Sometimes there are games that are blowouts, and some are pitchers duels. Most are in between. This one was inbetween. Nobody terribly stunk up the joint, but it wasn’t dominating, either.
Matt Harrison took the mound and went 6.2 innings. Gave up four runs on no walks and eight hits. Also struck out eight. Was actually doing fairly well, until he gave up a “team cycle” to the Jays, giving up three runs. What I mean by that is the inning started off with a home run to JP Arencibia. Then was a double to Yunel Escobar, followed by a triple by Eric Thames. Finally Jose Bautista singled, completing the cycle in four straight batters. That was by far Harrison’s worst inning of the game, although he did also give up a run in the first on a pair of doubles by Thames & Lind. I want to call this an “OK” game for him, but when you give up four and don’t get past the seventh, it’s hard to do that. Still, it was’t awful.
On the other side, the Rangers got a run in each of the third, fourth, and fifth innings. That put us up 3-1 at the time, and then we went down, 4-3 via the aforementioned three run inning the Jays got.
That got us to the bottom of the ninth when we managed to go with three sacrifice bunts. Mike Napoli walked to start it off. Moreland got the first bunt, but reached on a throwing error. Ian Kinsler then bunted, and it went like it was designed. Next batter was a suicide squeeze, pulled off well as Elvis bunts again, scoring Napoli. The Jays intentionally walked Hamilton, and then Michael Young brought in the winning run via a single.
I remember being fairly annoyed when the Rangers lost the lead (I’m writing this a week after the game happened), but the walkoff certainly made up for that! :)