Rangerfans.com

This was a pretty darned good pitcher’s duel. Vicente Padilla vs. Dan Haren. After the last five games previous to this, it was quite the surprise. Actually, that wasn’t the surprise. The real surprise was that we ended up on the winning side of that.
Both starters went seven innings. Pidente gave up six hits, two walks, and just one run. Haren gave up four hits and a walk for two runs. However, as in most games like this, our hits were well placed. We had just four of them. One double (Teagarden), and three singles, but we got two runs out of it. Haren also struck out eight, so we weren’t exactly lighting it up. But it was just enough.
Ours came early, with a single run in the second and the third. The run off of Padilla came in the fifth. There’s not a lot to add about this one because the pitching was quite good.
Padilla keeps doing this, and his trade value will be sky high in July. ;)

OK, that was annoying. I have time to write about this, but I’d just spend a couple hundred words saying “That sucked”. So that’s all I’m doing for this one.

Taking a mulligan on the San Francisco series. Ran out of time, and I don’t feel like writing about a series sweep loss several days after the fact. :)

Taking a mulligan on the San Francisco series. Ran out of time, and I don’t feel like writing about a series sweep loss several days after the fact. :)

Taking a mulligan on the San Francisco series. Ran out of time, and I don’t feel like writing about a series sweep loss several days after the fact. :)

Figures. The Rangers play the Astros six times each year. This year they lose only one game. Guess which one I went to? That’s right, the one they lost. Since I don’t really feel about writing in detail on this one, I’ll go for a few bullet points:

• Vicente Padilla seemed sluggish, even though he technically had a quality start
• Chris Davis still strikes out too much, he should have been pinch hit for in the 9th
• We made some noise in the bottom of the ninth, but couldn’t bring it home
• Row 37 of Section 117 is really dark, given how far back it is under the overhang
• Darren Erstad in left? Man the Astros must be hurting.

I spoke with an Astros fan for a bit who was wearing a rainbow Astros jersey. Addressed myself as a Phillies fan, so we could talk some old Houston / Phillies rivalries. :)
On to San Francisco….

Two big things happened in tonight’s game. If you’re a real Rangers fan, you knew about them already, but just the same..

• Pudge Rodriguez became the all time #1 catcher with most games caught in the majors. Nobody else has caught more than Pudge. That’s an impressive number. First.
• Omar Vizquel tied Luis Apricio for all time hits for a player from Venezuela.

Those two are impressive feats. That Pudge did it in Arlington was as Josh Lewin called it “a gift from the baseball gods”. I was there with my wife the game that Pudge played his last as a Ranger. The applause for him on June 19, 2009 was just as great as it was on September 29, 2002.

The actual game itself seemed kind of “meh” other than the walkoff when compared to the stuff above. Matt Harrison came off the DL and pitched OK. Salty & Nelson Cruz had home runs. Kinsler stole two bases. Even Omar Vizquel stole one! The two new pen additions (Jason Grilli & Darren O’Day) tossed a few more shutout innings.

The walkoff was a bloop hit down the left field line. Was your usual fun walkoff win. But even this pales in comparison to me to the events of the rest of the game. It was just major for me. Only thing that would have made it better is if Vizquel also broke the record at the same time. But since he merely tied it, he’ll now have a chance to beat it back in San Francisco where he played for awhile. That will be nice for him, I’m sure.