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First off, this game outlasted me. When it went to extra innings, I turned it off. I was falling asleep, and not the short nod-off you get on the sofa on a late game. This was a full fledged “I’m passing out for good for the night” kind of fall asleep. So the last thing I saw was a 6-6 tie. Funny thing is right before I stopped watching, Josh Lewin made the comment that the Diamondbacks / Rangers game was the last game going in the majors for the night. :)
Scott Feldman got the start, and got a technical quality start. Six innings, four hits, one walk, and three earned runs. Didn’t exactly light the town on fire, but his line isn’t that awful, either. His big mistake was a two run home run to Mark Reynolds in the first inning. That was 2/3 of his earned runs right there. We ran out six more pitchers besides Feldman. CJ Wilson, Jason Grilli, & Eddie Guardado threw scoreless innings. Darren O’Day gave up a single run, and Frank Francisco & Jason Jennings gave up two runs. Frankie’s was worst, because he only pitched one third of an inning. Jason Jennings I didn’t see at all, as I was asleep at that point. O’Day & Francisco gave up home runs for their runs. Francisco was another two run home run to Mark Reynolds. Reynolds had a good night.
Not nearly as good as Chris Davis, who is desperately in need of a few of the nights he had tonight. Chris went 4-5 plus a walk. He struck out once, but given how often he’s been striking out lately, one in a game is a serious improvement. They said on TV that Davis was the first Ranger to have a three hit game on the road trip, and it came in the last game of the trip. Unfortunately, Davis’ average after the 4-5 night was just .209. He needs several more of these – I really hope he turns it around, as he’s a great hitter when he’s not striking out at a rate that makes the slider down and away to Juan Gonzalez result in fewer strikeouts. Slider down and away to Juando was a sure fire strikeout, but nothing at the rate that Davis has been doing. So I’m hoping last night is the end of his major season slump so far. That they’ve stuck with him this far into it is proof the team likes him, but he needs to work it out pretty soon. I can’t imagine they’ll stay with him forever.
Funny thing is that as many pitchers as the Rangers ran out there (seven), the Diamondbacks had more. They ran nine pitchers out there in the twelve innings. Arizona starter Jon Garland threw six, but then no other Diamondback pitcher threw more than a full inning in relief. Chris Davis & David Murphy had back to back home runs in the 12th. Davis’ capped his 4-5 night.
A nice win, even if it came real late, and I was out cold for the night when it happened. I actually learned of the final score of the game from the Dallas Morning News. The real newspaper, not the website. That doesn’t happen much anymore. :)

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….