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The less said about this mess, the better.

Ben Sheets started this game, and pitched every much like the old Ben Sheets from Milwaukee. While I haven’t followed his stats this season, I got the impression he’s been kind of middling. Not as far leaning on the crap scale as Rich Harden has been, but definitely not as advertised. But this was definitely not that. This was good old Ben Sheets. The one that shut the Rangers down for six innings. He allowed just three hits, one earned run, and struck out eight. It wasn’t the lengthiest outing, but while he was out there, there was no doubt – this was old school Sheets.
He was matched against CJ Wilson, the Rangers’ best starter of the season so far. CJ actually pitched better than Sheets, which was important to the win. CJ went seven, giving up four hits and one earned run. Didn’t strike out as many (five), but walked the same number (three). CJ lowered his season ERA to an amazing 1.48. Good stuff there.
The biggest story I suppose – to most fans is the way it ended, with Vlad Guerrero knocking in the winning run in the bottom of the 12th. From a “Chicks Dig the Longball” mentality, I can see why most people would pick that as the moment of the game.
But for me it was the Sheets/Wilson pitching performances that excited me the most about this game.
Still, it’s fun to watch the guys go nuts at the end of the game like that. :)

In game 34 of the season, the Rangers finally made their first roster move that affects the 25 man roster. Derek Holland was brought up (hello Hannah), and Matt Harrison was sent down. It’s a surprise that we haven’t made any pitching movies until May 12th – that’s positively glacier like for the Texas Rangers.
Holland’s first appearance of the season went pretty darned well. Six innings, just five hits, and one walk. Punched out seven in his six innings on the mound, but most importantly didn’t allow any runs at all. He came out at 103 pitches, which given it was his first start in the majors of the year, I was OK with. Would have liked seven, but there was no need to push it that hard, especially given we were up 7-0 at the time he came out of the game. Josh & Tom made it a point to talk about his changed delivery, which probably had most of what to do with his minor league numbers this year (4-1, ERA 0.93, 6GS, average of 8.6K per 9 innings). Hopefully he sticks up here the rest of the season, and does well.
It’s quite a weird feeling talking about all the good pitching wearing the Rangers uniform. I get ahead of myself, but I wonder if we can be like Tampa Bay in 2008. Would be interesting. Anyway…
Outside of Derek’s appearance, the other big story was home runs. The Rangers hit five of them. They were hit by Josh Hamilton, Vlad Guerrero, Max Ramirez, Michael Young, & Justin Smoak. Hamilton & Guerrero went back to back again, and in the middle of that b2b, the A’s had a pitching change, too. :) The home runs accounted for 7 of the 10 runs we had in all, so I’d say the longball dominated the offense tonight for sure.
Of the Ranger starters, only David Murphy (starting for Craig Gentry who was a last second scratch) took an ofer. Every other starter had at least one hit, with Josh Hamilton leading the way with three.
Was a good night to be a Rangers fan. What would make it more fun is if the owners’ meeting currently going on will result in Selig taking control of the Rangers to sell it to Greenberg/Ryan. Come on Bud..

Colby Lewis pitched six pretty strong innings, gave up the lead in the…. Nope, not talking about that…
Hamilton hits a 2 run HR in bottom of the 8th to give us a lead… Nope, not talking about that..
Rangers tie it in the bottom of the 9th.. Nope, not talking about that.
Rangers tie it in the bottom of the 11th.. Nope, not talking about that.
Rangers blow the game in the 13th, and lose the game. Which leaves me with just this to say about the outcome.
Shit.

First time I’ve gotten to use my sweep graphic this year! :)
In fact, that’s all I want to say about this one. We swept the series, and we’re in first place!
w00t!

Six singles is all the Rangers got. Elvis, Hamilton, Guerrero, two by Kinsler, and one by Murphy. That’s all we had. But they were bunched together enough to plate three runs, which was just enough to squeeze by the Royals.
Rich Harden was out of Oakland, so he was the regular Harden again. 5 innings, six hits, two walks, and 95 pitches. Not that great. I wonder, given the way some of our roster spots are being passed around if Harden might get dumped if he doesn’t get his shit together before too long. One gets the impression he’ll get replaced by someone else (oh, I don’t know – Ogando or Scheppers) before too long.
Royals starter Gil Meche pitched an 8 inning complete game loss. He gave up the three earned runs, which isn’t bat all over 8 innings, really. Just that the Rangers held down the Royals (which isn’t too terribly hard) for scoring any more.
Was a nice game, but Harden’s performance seemed even more flat than it was due to the performance of CJ Wilson the night before.

This was a great game to watch. However, it can be boiled down to just a few short things.
Vlad Guerrero homered on the first pitch he saw.
C.J. Wilson pitched a complete game. Wasn’t a no hitter, or a shutout or anything, but a complete game is always cool to see these days.
This was CJ’s sixth straight quality start to open the season. If he does it one more time in his next start, he will be the all time Rangers record holder in that regard. Wow.
Bad point: Between Ian Kinsler & Josh Hamiton, the two of them left seven runners on base. Blah.
Really though – this game was all about CJ Wilson’s pitching. Was bloody amazing.