six innings, and allowed just one run on four hits. Had three walks, which isn’t great, but there were three double plays turned behind Scott. The pen was quite good too. Three guys followed Scott (Francisco, Guardado, Wright), and between them there was just one hit allowed (Guardado). Great pitching performance. It’s too bad they can’t be consistent for a great length of time – look at our last dozen or so scores, they’re not consistently showing this great pitching game after game.
Offensively, it’s a tale of home runs. Five of our six home runs were accounted for by the longball. Classic Texas Rangers offense. There was a three run shot by Josh Hamilton in the third inning, and there was a two run shot by Hank Blalock in the eighth, his first home run in bloody ages. Given we had six runs, we didn’t have a ton of hits (just eight). Half of them were doubles, though, so we had four doubles, two home runs, and two singles.
Was a nice win, and nice to see Blalock get back on the HR chart. Probably should savor those, as I can’t imagine he’ll be a Ranger come 2009.