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We went into Boston feeling good about the team in general, but still feeling crappy based on the way we limped into the All-Star break. The less said about the last series the better, but even given the shame of that, one still felt good going into Boston.
You felt a whole lot better very quickly once this game got started. While Elvis Andrus fell victim to a good knuckleball, that’s about where it ended. The immediate aftermath after Elvis was single, single, single (run), double (run), single (two runs), home run (two runs), and then the last two outs were made. We roughed up Tim Wakefield pretty good, slapping a six spot on him in the top of the first. He calmed down a bit in the second, getting the Rangers 1-2-3, but no so much in the third. THere was a single, an error, and a double, which scored the seventh Ranger run, leaving men on second and third with nobody out. The total rout was on!
However, that’s where our scoring ended. Second and third, nobody out, and we didn’t score any more. There were a few other opportunities to score as well, and truth be told, we probably should have scored about 12-15 runs total. I’ll take the 7 and the win for sure, but it could have/should have been a lot more than that.
The home run came from Bengie Molina, which seemed to surprise me. I know he’s had some pop in his time in San Francisco, but still. He seemed to be batting like all the other guys we’ve had at catcher this season so far. So the home run surprised me.
Tommy Hunter went to 6-0 after getting this win. He had a good game, going 6.2 innings, allowing just two runs on five hits. However, most of those hits didn’t mean anything, since the two runs the Sox got were both solo home runs (Drew, Hall). Hunter came out with 108 pitches thrown. Darren Oliver & Alexi Ogando (who has been looking nice in the pen) cleaned up, and held down the fort.
It was a great way to start this rather important road trip. As I told NESN, it wasn’t so much that we needed to beat the “Red Sox”, we just needed to win this series, given the Angels are playing a team they should beat. So yeah, the win was a good one for us, plus it erased the memory of Baltimore mostly. And speaking to the “Red Sox”, it’s nice to win in Fenway fairly decisively, as we have had problems in Boston the last few years.

Well, I’ve become pretty disenchanted with the Home Run derby the last few years. Other than Josh Hamilton’s show a couple of years ago, and Nelson Cruz winning it last year, I’ve grown tired of listening to the babble of Joe Morgan & Chris Berman. Berman’s “back back back back” itself was getting old, but in the last few years, the “newscast” has been so interrupted with things they have to do commercial wise and all that… Yeesh. They spend so much time talking to “guests” on the panel, that for some of the guys in the derby, they spent no time talking about, and talking about the doofus there.
Will Ferrell was the final straw for me. All he was there for was to push some movie he’s in. That’s enough. It’s bad enough they have people there at all, but to then turn it into a Jay Leno type interview was unforgivable. First off, the derby lineup was guys I pretty much didn’t care about, I was completely bored. I was mildly interested when Corey Hart did well in the first round, but he tanked out with zero in the second round, so I didn’t care who won.
They need to boot Berman and his cronies, and put someone else in there. While I don’t have a particular replacement in mind, why not turn it into some rotating thing of the various MLB teams’ broadcasters, so we can see/hear some of them? Get the broadcasters to the All Star game, too. I’m sure they’d love to do that. Ditch the Will Ferrell suck ups for personal promotion, too. This thing is already so stupid commercialized, it’s just annoying as hell now. Don’t get me wrong, I like Will Ferrell a lot. He’s pretty darned funny. He did NOT belong on the panel at the HR Derby.
For the first time I actually stuck around and watched the Celebrity Softball game afterwards. I never do that. You know what? That was miles more entertaining than the Home Run Derby. I think next year I might just skip the derby completely and tune in for the last 15 minutes and see who won, and watch the softball game.
Jenny Finch fast pitching to Ricky Henderson was a hysterical moment. Ricky’s then “dancing” around the basepaths after his home runs (yeah, two of ’em) was pretty darned funny. The softball game was fun, the Home Run Derby was not.
Get a clue, MLB. This isn’t the way to have a HR derby.

Get out of town Baltimore. Screw you.

