Well, that was annoying. I didn’t think games 1 & 3 would be topped for annoying losses.
I was wrong.

Darnit. This was the same way we lost the first game in the series, more or less.
Here’s the bottom line. Kevin Millwood was great through six. Stunk up the joint worse than any pitcher the Rangers have ever had in the seventh. Lost the game, 4-1.
Made me mad.
That’s pretty much it.

This is good old classic Texas Rangers baseball. Much has been made of the 2009 edition being built on the classic baseball axiom of “pitching and defense”. That much is true, our pitching and defense is improved this year. But Friday night’s win was pretty much the old fashioned way of doing it. We homered our way to the win.
It’s ironic that we win where 100% of our runs were accounted for by home runs on the day that Nelson Cruz was added to the All-Star roster (replacing injured Torii Hunter), and the night we heard that Cruz was going to participate in the home run derby.
It got started in the second inning when Hank Blalock hit a ball way out over the right center field fence. You kind of saw Ichiro making a half hearted jog in the general direction, so you knew it was gone before the ball was seen on TV.
The next inning was a three run shot by Michael Young. This was an opposite field job, which Ichiro came within inches of making a spectacular steal of the home run ball, but it landed a mere inches past his glove. This home run gave us the lead back – we were down 2-1 at that point. Nice for Young to get some numbers going again. He’s got 106 hits at the moment just slightly past the halfway point. As long as he stays on the field, 200 shouldn’t be a problem again.
The third and final home run was by Nelson Cruz. It was a titanic shot into the upper tank in left field. It was WAY up there – you don’t normally see home runs hit up there. Perhaps Seattle fans do as they see more games in that park than we do, but I can only recall a shot by Arod going up there awhile back. But it was an absolute no doubter of a shot, even Nelson stood there and watched for a bit.
Scott Feldman started the game, and had a pretty good outing. Six and two thirds innings giving up seven hits, one walk, and just two earned runs. Not a bad outing. Derek Holland followed up on him, and technically allowed two earned runs, but htey scored on a hit off of Jason Jennings. Shame.
Frank Francisco came in and pitched a scoreless inning of relief to get his fifteenth save of the season.
Overall, a nice win. Hopefully we can win out in Seattle and go into the break on a strong note. We remain a half game ahead of Anaheim for the division lead, and Seattle is now 4.5 games back.

Tommy Hunter got screwed. He pitched six innings, allowing just four hits. No runs, three walks. 104 pitches. He was quite good. He matched Felix Hernandez very well. Felix went eight innings, three hits one run.
It was a spectacular pitching matchup. In fact, the one run we only had was on a wild pitch after a double steal. Definitely a manufactured gift run. The only three hits we got were all singles. Two of them were by Hank Blalock, and the other was Michael Young. That’s it. That was the sum of our offense.
So to come out of that in the late innings with a 1-0 lead was quite impressive. The fact that we could win the game with so little offense was quite surprising.
So the three run home run that CJ Wilson gave up in the bottom of the eighth was particularly annoying. When the ball was hit, all I could think of was “Shit!”. That’s pretty much my one word review of this game.
SHIT.

Well, this game was really about one thing. Well, two.
The most important one was the fact that the Rangers took over sole possession of first place again. This win was a big deal, as we went into Anaheim not solely in first place, and left with sole possession of first. That’s a big deal.
However, the sexier thing was the fact that Andruw Jones had a three home run night. He had one in the first, one in the third, and one in the fifth. Only four RBI’s though – two of them were solo home runs. Those weren’t the only home runs, though. Two other Rangers had them – Taylor Teagarden & Marlon Byrd. So this was a big power game. Nice that it was us with the power instead of the other way around. We also had a couple of doubles, so seven of the 12 hits were extra base ones. That’s a nice display, for sure.
Josh Hamilton & Elvis Andrus took ofers, but everyone else had at least one hit. Three guys had two, so it was nice offensive display to leave in the mind of the Angels as we left town with the lead.
Vicente Padilla had a good outing. Six innings, and just one earned run. A few too many hits (eight), but it didn’t damage his line. Six innings of one run ball is always a good thing. Jason Grilli, Eddie Guardado, & Darren O’Day came within one walk (Grilli) of throwing three perfect innings of relief. Something really nice.
Speaking of Darren O’Day, I was hearing some love for that pickup on XM Radio’s MLB talk channel this afternoon, so that’s nice to hear.
Boy, was this nice to come out of Anaheim the way we did.

Again, I refuse to call them the Los Angeles Angels. They’re in Anaheim. Sorry Moreno.
I think pretty much everyone figured that John Lackey was going to last more than two pitches, and he’d be the good pitcher he really is. Last night was certainly the chase there. At least for awhile. Through the first four and two thirds, Lackey was putting up zeroes. We had a few chances, but he always danced his way out of trouble. Then came the fifth inning.
Elvis Andrus tried bunting for a single, but hit it poorly, it went straight towards the pitcher, so he was thrown out. After that, Ian Kinsler struck out swinging. Looked like another Lackey style inning. Then, as Josh Lewin said, the wheels came completely off. Seven straight Rangers reached base. After two outs! Here’s a rundown:

1. Single by Michael Young
2. Single by Josh Hamilton
3. Home Run by Andruw Jones (on a two strike count, if I remember right)
4. Double by Hank Blalock
5. Walk by Marlon Byrd
6. Walk by David Murphy
7. Wild Pitch, scoring Blalock
8. Single by Saltamaccha, scoring Byrd & Murphy

After that, John Lackey was pulled from the game. He was relieved by Mark Bulger who stopped the bleeding in that inning. That was a six run outburst, all after two outs in that inning. Most impressive.
Overall, our offense managed fourteen hits. Only one guy took an ofer, that being David Murphy. But even David managed a walk, and scored, too.
Pitching for us was led by Dustin Nippert, who looked quite different with that beard. Also, he appeared to be wearing a rather thick necklace, which may have been new. The reason I think that is that he had a big tag of some sort on his left shoulder. It was either from his uniform, or the necklace. It was gone after the first inning. :) Anyway, Nippert was making his 2009 debut, and wasn’t terribly great. He didn’t survive the fourth inning. Gave up seven hits and a walk for three runs overall. The run output wasn’t horrible, but seven hits in less than four innings is not. He was “meh”. I’ve seen worse lines, but was really far away from even “just good”.
That forced our pen into action early. Derek Holland threw two innings of relief, and allowed just a single hit. He also allowed a run, but it was unearned. In what would have been his final batter, Saltamacchia dropped an easy popup in front of the plate. Holland was relieved, and Jason Jennings had some issues getting guys out (he walked two more, loading the bases before getting out of it). Anyway, Holland was quite good. Two innings, 19 pitches, no runs. The rest of the pen only allowed a single run, and that was from Frank Francisco, who gave up a solo home run in the bottom of the ninth. While Jennings didn’t allow any runs, he had some major control problems, and probably should have had a few runs on his book the way he pitched. Darren O’Day & CJ Wilson looked good, too.
The first game of the formal second half of the season put us back into a tie for first place with Anaheim.