Early on, I thought we were in trouble.
Matt Harrison was anything but sharp. He gave up four runs in this game, two of them in the first inning. A third in the second inning, and the final one in the fifth. That he was even out there in the fifth to give up that last one was a bit of a surprise to me. He was totally ineffective.
Jake Peavy, on the other hand was pretty dominant through the lineup in the first three innings. In fact, other than walk to Mike Napoli in the second inning, Peavy would have gotten through 1-9 perfectly, 9 up 9 down. Peavy actually started into the fourth inning like that, too. First two guys down.
Then the wheels fell off. Michael Young singled sharply into left field for the Rangers first hit of the game. Was a clean hit, too. OK, that was done, but it seemed like that hit took all the air out of Peavy oddly enough. Nelson Cruz followed that up with a double down the left field line, scoring Michael Young. OK, we’re on the board. Napoli walked again for the second time in the game. It set the stage for Mitch Moreland, and in a swing that reminded me of Hank Blalock’s shot against Eric Gagne here some years ago in the All Star game, Mitch jacked one out to right center field for a three run home run, giving us the lead.
After the home run, Peavy settled down a bit. 1-2-3 in the fifth, but the sixth.. nope. Josh Hamilton had an epic at bat in the sixth. It went ten pitches, and he fouled off something like five or six pitches in a row. Forget the exact number, but it was at least five of them. On the tenth pitch of the bat, he tattoed one that was a total no doubter off the bat. The right fielder looked a bit, but barely moved. Went 3/4 of the way up the crowd in right. Solo home run, and a great battle. Mike Napoli also singled this inning, at least personally earning his base with his bat this time. Mitch Moreland followed it with his second home run of the game and his fourth & fifth RBI’s of the night. As I have Moreland on a couple of my fantasy teams, that was a good night for me.
That was the end of the scoring, the White Sox didn’t do anything in their last four frames, and the Rangers didn’t add any more. But it was over, anyway.
Tateyama had come on in the fifth inning, and put out not a huge fire, but picked up Matt Harrison. Tateyama was quite good this night. 2.2 innings pitched, the only thing he allowed was a single walk.
Mike Adams & Neftali Feliz also pitched perfect innings too – one each. The pen was rock solid tonight, showing it’s much improved variant since the trading deadline.
This was a solid win, one I think we needed after the disappointment of the walkoff in Anaheim the night before. Feeling good about the rest of this series.