You know, I had planned to write a ton about Cliff Lee. I knew him from Philly, and had all this great stuff to say. Then we lost. Meh, I didn’t want to write about this game. It’s the bloody Orioles. Cliff Lee was down 1-0 two pitches into the game. While he ended up pitching a nine inning complete game loss, it was disheartening.
Meh. Bloody Orioles.
I instead direct you to the excellent report Jamey Newberg wrote on the Cliff Lee trade, which still seems quite bizarre. I had to alter my roster in MLB 2K10 to account for that, since they don’t move fast enough with roster updates. :)

This was a weird day for Rangers fans. At the beginning of the day, everyone was reeling from the horrible loss the night before. Even Jamey Newberg got into the depression by sending out a report that said:

Just a brutal day
For Texas Rangers baseball.
Nothing else to say.

It was a really ugly loss the night before in every sense of the word. Then we woke up to the news that the ownership situation was thrown another curveball, with some quotes coming out that it seemed to be that Greenberg/Ryan are no longer a lock despite the legal dancing. That was really quite sad. It likely will still happen, but it’s not a dead set lock anymore. Then around noon, it all got worse with the news that the Yankees were acquiring Cliff Lee from the Mariners. I was at Red Robin at the time with my daughter for lunch, and I saw all the headlines on the ESPN tickers about that, and got really bummed out.
When I got home, I was looking around on the net, and saw some stories that the Yankees were not getting him, and then the word came out a little later that it was the Texas Rangers getting him, I was rather excited. Anyone reading this blog knows I’m also a Phillies fan, so I know Lee well from his time in Philly last year. I’ll write more about Cliff Lee on a separate entry, this one is technically about the game against the Orioles on the 9th.
So it was with the fact that Cliff Lee was inbound that I approached the game last night. Yeah, the game before that was bad, but I figured that couldn’t happen two nights again against the Orioles (a team that actually has a worse record than the Pirates), and the Cliff Lee euphoria. It was announced that Chris Davis was back from AAA, and would be our regular first baseman, so I was excited to see if what he learned in AAA would translate, or if he’d be Nelson Cruz again (one of those 4A hitters). Scott Feldman started the game, and while he looked rocky early, he ended up with a pretty decent line overall. He went seven innings, allowing eight hits, no walks, but just two runs. Some of his cutters were of the 2009 vintage, the kind that earned him 17 wins. If he figures it out for the second half, it will be like we traded for a great pitcher, and it didn’t cost anything to get him!
Our big inning was the third, when we scored four runs, pretty much powered by a three run home run by Vlad Guerrero. It barely got out over the left field wall, and it wasn’t the kind of swing you thought would be a home run, but there you go. Was Vlad’s 20th of the season, and I believe his 75th RBI as well. Was feeling good, especially when we got two more runs in the bottom of the 8th to go up 6-2 at the time. Chris Davis came into the game late and worked a good count and got a sac fly. The other run was another sac fly by Kinsler.
Then Neftali Feliz fell victim to the same mess that Francisco had the night before. Long story short, he gave up a grand slam to Corey Patterson which tied the game at 6 in the top of the ninth. We didn’t do anything in the bottom, and then to make it worse, Dustin Nippert gave up another solo home run in the top of the 10th, and we lost the game. I actually missed the end of it, because at this time it was after 1AM – the game was delayed two and a half hours by rain at the start, and then the game itself was freakin’ long (three hours and fifty one minutes). I had fallen asleep. I woke up and actually saw us down 7-6, but missed the home run that caused it, and I was so heavy tired, I just stopped watching and went to sleep. Didn’t see we had lost the game until the morning.
That was annoying. As I said earlier up, the Orioles have the worst record in the majors, and up until two nights ago had NEVER won a game this season where they were trailing after 7 innings. Then they go and do it twice in a row against us. That’s sad.
But hey, Cliff Lee pitches tomorrow night! w00t!

Even if I was writing this week, I wouldn’t want to write about this one. It was bloody disgraceful.