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Well, we salvaged the last game of the series. The Rangers won 6-4, and Tommy Hunter was way better than he had been the last outing (the one I was at, of course).
But to be honest, after so much gone wrong this series, I don’t even feel like writing about the win. Not a great feeling heading to Anaheim. You just feel like the Angels are going to bounce back from losing to us all year, and bury us.
Oh, and the A’s released Jason Giambi after the series was over.

After the last couple of games, with CJ Wilson blowing a save in the ninth, then being shut out, I didn’t really want to watch this. And I made a good time choice. We lost again.
Bah.

The only good thing to say about this game is that Anaheim lost too. That’s about it.

I was going to write about how Dustin Nippert was great in a spot start.
There was the freakin spectacular debut of Neftali Feliz. I mean wow.
But all I can think of now to write about this game is this..
SHIT!
Thanks CJ. Grumble…

It figures. The Rangers play four against Seattle. They win three of the four. Guess which one I attended in person? Of course, the loss.
Sunday was a bounceback day on many accounts. Scott Feldman bounced back from his disastrous start a week ago and pitched well. Seven innings, five hits, two runs, 4K, 2BB, and 101 pitches. Got the win. Barely (more on that later).
Frank Francisco bounced back from the DL to pitch a perfect inning of relief.
Our power bounced back, as we had three home runs, accounting for all four of our runs.
Unfortunately, some guys bounced onto the DL – Ian Kinsler being the most notable.
But, in the moment that will make Jamey Newberg the most excited, Neftali Feliz was called up. He didn’t make his major league debut yet, but he was active and available. In fact, there was a mini gaggle of transactions before this game.
* 2B Ian Kinsler placed on 15 day DL, retro to Jul 29
* P Matt Harrison moved from 15 day to 60 day DL
* P Jason Grilli placed on 15 day DL
* P Neftali Feliz purchased from AAA
* P Frank Francisco activated from 15 day DL
* P Warner Madrigal optioned to AAA
Feldman came out after seven with the game tied 2-2, but before the eighth, Saltamacchia got his two run home run (off the right field foul pole) to give the Rangers (and Feldman) the win.
Was a nice comeback, and a good way to hit the road for awhile. A jaunt through Oakland, Anaheim, & Cleveland should be OK, given how well we’ve played Anaheim this season so far. Keep your fingers crossed.

Well, this was the (somewhat) annual Texas Rangers Hall of Fame induction game. I say somewhat, as recently, it’s not a guarantee that everyone will get in. I was there for several of them in the past, and after the second year, I thought “Wow, at this rate, there won’t be any really top notch players left to induct before too long. A couple of years ago, the team recognized this, and scaled it back to a similar deal with the National HOF. You need a percentage of the votes cast (which for the moment does not lie with the fans). So that’s good, because we’d be down to electing Mark Clark.

One of the alumni was Scott Sheldon. When he walked onto the field, Chuck Morgan announced him as “infielder, outfielder, catcher, pitcher Scott Sheldon”, which appeared to prompt Scott to point up in Chuck’s general direction. That made me chuckle. :)

So I watched the ceremony, which is always enjoyable. It’s great to see some of the old timers, and not so old timers come back. Always great to hear Chuck Morgan call Rusty Greeeeeeeeeeeeeer. I had brought a friend who was hoping that Steve Buechele would be there, but alas he was managing in A ball. I did not witness Toby Harrah play, that was before my time as a Ranger fan. Way before my time, considering he came with the team from Washington DC. I have respect for what he did, and his speech was cool, but I don’t have a first hand connection to him as either a player, or his brief tenure as a Rangers manager.

Ruben Sierra I knew, though. While again, I did not witness him play his first go around, I did the second time from 2000-2003. His story when he returned in 2000 was quite impressive, and I know what he did the first time around, so yeah – I was more invested in Ruben Sierra. That the team brought up his son (who is really shockingly a spitting image of Ruben Sr, it’s amazing) from A ball as a surprise guest at the ceremony was quite cool. I do have to confess at being surprised at how broken his English is, all these years later. He was highly emotional, and it was hard to hear him sometimes due to the combination. But it certainly felt sincere.

It was a great ceremony as usual, you can read the official writeup on mlb.com here. The official link also includes video of both Toby Harrah & Ruben Sierra, so you can hear what I mean about Ruben’s speech.

The actual game played by the 2009 version of the Texas Rangers wasn’t nearly as good as the pre-game. Tommy Hunter came out and pitched like Mark Clark (OK, I’m dropping his name twice in this commentary). Five innings, seven hits, five runs, three walks, one home run. It was fairly ugly. Granted, he gave up a home run to Ken Griffey Jr, which is not a shameful thing, but still. He was all over the place. Really high pitch counts, full counts, just not good. I did really enjoy seeing Ken Griffey Jr. back in the ballpark again.

A shame about Hunter, as I was looking forward to the pitching matchup. Felix Hernandez held up his side of the bargain. Seven innings pitched, six hits, two runs. He did have four walks, and was vulnerable in the first two innings. But we let him off the hook. We had a chance to score in both the first two innings, but couldn’t follow through. I even said that to the friend I was there with to see Buechele. Said if we let him off the hook two innings in a row, forget it, we’re done. We were. We were never in the game.

Nelson Cruz’ home run in the fourth was a bit of excitement. In fact, Cruz had three of the six overall hits the Rangers had. We were pretty much shut down for sure.

There was the entertainment of some guy running onto the field. However, he was stupid. He ran out and just stood there in left. If you’re gonna do that, you’re going to jail anyway, so you might as well run around a bit more than that guy did.

I’m now 1-3 in games I actually attended this season. The one was opening day.