This was a weird day for Rangers fans. At the beginning of the day, everyone was reeling from the horrible loss the night before. Even Jamey Newberg got into the depression by sending out a report that said:
Just a brutal day
For Texas Rangers baseball.
Nothing else to say.
It was a really ugly loss the night before in every sense of the word. Then we woke up to the news that the ownership situation was thrown another curveball, with some quotes coming out that it seemed to be that Greenberg/Ryan are no longer a lock despite the legal dancing. That was really quite sad. It likely will still happen, but it’s not a dead set lock anymore. Then around noon, it all got worse with the news that the Yankees were acquiring Cliff Lee from the Mariners. I was at Red Robin at the time with my daughter for lunch, and I saw all the headlines on the ESPN tickers about that, and got really bummed out.
When I got home, I was looking around on the net, and saw some stories that the Yankees were not getting him, and then the word came out a little later that it was the Texas Rangers getting him, I was rather excited. Anyone reading this blog knows I’m also a Phillies fan, so I know Lee well from his time in Philly last year. I’ll write more about Cliff Lee on a separate entry, this one is technically about the game against the Orioles on the 9th.
So it was with the fact that Cliff Lee was inbound that I approached the game last night. Yeah, the game before that was bad, but I figured that couldn’t happen two nights again against the Orioles (a team that actually has a worse record than the Pirates), and the Cliff Lee euphoria. It was announced that Chris Davis was back from AAA, and would be our regular first baseman, so I was excited to see if what he learned in AAA would translate, or if he’d be Nelson Cruz again (one of those 4A hitters). Scott Feldman started the game, and while he looked rocky early, he ended up with a pretty decent line overall. He went seven innings, allowing eight hits, no walks, but just two runs. Some of his cutters were of the 2009 vintage, the kind that earned him 17 wins. If he figures it out for the second half, it will be like we traded for a great pitcher, and it didn’t cost anything to get him!
Our big inning was the third, when we scored four runs, pretty much powered by a three run home run by Vlad Guerrero. It barely got out over the left field wall, and it wasn’t the kind of swing you thought would be a home run, but there you go. Was Vlad’s 20th of the season, and I believe his 75th RBI as well. Was feeling good, especially when we got two more runs in the bottom of the 8th to go up 6-2 at the time. Chris Davis came into the game late and worked a good count and got a sac fly. The other run was another sac fly by Kinsler.
Then Neftali Feliz fell victim to the same mess that Francisco had the night before. Long story short, he gave up a grand slam to Corey Patterson which tied the game at 6 in the top of the ninth. We didn’t do anything in the bottom, and then to make it worse, Dustin Nippert gave up another solo home run in the top of the 10th, and we lost the game. I actually missed the end of it, because at this time it was after 1AM – the game was delayed two and a half hours by rain at the start, and then the game itself was freakin’ long (three hours and fifty one minutes). I had fallen asleep. I woke up and actually saw us down 7-6, but missed the home run that caused it, and I was so heavy tired, I just stopped watching and went to sleep. Didn’t see we had lost the game until the morning.
That was annoying. As I said earlier up, the Orioles have the worst record in the majors, and up until two nights ago had NEVER won a game this season where they were trailing after 7 innings. Then they go and do it twice in a row against us. That’s sad.
But hey, Cliff Lee pitches tomorrow night! w00t!