The Minnesota Twins ruined the return of Pudge Rodriguez to the Rangers lineup. Oh, he was officially added to the roster the day before, but this was the first time (the real) #7 played in a game in about seven years or so. He got massive ovations, made some plays behind the plate, and was great with the bat, too. Pudge went 3-4 with a double, a run scored, and an RBI. It was a great return for #7. When we got him via a trade the other day, I theorized that he’s here for the remainder of 2009, and that’s it. If he plays like this, they could take a real look at him going forward as the backup, and trade one of the kids, but that’s wild speculation, and said in the rosy feeling of the return of Pudge. That’s a discussion for later.

Kevin Millwood took the mound, and with the departure of Pidente, he’s now got more career starts than the rest of the starting rotation does combined. Kevin Millwood has 368, and the other four (Feldman, Holland, Hunter, & Nippert) combine for 91 starts. So Kevin has FOUR TIMES the combined starts of the other four. He didn’t pitch like he was that far ahead of the others. 5.2 innings, 113 pitches, seven hits, four walks, and five earned runs. Bleh. He was done in by the recent problem the Rangers have – a meltdown inning. We gave up four in the sixth. I admit, when it started going south, I fast forwarded through it on TiVo. I didn’t feel like watching that.

Offensively, we had no home runs, but we did have some other power. Two doubles (Byrd, Pudge) and a triple (Byrd again). Elvis Andrus also stole a base, and we had a bunch of singles to account for our four runs.

But the story of the night, even with the loss, was the return of #7 to the catching duties for the Texas Rangers. As much as I can’t see it happening, it would be nice if he never left again. I’d really like that.

I’m taking a mulligan on this game, no time to write, about to head out the door for church, and have too much going on when I get back to write.
Although it was really REALLY nice to see Pudge take the lineup card out to home plate. Was a great moment after it was announced he was a Ranger again.

I’m taking a mulligan on this one. No time to write.

Before the Red Sox won their world series a few years ago, I used to love going to Red Sox games. Primarily because the games were usually good. It wasn’t a blowout one way or another, the games were well pitched, well played, and I usually enjoyed them. Then the Sox won the World Series, and their fans became equals on the “jerkoff” scale with Yankees fans, and made it no fun to go to the Red Sox games. Oh well. Had I gone, this game would have been one of those ones from the past. 4-3 game, well played, well pitched, and one I did enjoy watching on TV.
Dustin Nippert took the mound for Texas, and he did well under the baking August heat (why day games in August – WHY?) Dustin went six innings, allowing six hits and three walks. A bit too many, but it didn’t really hurt him – he only allowed two runs. Actually, as I look at the box score, it doesn’t seem *THAT* impressive, but live, it seemed better than the line. Doug Mathis followed up and allowed just one hit, but it was a solo home run, accounting for Boston’s third run. Beyond him, our two headed closer followed. CJ Francisco pitched two innings, allowing just one hit. Also struck out five of the six batters faced, which was nice to see, after the fiasco on Friday night.
Offensively, we didn’t have a ton either – with only four runs, there wasn’t a ton, but we did have eleven hits. We had a couple of solo home runs. One by Michael Young, and another by Taylor Teagarden, which appeared to bounce off the corner of the new video board ring in left field. We also had three doubles.
We had a couple of double plays, and… HECK WITH IT..
WE TOOK OVER THE WILD CARD LEAD WITH THIS WIN! GO RANGERS!

Holland again! 6.2 innings pitched, seven hits, two runs, three stikeouts. He actually kept the Sox under control. The two runs he allowed were two solo home runs (Bay, Martinez). He’s starting to feel to me like Cole Hamels did for the Phillies last year. Man, he’s good.
The big story for me this game was the speed on the bases. Elvis Andrus & Pedro Borbon were running all over the place. The two of them had a combined seven steals, and Ian Kinsler also had one. The eight steals sets a Rangers franchise record now for number of steals in a game. It was almost like videogame baseball, where you jack the running speed up to max on your guys, and push down the arm strength of the opposing catcher. Varitek had no hope. A friend of mine who is a Sox fan says it’s been that way all year with Varitek – he can’t throw anyone out, apparently. But MAN was it nice to see these guys run all over the Red Sox.
Ian Kinsler was back in the game, but wasn’t batting leadoff (Borbon was). Kinsler homered in his return to the lineup. He was also hit in the head with a pitched ball later in the game – not something that looked good at all, but at least it was’t Hiroki Kuroda of the Dodgers.
Overall, the Rangers had 12 hits. Just two were extra base hits (the Kinsler HR, and an Andrus triple). Everything else was a single. So not a lot of power, but way more than enough to hang a seven spot on the Boston pitching staff.
But the important part was that we beat the Red Sox, and are back to just half a game out in the Wild Card race.

WHAT THE …………..
P.S. Shut up, Dave.

