Ryan Dempster continues to show that he’s been a great pickup, and someone I want to see the Rangers make a run at for 2013. Dempster went seven innings, and allowed just two runs on seven hits and one walk. Struck out eight. Striking out batters seems to be a strong point by our pitching staff overall this season. Not like we strike out 10+ batters each game, but we’re doing it a lot more often than before.
Koji Uehara & Joe Nathan both threw perfect innings of relief each. So overall, great pitching night for sure.
We got out early in this game. Pretty quickly, too. Led off the game with a double by Kinsler. Elvis singled. Hamilton grounded out, but then Adrian Beltre jacked a three run home run. That was pretty much all the offense we needed, as Cleveland only managed two runs. Josh Hamilton made up for the groundout in the bottom of the third by hitting his 41st home run of the season, a solo shot. The final Rangers run came on a sac fly in the bottom of the fourth. But the home run in the first pretty much set the tone of the game. Felt like a win from that point.
Beltre had to come out of the game in the fifth with a strained left shoulder. He was replaced by Mike Olt at third, but then Olt himself had to come out of the game in the seventh when he aggravated some inflammation in his left heel. Not only that, Josh “Injury” Hamilton had to come out in the 8th with a sore left knee. Don’t like that so many guys came out with injuries. Given it’s September, none are likely to cause them to miss a ton of time. If this was earlier in the season, they might miss time. But not now.
Hopefully none are really threatening, as we need these guys going down the stretch.