The Rangers lost a good performance by Kevin Millwood in this one. Kevin went seven innings, allowed just two earned runs (one unearned). Few too many hits (eight), and just one walk. Six strikeouts. Pretty good performance. He’s actually been pretty decent since his last stint on the DL. I don’t think he’s ever going to be the guy he was that one year in Cleveland while wearing Texas on his chest, but this end of year Millwood is a decent one. if only it could be harnessed all season, he’d be pretty darned good.
Hank Blalock continues to tear it up late this year, making people (myself included) if it actually might not be a bad idea to keep him in 2009. I know a lot has been said about we have other pieces we can use instead of Hank, but it now feels like he’ll still be here in 2009 to me. Question is, first or third?
Hank led the offense with a 3-5 night, and two runs scored. However, the big blow was a home run in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game. Frank Catalanotto got a triple (!) in a pinch hit role, and both German Duran & Milton Bradley had two hits. All the rest of our hits were scattered, with nobody getting more than one. 11 in all, we had one double, one triple, one home run, and eight singles.
Oakland played the carousel, using seven pitchers in all. Texas used five.
There was a lot of seesaw action early on. Rangers up 1-0, A’s up 2-1, Tied 2-2, A’s up 3-2 after the top of the third. Stayed that way for quite a long time, when the Rangers finally tied the game in the bottom of the ninth. However, Luis Mendoza gave up the winning run to the A’s in the top of the 11th, and we couldn’t tie it again.
Oh well. This did knock us out of second place, bit of a bummer there, everyone appeared to have assumed we were a lock for second place.
