A very cool game. For many reasons. First off, we won, which is weird in and of itself.
However, we got great pitching from Darren Oliver, we got hitting from our pitchers, and we had home runs. Raffy had two, Mike Young had one (in front of his family, who was from LA), and Pudge had one for the fourth game in a row.
The guys looked loose, they were having fun in the dugout, and there was much laughter that I saw on TV. We tried to give it away, by giving up four runs late, but we managed to hold on.
However, it wasn’t all good. Gabe Kapler had to be scratched before the game with the flu, and Rusty had to come out with a hamstring injury. Hopefully it won’t be so bad.

I was right (see yesterday’s commentary). We lost. And we did it in such an annoying fashion, I felt thoroughly disgusted after the game.

I have tickets to Sunday nights’ game – I can almost guarantee we’ll lose that. Whenever we have a big game like this, we lose the next one.
If we strung together a few of these, I might feel like writing about them – this just feels like an aberration.

Oh look – another game where we blow it late due to the bullpen. I’m getting tired of saying that.

Darren Oliver pitched spectacularly. He gave up just a single run. Our bullpen blew it. What more needs to be said?

This loss was annoying. We pitched well. Doug Davis looked good. We were winning. We were robbed of a grand slam late, and I knew then that we’d lose. Usually when something like that happens, we lose the game. I was right. :(

I watched this. I was enjoying it. Where did those 6 runs at the end of the game come from? It looked like we had a shot to win this one, and then ejected that chance with a fiasco in the 7th & 8th.
We stayed right with Seattle early on – getting three jacks, including one from Arod, which was especially sweet.
I’m left just scratching my head over this game.

I wasn’t even watching this game, or listening to it.
I found myself more interested with a Bugs Bunny marathon that was on Cartoon Network all weekend. I barely peeked at the Ranger game. No big loss, it was just another loss.

Coming to the game, I was thinking two things:

1. The Indians had already lost today, so we could go ahead and win this game.
2. This was going to be an awesome pitching performance, with Radke & Rogers on the hill.

I wasn’t disappointed. I was at the ballpark for this game, and it was awesome! In the first inning, Pudge jacked a home run off of Brad Radke, and I felt the game would go in our favor early. However, Radke turned it up a notch, not allowing virtually anything for quite some time after that. We gave up two unearned runs in the top half of the second, giving back the lead we quickly got. However, Radke walked two (a shocker) in the fifth, allowing an eventual sac fly to tie the game. It stayed at 2-2 into the 10th.
Radke & Rogers both battled, and stayed out there for quite awhile. However, our pitching was better in the pen. Juan Moreno came on, and was virtually perfect. He struck out four in a row over 2.1 innings, allowing nothing. Zim came in and pitched the rest of the 9th and the 10th, and allowed just one hit, but looked like ’99 Zim.
That set the stage for the hero of the game, El Caballo. In the bottom of the 10th, we worked the bases full, and Sierra stepped up, hit a deep ball to right field, and it wasn’t caught, allowing the winning run to score. It was a great feeling, winning late, winning after coming back and against the first place team’s best pitcher.
A great game, and I was glad I was there to see it!

Well, the Twins come in to town. And the result from Game 1 is no surprise. Actually, I was hoping we’d lose all three games, because of a couple of reasons.

1. We’re not going to win anything this year, so a couple more against the Twins won’t matter.
2. I don’t want to help the Cleveland Indians.

I really figured we’d lose, and quite frankly, it’s an odd feeling rooting against your own team. It was another typical Ranger loss. We handed it away early, and lost the game. :(