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One of the other young pitchers for Kansas City stepped up and kept the Rangers mostly in check. It wasn’t a dominating performance, but Luke Hochevar went seven innings, gave up three runs on five hits. One of the runs was unearned, but the big deal with him was that of the 21 outs he recorded, 13 of them were strikeouts. The Ranger bats were definitely flailing against Mr. Luke. Whether or not he was helped by the strike zone? Well, that’s a job for Questec. :)
Anyway, it didn’t stop there. Joaquim Soria got a two inning save, and of his six outs, three of them were strikeouts. So that was sixteen strikeouts by Ranger batters. We had three guys (Hamilton, Jones, Blalock) who struck out three times each. Three more guys (Cruz, Teagarden, Vizquel) who struck out twice. Marlon Byrd also jumped in the pool once. Only Ian Kinsler & Michael Young did not strike out. That was pretty ugly up there.
Offensively, the big deal for us was a first inning home run by Michael Young. That’s about it. In fact, Michael Young had three of our six hits. He pretty much *WAS* the offense. Nelson Cruz had a double, and there were singles by Blalock & Byrd.
Derek Holland was meh. 4.2 innings, seven hits, four earned runs. Actually, “meh” is too good for that. He was “Mark Clark”.
Not a good night for us. But so far it’s better than recent years in Kansas City have been this series. Normally we would have lost all the games, so 1-1 after two is an improvement.

This was a good old fashioned pitcher’s duel. Zack Greinke for the Royals against Scott Feldman for the Rangers.
Greinke has been getting a lot of hype for a CY Young award, and you could see why. He was masterful. Seven innings, three hits, one earned run, three walks, and TEN strikeouts. Actually, three walks doesn’t fit with “masterful”, but it felt that way anyway. Greinke made one mistake. Hung a ball to Marlon Byrd which he hit over the wall for a solo home run. Speaking of Byrd’s home run, did you catch the fan in the stands in the red Rangers shirt doing the Byrd dance? That made me laugh. :)
The Rangers were pretty much shut down – we had only four hits all night. A single by Davir Murphy, doubles by Elvis Andrus (which should have been an error) & Hank Blalock, and the home run by Byrd. That was IT. Most everyone took an ofer. But it was enough.
It was enough due to Scott Feldman, who was brilliant. EIGHT innings (a career high), four hits, three walks, two strikeouts, but ZERO runs. He left with 110 pitches thrown. Had he not had that many pitches, he might have gotten the chance for the complete game – he was looking that good. CJ Wilson threw a scoreless ninth for the save, allowing just one hit.
Our pitching was freakin’ fantastic. Wow. We win our fifth in a row. Didn’t pick up any ground on Anaheim (still 3.5 back there) or Bostson (2.5 back there). We did pick up a game over Seattle (who was shut out) – now three games up on them.

Does anyone remember May 2, 2004? That was the last time the Rangers swept Boston at home (I believe). It’s also the date of the famous SWEEP SWEEP SWEEP chant that just dominated the entire stadium – we have Hanks’ Homies to thank for that. That was a major highlight, and while I don’t believe the same thing happened this time (I didn’t get to see/hear the game, more on that later), this is something I thought needed to be brought up from five seasons ago. :)
I mean, we swept the Boston Red Sox, before the series started, I believe the team with the second best record in the AL. That’s seriously impressive, and as I wrote about in the last game’s commentary, something that will probably serve us well, should we happen to be fortunate enough to meet up with Boston in the playoffs. Anyway, about this game…
I didn’t see it. I got burnt by not checking my TiVo. The TiVo will record the ESPN feed for a game before the FSSW feed, because ESPN has a lower channel number. Since ESPN is blacked out, I got three hours of ESPNNEWS while the game was going on over on FSSW, not being recorded. Grrr.. Normally I pick up on those and fix it, but I forgot to look for this game. I just saw highlights.
Clay Buckholz, one of the “untouchables” for the Red Sox started, and got hit – a little. Not a lot, he wasn’t awful, but six hits and two walks for three earned runs in four innings is a bit “meh”. That was all our offense, however, as despite ten hits, we only pushed across three runs.
But it was enough, as Dustin Nippert, making a spot start for the suddenly flu bitten Vicente Padilla, got the win. Went 5.2 innings, giving up five hits and two walks – but just one earned run. Came out after throwing 94 pitches. He was followed up by Doug Mathis, who threw a 3.1 inning scoreless outing for a long save – his first of the year.
Kinsler had a home run, Marlon Byrd had a double, but otherwise, it was a power outage, as everything else was a single. Even the Sox didn’t have a lot of power. Six hits for them, only one wasn’t a single (it was a solo home run).
But a sweep of the Red Sox. We’re closing in on the trade deadline, and we’re just 3.5 games out of first place in the AL West, and just 2.5 games back behind the Red Sox in the wild card race.
It’s exciting, man. I wonder who we’ll move to bring in a piece before next Friday. You get the feeling something is going to happen. Well, OK, maybe I do and you don’t. :)