I didn’t get to see any of this game. It started at 11AM, and by the time I realized it was on, it was mostly over. Normally I’d TiVo delay that, but since I forgot it was on so early, I saw the score in the middle of the game, and decided there was no point in watching then. :)
Scott Feldman got his eighth road victory of the season, and his 12th overall. That’s 12 wins in mid August. At that rate, he could quite easily get to 17. I can’t recall the last time the Rangers have had a pitcher with that many wins in a season. Anyway, Scott went 6 innings, seven hits, two walks, and six strikeouts. One run allowed – pretty solid outing for sure.
Hamilton keeps making moves offensively. 4-4 with a couple more doubles. His average is now up to .260. Andruw Jones also had a double, and Elvis Andrus homered. David Murphy had the last RBI on a sac fly.
As I didn’t see this one, I’m not saying a lot, but it’s nice to get out of there with a series win, altough I thought we should have swept Cleveland, tell you the truth. We come home to play Boston for the Wild Card lead in a three game series just half a game behind Boston.
GO RANGERS!
Edit: I looked it up. The last time someone had that many wins was Kenny Rogers in 2004, who had 18 wins. Kevin Millwood was close in 2006 when he had 16, though.

Tommy Hunter does it again. 7.2 innings pitched, 98 pitches thrown, six hits, no walks, five strikeouts, and NO RUNS! Tommy looked awesome again, and wow, is it refreshing having this much quality pitching from young guys. Always we had to grow our own, and man, 2009 makes it feel like we’ve finally got the message across. It’s exciting. Man, it REALLY is exciting.
Offensively, Josh Hamilton led the way with three of the nine overall Ranger hits. He definitely appears to have found his groove again, right around the time he said he was coming off his ADD medicine. Josh had two doubles, and two RBI’s in the game. Pedro Borbon also doubled, and the rest of our hits were singles. The other RBI’s were pretty spread out (Blalock, Vizquel, & Andrus).
But this night was about the pitching. Tommy Hunter was really great, and CJ Wilson came in and threw 1.1 innings of scoreless relief, not allowing his one interhited runner to score.
All was good this game. Kind of amusing though that this is the third straight game the Rangers have been involved in where one team was shut out. It’s also the second straight game with a 5-0 score, although not in the same direction. :)
Squeee indeed. :)

Well, this game was pretty much defined in the bottom of the third, when Dustin Nippert couldn’t get anyone out. Cleveland scored five runs that frame. That was also all the scoring for the entire game.
Neither team was exactly pounding the ball. Of the six hits Cleveland had, only one was anything but a single (it was a double). Of the seven hits Texas had, only one wasn’t a single (it was a triple). But enough of them came together in the third for Cleveland to push across five runs in one inning .
Dustin went six innings, despite that, and managed to strike out ten Indians in just six innings, so that was good. He only walked two, so overall he wasn’t too bad. Except for the third.
When your team loses 5-0, and the other pitcher doesn’t pitch a one hitter or something like that, there’s not much to say in recap. Not unless you’re getting paid to write about baseball, in which case you make the loss stories a bit more padded. heh :)

Last time Derek Holland pitched this way, I saw Hannah Baugh squeee herself into a fit of excitement. If Holland does too many more of these, poor Ms. Hannah might have her head explode! And then Derek will feel bad.
Seriously, most Ranger fans don’t know what to do with repeated awesome pitching like that. I mean this was fantastic. I was talking to my wife about it when it was happening, and found myself referring to his stuff as “Nolan Ryan like”. It was impressive, to be sure. His total line:
Nine inning complete game
Just 96 pitches
Three hits (all singles)
One walk
Eight strikeouts
It was fantastic to watch. I mean WOW. When I watch games in a hurry, I normally fast forward through the Rangers in the field to get to them batting. This time it was not that way, I wanted to watch the pitching.
I think I can stop saying things like “Derek Holland on paper won’t beat John Lackey”, because now we feel he can beat him. I’m not going to act shocked in my commentaries when that happens!
Not that Holland needed the help, but he definitely was helped out by the Angels in the field. They had three official errors, and at least one more that should have been. Here’s a summary of their gaffes:

• On an infield hit by Blalock, John Lackey & Robb Quinlan got caught up going to cover first, and neither got there, and Blalock got an infield hit.
• In the same inning, Bobby Abreu muffed a simple catch in right, which directly led to two runs scoring.
• There was a catcher inference call against Anaheim.
• A ball in center was misplayed by Gary Matthews Jr for a double
• A throwing error on a Pedro Borbon stolen base

Shutting out the Angels 7-0 and also by the score of 11-6 (with four in the first inning) is a statement, I think. It’s nice to go there and win 2-3. If we could just beat some other team this reguarly. :)
For some reason I don’t even feel like getting into the Rangers offense this game. We scored seven, had a few home runs. We’ve sen that before. We haven’t seen this kind of regular pitching from a Ranger guy in recent memory. It’s exciting!
Squeee indeed, Hannah!