I had gone to the first game of this series, and they lost. I had tickets to last night’s game, but couldn’t use ’em and gave ’em to a friend. They won. I figured that clinched it – they’d lose game 3. And after going down 6-0, I was pretty convinced of it.

This game can be called Mike Lamb’s (not so) Excellent Adventure!

Mike Lamb actually got booed in the game – although I think it was more of a byproduct of the Rangers season than Lamb’s performance in this game as such. I felt bad for him back there – he really never got it together with Burba – he should probably be learning this at AAA, but we don’t have much choice at the moment, unfortunately. My wife even got mad with the booing and stood up and screamed “Give the kid a break!” :)

What a game – Lamb’s passed ball, the three wild pitches allowing a bunch of runs to score, Lamb’s general ineffectiveness behind the plate (they also stole two or three bases on him), plus other fun like 5 pitchers in an inning, John Rocker (any time he’s there it’s nothing if not interesting), Todd Van Poppel’s trip off the front of the mound, and 5 consecutive hits capped with a home run as part of a 7 spot 5th inning.. Definitely a fun game to watch. Our offense finally woke up, let’s see if we can carry it over to the Cleveland series.We ended up winning a game we probably didn’t deserve to and won our second series of the year, and only the second time we’ve won two games in a row – but then when you’ve won only 7 anyway, that’s not all THAT surprising. A nice day out at the ballpark for the game, too. Was cloudy and a bit chilly, but afternoon baseball is always cool. I’m just lucky that I have a flexible job where I can go see these.

The Topes Win! The Topes Win! (Simpsons reference for the uninformed).
While I will always take a win, I have to be concerned that we only scored 3 to do it. Kenny Rogers continued his awesome start to the season, and overall, it was a well pitched game. I’m really starting to like Calvin Murray – even if he reminds me a lot of Tom Goodwin. Skinny dude, fast, doesn’t hit a lot.
Our relief pitching was pretty good, too. Rudy Seanez allowed nothing, as did Hideki Irabu for a save. Toronto’s pitching was pretty good too – our runs came in the first three innings, and then we couldn’t get anything else the rest of the game – good thing we didn’t need it.

I’m really getting tired of writing about losses. 14 of them already, and we’re 11 back. I didn’t think we could get off to a worse start than last year.
Big shakeup to the roster yesterday. Biggest problem is the Rocker situation. I was a Rocker fan, but his refusal to accept his minor league assignment and the subsequent allowing of him to come back without going down is a bad precedent. I really hope now he doesn’t do well, so we can just dump him. I was a Rocker fan, but not anymore. And speaking of that – Twisted Sister had decreed that Rocker is not to use the “I Wanna Rock” song as an intro to him. I wonder if the Rangers know that. Or Twisted Sister for that matter.
Anyway, as was said on the post game show, I didn’t think this lineup was the kind where we’d be tipping our hats to the other pitcher. What was it – 4 or 5 hits? 1 run? Yeesh. We need some offense back! Help!
A cute note – we now have more salary on the disabled list than a few teams do in total salary (Pirates, Expos, Twins, I think).

DAMMIT! That’s about all I can think of to say as I sit here to write this!
Game notes are available here.

Sigh. Even given all that went wrong, I felt we had a chance to come back and win this until we brought in Dan Miceli. I even agreed with Narron’s move on walking Ichiro. I did NOT agree with the choice of Miceli. The next time it comes time to drop someone, I hope he’s first out the door. Sigh.

What a beautiful game. I admit going into this game, I was feeling distressed. After the slaughter we got from Seattle in the last series with them, the prospect of losing against them again (we could have conceivably been 11.5 games out after this series) didn’t fill me with a lot of confidence. Kenny Rogers, however – had a lot of confidence.
And a lot of pitches. He was brilliant, throwing a 5 hit shutout against the best hitting team in the AL, the Mariners. There were a few double plays turned behind him, and a big night from Raffy (1 HR, 4 RBI, 1 Double). In fact, Raffy got his 450th home run, as well as his 499th career double. In fact, Raffy leads all the majors with I believe 11 doubles this year.
Mike Young also jacked a home run, and had a good day. Mike Lamb had a double, and Arod had a couple of RBI’s too. A nice game, nice to see a big win. However, we have to take all three in Seattle, really. Two out of 3 would be nice, but all 3 would put us 5.5 games out when we get out of the AL West, which isn’t all that bad, really.