Yet another game that proves the axiom that you have to play the game, and can’t rely on the on-paper matchup. Because this game seemed like an easy made win for Boston. At least it did for me. Josh Beckett, who has all kinds of accolades, topped mostly by his performance as a Marlin over the Yankees a few years ago. The guy is good. Real good. Tommy Hunter is a decent enough pitcher, but let’s face it. He’s not Josh Beckett good.
Which is why the following lines are that impressive:
Beckett: 8IP, 7H, 4ER, 1BB, 7K, 104P
Hunter: 6IP, 4H, 1ER, 1BB, 2K, 85P
I mean, I’m picturing the old picture of “Dewey defeats Truman” here. I was really impressed with Hunter in this game. I remember when he first came up that I thought he’d be one of those “one or two starts, never heard from again guys”. Nice to see myself wrong there.
Our offense wasn’t exactly on fire either, but we had enough to get the job done. Two doubles (Jones & Kinsler) and five singles were all we got. But this game wasn’t about our offense.
It was about Tommy Hunter beating Josh Beckett. Dropped the Red Sox into second. Good job Tommy. Lets see more of that!

This game was (mildly) billed a faceoff of two old Atlanta Braves pitchers. Kevin Millwood, who was with them less (1997 – 2002), and John Smoltz, who was with them for a lot longer than that (1988 – 2008). Given Smoltz is in that tail end of his career time, and Millwood is not, you’d expect that Kevin would have the upper hand. He did, although not right away.
The game started off fairly well pitched with a 2-1 lead by Boston holding up going into the bottom of the sixth inning. Then the wheels seriously fell off the Smoltz wagon, and he didn’t survive the inning. It was longball time in the bottom of the sixth, which means the Sonic Slam contestant on TV won an additional $200 on top of what they had won for the first one. :) Michael Young, David Murphy, & Jarrod Saltamacchia all homered off of Smoltz. Murphy’s was a two run shot, the others were solos. That accounted for the five spot the Rangers put up in the bottom of the sixth. It was also the end of our offense for the night, but it was more than enough. We did also have three doubles to go with the three home runs this evening, but the homers were the big story.
Kevin Millwood did a good job too, even though his pitch count was a bit too high. He only threw six innings on 111 pitches. He did get the win, as he gave up just six hits and a walk for two earned runs. A quality start for sure.
Eddie Guardado followed up with a scoreless frame. Darren O’Day gave up the other run (unusual for him), and CJ Wilson closed it down for his eighth save.
This game dropped Boston into a tie for first, and while I don’t particularly want to help the Yankees, you have to like the fact we beat Boston. That can only be good if we meet up again later, like say October.

This picture is pretty much what everyone will care about for this game.

I mean you can talk about the first ever two sac bunts by Saltamacchia in his career. There’s several other small things you can talk about. There was another home run by Ian Kinsler – the first at bat of the game, and it’s cool that he got another home run on the last at bat to win the game.

But come on. Dogpile! That’s all we really care about. Even kind of erases the down feeling from almost being swept.

DOGPILE!

0-16 with men on base, and 0-7 with men in scoring position. That’s pretty ugly. No wonder we can’t score. We can set up good, but we can’t deliver.
That’s pretty much the whole story. In fact, our only run came on a Nelson Cruz solo home run. That’s it. Scott Baker was quite good. Eight innings, six hits, just the one solo home run, and eight strikeouts. A pretty good performance.
Scott Feldman wasn’t as good as that, but he wasn’t bad. Six innings, five hits, three earned runs on five strikeouts. He deserved better. Sigh.
Feeling flat. Meh.
(This is a short commentary, as I only have a couple of minutes to update before vacation bible school starts at church shortly).