I was really enjoying this game. Even going into extra innings I was enjoying it. John Wasdin did far better than I anticipated. I normally don’t enjoy extra inning games, because we lose them, especially if they end in the 10th, but if we get past the 10th, we tend to do OK. Then Anderson hit a grand slam, and I got all annoyed. I was ready to put the big deficit in the standings behind us emotionally until the grand slam. That was a major downer.
Dammit.
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My stepfather was in town visiting us (mostly to see his Granddaughter I would think). But anyway, we decided to take him to this game with some vouchers I had. Good thing I didn’t pay much for these tickets. That was disgusting. It was so annoying I don’t want to write much about the game.
Gerald Laird was here. I didn’t know he had been called up, so it was a surprise to see his name listed in the starting lineup.
7.5 back at almost the halfway point. Not insurmountable, but YIKES!
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Rod Barajas won his job when Gerald Laird suffered an injury early in the 2004 season. Rod Barajas had to leave this game with an injury, does that mean that Gerald Laird will get his job back? We’ll see..
Chan Ho Park pitched pretty decently (7IP, 5H, 2ER), but we wasted it, when we lost 3-2 in 10 innings. Andy Pettite pitched like the Pettite of old, going 9 innings, 7H, 2R (1ER), and basically outdueled Park. Kameron Loe kept us in it, by not giving up any run in his two innings, but Juan Dominguez came in and immediately walked two, and gave up the winning run. Annoying, given how poorly we’ve been playing lately, and given the slide we’ve gone into. We need all the wins we can get if we’re going to tread water long enough to stay in the playoff race. Granted, the season isn’t half over yet, but it feels somewhat dismal at the moment.
Probably might have something to do with the disappearance of our starting rotation (released, waived, punched a wall).
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Well, we finally won a game. Early on this game felt like ours from the start, and the Astros didn’t have a chance. We were out 6-0 after 3. Chris Young had a no hitter going into the sixth inning. This was our game. But the June 2005 edition of the Texas Rangers almost allowed it to get away.
Chris Young & Mike Young were the story of this game. Chris Young went 7 innings and gave up 3 runs -a good start by all measurable accounts; it felt marred though given the way he exited, having given up a bunch of runs at the end. Mike Young continued to own Brandon Backe, going 9 for 9 career against him after his first two at bats. Both of which were home runs.
Cordero had to come in and get a save in game when he shouldn’t have had to. We won, but it didn’t feel all that good to me.
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Sigh. Lost our fifth 5 in a row to an Astros team that doesn’t look like the Astros team that we whomped on a few weeks ago in Arlington.
Osawlt looked like he was tossing a shutout, he gave up two back to back solo home runs to Barajas & Nix, but that was it. It was Oswalt’s game. Definitely not ours.
We need a win.

Not good. Not good at all.

No time to write, although there’s not much to write about. Looks like the old Chan Ho Park is back, and that can’t be good. We did make an attempt to come back at the end of the game, but it was too little too late.
Only real good thing is that Pedro Astacio has been released. But Chan Ho remains, and Drese is gone. Go figure.

These west coast games are murder on my personal viewing habits. They start at 9PM, which is when my wife and I pretty much go into “Let’s start getting the baby ready for bed” mode, which mostly involves washing bottles, and getting ’em ready for the next day. So by the time the baby is asleep, and the wife’s gone to bed is when I get time to myself where I can watch the Rangers game. By this time it’s almost 11:30, and I’m not going to make it through 3 hours of a game, so I watch games in fast forward. I watched this entire game in about 45 minutes last night forwarding on my TiVo. Would have been asleep otherwise. Thanks Mr Hicks for letting MLB off the hook about moving us to the AL Central. That’s become a regular complaint of mine lately. I’m fairly sure it won’t do a damn thing, but I still want to gripe about it. Now if TiVo could figure out how to put those 9PM games at 7PM where they should be, I’d be happy. :)
Given the fact we got behind immediately didn’t help much – that makes me want to skip forwards anyway. :) Chris Young gave up a home run to Vlad Guerrero. No shame in that, Vlad can hit a home run on a ball 6 inches below the dirt. But it still doesn’t make for a good game when he hits one in the first inning. That kind of sets the tone for the game, and it’s never a good one. Thing is Paul Byrd never let us in the game. He had an amazingly low pitch count (92 pitches over 9 innings). He allowed 6 hits, and just one earned run, which was Dellucci’s solo home run. This was definitely Paul Byrd’s game.
As a Phillies fan, I remember Paul Byrd when he pitched in Philly, and as well when he pitched for Atlanta. For the most part he was a pitcher you groaned at when he took the hill. Don’t know what’s going on Anaheim, but he certainly seems to have figured it out. At the least last night he did anyway. He killed us, and with Guerrero also on the stick (har har), we didn’t have much of a chance.
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The Father’s Day stuff continued with me on Sunday. After attending the game on Saturday night, I spent a nice day with my wife and my daughter. We went out to the big mall in Frisco to a place called Build a Bear. I made a big polar bear for Samantha to have, and then Lynn and I went out for something to eat afterwards. The reason I mention this is that we left the house at 1PM, right when the Rangers game is on. We live in South Garland, so it took us a little while to drive all the way out to Frisco where the RoughRiders play. Listened to the game till I got out of the truck. When I left the truck, it was 2-0. When I got back in the truck after walking around the mall for awhile, it was 8-1.
I missed just about everything that happened in this game, so I don’t have a lot of insight into it. From what I can read it appears that CJ Wilson did pretty good. His line isn’t all that great (3.2 IP, 3ER, 2K, 0BB), but it would appear they weren’t hitting him hard. It could have quite easily been 0ER from what I can gather, so I suspect he’ll get another shot at it. The only real star for us offensively was Alfonso Soriano, who was 3 for 4. That was odd, as he has no runs scored, and no RBI’s so while he did go 3 for 4, it wasn’t terribly productive. The team as a whole outside of Sori only had 4 hits total for the game.
Doug Brocail didn’t give up much of anything in his 3.1IP of relief. In fact, he had 6 strikeouts, no walks, and just one hit. A really good performance, but I personally don’t have a lot of confidence in him. I hope to be proven wrong, though. Jason Standridge pitched for Texas, and didn’t fare too well. He gave up 4 hits and 3ER plus a walk in his two thirds of an inning pitched, giving him one of those goofy ERA’s of 40.50. Cordero game on for an inning of work. Usually that means he’ll give up two or three runs, but he went 1-2-3, which was unusual for him in those circumstances.
Esteban Loaiza was supposed to start this game for the Nationals, but he was scratched. Spot starter Sun Woo Kim started in his place, which meant we weren’t going to do good at all. Of the spot starters we faced this year, they’ve dominated us. I hate facing those guys, we never seem to do much of anything against guys who weren’t supposed to start that day.
On to Anaheim. I know it’s not make or break, but I have to imagine losing 2 or getting swept out there won’t be good. Need to win 2 out of 3 out there, and then most of next week’s games back here.
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