This was a good old fashioned pitcher’s duel. Zack Greinke for the Royals against Scott Feldman for the Rangers.
Greinke has been getting a lot of hype for a CY Young award, and you could see why. He was masterful. Seven innings, three hits, one earned run, three walks, and TEN strikeouts. Actually, three walks doesn’t fit with “masterful”, but it felt that way anyway. Greinke made one mistake. Hung a ball to Marlon Byrd which he hit over the wall for a solo home run. Speaking of Byrd’s home run, did you catch the fan in the stands in the red Rangers shirt doing the Byrd dance? That made me laugh. :)
The Rangers were pretty much shut down – we had only four hits all night. A single by Davir Murphy, doubles by Elvis Andrus (which should have been an error) & Hank Blalock, and the home run by Byrd. That was IT. Most everyone took an ofer. But it was enough.
It was enough due to Scott Feldman, who was brilliant. EIGHT innings (a career high), four hits, three walks, two strikeouts, but ZERO runs. He left with 110 pitches thrown. Had he not had that many pitches, he might have gotten the chance for the complete game – he was looking that good. CJ Wilson threw a scoreless ninth for the save, allowing just one hit.
Our pitching was freakin’ fantastic. Wow. We win our fifth in a row. Didn’t pick up any ground on Anaheim (still 3.5 back there) or Bostson (2.5 back there). We did pick up a game over Seattle (who was shut out) – now three games up on them.