Damn.

This one was more annoying than the two shutouts, actually – as we had MANY MANY chances to win it, and we didn’t take any of ’em.
Dickey still looks mediocre again – he’s definitely fallen off his April horse. But it’s way too early and panic and want him out of the rotation. This is what growing young talent is about. Look at the shellacking the Twins pitchers took for several YEARS before they finally got good. Needs a lot more time.
Rod Barajas was the offensive star of the game with a three run home run late to bring us to 5-4.
Just couldn’t get the job done at all, when it was there to be done.

Wow. I mean I don’t know what to say. It’s not the 9 runs we gave up – I can look past that (ugly as a 9 spot is), but zero? Two nights in a row? Two nights in a row with a runner thrown out at the plate, too. I mean, yikes. This is just amazing.
Brett Carre: What the hell is going on?? Well, this is not good. I’m glad we are leaving Chicago. The good news is that the Angels got swept by Toronto, the bad news is we are heading their this weekend!

Well, what more can you say about this one? Esteban Loaiza shut us down – almost totally. We lost the game 4-0, and only had three hits the whole night. This was the first time we were shut out during the regular season in 2004.
Loaiza’s line reads 8IP, 2H, 0R, 2BB, 9K. Not bad for a journeyman. He was on his shit last night, and I don’t really know why he didn’t come back out for the ninth.
Chicago reliever Takatsu (Mr. Zero) gave up a leadoff hit to Mike Young in the 9th, but that was it. We had nothing the whole game.
Speaking of nothing, Benoit again showed his maddening inconsistency. He gave up 4 runs on 6 hits in his 4 innings, and showed why we keep teetering on and off his bandwagon. On the other hand, Ron Mahay & Jay Powell pitched great – giving up donut in their 4 innings combined. Only a single hit given up by them and 4 punchouts.
Thursday is the rubber game – we’ll see how that goes.

The Big Hurt was in at DH for the White Sox last night. However, it was the Rangers that were suffering the big hurt. We put two more guys on the DL before the game (Mench, Jordan), bringing the total occupants on that list to 9 (with 3 out for the year). We called up capable reinforcements in the names of Chad Allen & Gary Matthews Jr. I don’t see either of them being a long term solution, but they probably will do for now. Wish Mench didn’t get hurt, as he’s been doing well this season.

Anyway, our best pitcher was on the mound again – Kenny Rogers. He got his 7th win already, and gave up just two runs over his 6 innings pitched. One of them was a solo jack to the Big Hurt, and there’s no shame in that. Struck out 6, walked one. Had a good night. He also lowered his ERA to 3.34. If Kenny keeps going at this pace, he’ll have a 20 win season. That’s something he’s never done before – his most wins in a season were 17, in his final season with the Rangers the first time (1995). In fact, Kenny already has more wins in 2004, then he had in the 2001 & 1997 seasons (not counting his seasons as a reliever in that).

The bullpen wasn’t lights out, but was good enough (3IP, 5H, 2ER) to get Cordero his league leading 15th save of the season. Cordero is 15/15, and needs three more saves to set a new all time Ranger record for consecutive saves. He already holds the record for most saves without a blown save to start the season – the overall record is 17 held by John Wetteland. While Cordero is tied with Mariano Rivera for the league lead with 15 saves, Rivera has a blown save – Cordero doesn’t. ;) In fact, the only other person with a decent amount of saves and no blown ones is Keith Foulke of the Red Sox, who is 9/9.

Offensively, We had 12 hits spread out over 8 players (only Matthews had an ofer). Soriano, Teixeira, Perry, & Allen all had two. Texiera & Herb Perry both had home runs, and Chad Allen and EY had doubles. Tex led the charge with 3 RBI’s, and overall we had a pretty balanced attack last night. A win is a win, but it’s nicer when everyone gets into the act as opposed to one or two guys bopping in all the runs.

We’re back in sole possession of second place after the A’s lost last night.

Brett Carre: A nice way to start a road trip as we beat the Sox 7-4 on Tuesday. Kenny pitched, well, like Kenny. It’s not flashy but it gets the job done. After this long trip we will see if the Rangers are really “for real.” Lets hope they can go .500 or better.

Too busy on Monday morning to write about this. Would have been shocked if we swept the Yankees, but I’ll take 2 out of 3 against them any time.

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Too busy on Monday morning to write about this, but man. Walk off home run against the Yankees. What a sweet ending! And I was there to see it. Really REALLY awesome! Anyone catch Kevin Mench freaking out on the field dancing and whatnot when we won? It was quite amusing. This picture about sums it up for me:

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There was just so much going on in this game, I don’t know where to start, so I won’t try.

I will say this – Frank Francisco – HOLY CRAP! That was breathtaking to watch!

For the record, I did nothing during Arod’s first at bat. Midly booed him afterwards – didn’t seem worth it for me. I did go apeshit when he struck out to Francisco, though. ;)

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No time for commentary.

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When Chan Ho Park pitches, two things seem destined to happen. He’ll hit someone, and he’ll give up a home run or three. Last night he actually hit three people, although one of them didn’t count because Juan Gonzalez swung at the same time. :) Juan did however, knock out the Rangers with a three run home run to left field.

Park actually looked good last night. He’s definitely better than the last two years, but rather annoyingly continues to give up the mistake ball or two which kills him. If he can knock out the one or two big mistake pitches, he’d probably been 4-2 with a 3.2 ERA or something like that. He does lead our team in strikeouts, and with all the injuries we’ve had this year to our pitching staff, the possibility of dumping him, or bumping him to the bullpen has probably gone away. :(

Speaking of the bullpen, Carlos Almanzar looks like the best pickup we made this offseason again. He went two scoreless innings – in fact I think he went two perfect innings. What were the Reds thinking?

Blalock continues to slump, although his last five hits have all been home runs. In fact, the entire team is in a bit of a rut lately. Not good with the Yankees rising coming in this weekend. :(

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