No time to do an update for this game. Way too busy with other projects at the moment.

No time to do an update for this game. Way too busy with other projects at the moment.

No time to do an update for this game. Way too busy with other projects at the moment.

No time to do an update for this game. Way too busy with other projects at the moment.

The Rangers return home from Baltimore on a red eye, their plane landing at 4:15AM. I wonder how much of that played into the Rangers play tonight. They hit into four double players, which effectively killed any of the rallies they tried starting. We did get four runs, three of them coming on home runs. The only other one was a Michael Young single, which was the only time a rally worked for us, really.
The player by far with the best night was Brad Wilkerson. He went 4 for 4 with the two run home run, three singles, and a run scored. Outside of Wilkerson, no Ranger had more than one hit. We seemed flat, which again could have been due to the travel time from Baltimore.
Pitching wise, Kam Loe was victimized by an error by Travis Metcalf that was the major catalyst for the Mariners seven run sixth. Of the seven runs they scored, five of them were unearned. Shame, as he was fairly decent until the mess in the sixth, which could have been mostly avoided.
Adam Melhuse was dfa’ed today. To be honest, I’m surprised that didn’t happen sooner. He was dead weight once we got Saltamacchia, and he wasn’t going to be around long term. Hopefully he can catch on with someone in the last week before playoff roster eligibility is cut off. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but got squeezed out in a roster move. Later Adam, we barely knew ‘ye.
I finally made it out to the ballpark on a Thursday for their “Thirsty Thursday” promotion. The $1 soft drinks are 12 ounces – the size of a soda can. Technically less with the ice in there. I think if you take three or four of them together they come up to the size of the $5.50 giant cup soda. So it’s still a discount somewhat, although not the enormous discount the “$1 soda” seems to scream. The $1 ice cream on Sunday is a much better deal. The $3 beer on “Thirsty Thursday’s” might be a little better, as the regular $6 beers are 18 ounces I believe, and the discounted one is $3 for 12. Course I can get a longneck 12oz beer for a $1 at home, so hey… :)
To wrap it up, does Mike Ogulnick even LISTEN to the radio broadcast? He started off the show by saying how great the Mariners pitching staff is when he was praising them, but if he had been listening, he would have noticed that Eric & Victor had spent time talking about how pedestrian their pitching staff actually is. They talked about how low the M’s are in terms of the ranking of overall pitching staffs. Once again Ogulnick made me turn off the postgame show due to something silly he said. Can we please get Busby back on there? Busby wasn’t afraid to tell someone they were wrong, even his own co-host.

OK, it’s not a traditional sweep, but we swept the doubleheader. :)
We won game two, but not nearly as convincingly as Game 1. John Rheinecker took the mound for the second game, and went five innings. He gave up 5 runs (4 earned) on 6 hits, 5 walks (way too many), and 3 strikeouts. Two of those 6 hits were home runs. It wasn’t particularly a good outing. Still, after the drunken euphoria that was game 1, I think this performance got overlooked. :) Frank Francisco wasn’t particularly good, either. 0.1 innings pitched, three walks, two earned runs. Ugh. The rest of our pen threw shutout ball. The last two (Benoit & Wilson) were the big deals. Benoit had a weird line, in that he gave up no runs, but had a blown save. I’m sure Francisco loved that. Anyway, CJ Wilson got the save, and probably will compete in spring next year with Aki to be the Rangers closer in 2008.
The Orioles pitching wasn’t great either, but not nearly as mind bogglingly awful as they were in Game 1. The starter (Olson), and the second reliever (Hoey) combined for 6 innings, giving up 8 hits, 9 earned runs, and walking 5. The other two relievers (Bradford & Walker) gave up nothing.
Offensively, it was a lot of singles for the most part. We had 11 hits in all, and just one double. Michael Young was 3-5, Sammy Sosa was 2-5, Nelson Cruz was 2-5, and Travis Metcalf was 2-3. In fact, Metcalf was the one with the double, and drove in four RBI. That’s a combined eight RBI for Travis in the doubleheader.
What a night. 39 runs also sets a modern record for runs scored in a doubleheader. It was a record setting night in Baltimore. All seven hours worth at the park.