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The Rangers had four guys in this game, and they all played. Granted, two of them started, and one of the other two should have started, so that came as no surprise. What was a bit of a surprise was the fact that for roughly an inning or so, all four of them were in the game at the same time – if not all on the field at the same time, as Bradley was a DH. Here’s a short summary of what our guys did:

• Josh Hamilton – 1-3 with a steal. His hit was a single. He got a lot of applause because of his home run derby moves. Wasn’t terribly impactful in the game.
• Milton Bradley – 0-2 with a walk and a steal. He was also picked off. The walk was a surprise. OK, not really. He’s been doing that all season.
• Ian Kinsler – 1-5 with a steal and a caught stealing. He also had a great tag on a not terribly well pitched strike out, throw ’em out throw from Dioner Navarro. Was well played.
• Michael Young – 2-5 with what could have been the game winning single in the 11th, but Dioner Navarro was thrown out at the plate. That was made up for by the bottom of the 15th.

I’m not going to get into the individual stuff about the whole game, but the first four innings and innings 9-14 were both scoreless, but for different reasons. The first four were well pitched. The others were well danced. Both teams really gave the othe team a ton of chances, but nobody could get the job done.
Defense was weird. There were some fantastic plays at the plate on both sides (Adrian Gonzalez pick and Miguel Tejada falling down throw plays to save the game comes to mind as well as Ichiro’s throw to get Albert Pujols). Then there was Dan Uggla, who had three errors on his own, although the third wasn’t really his fault.
Young’s hit and lost game winning RBI in the 12th was nowhere near as bad as the bottom of the 11th where the AL had the bases loaded and nobody out, and couldn’t score. In the bottom of the 10th/11th, three of the six outs were at home plate. The National League had the bases loaded in the top of the 12th, and couldn’t push one across, either. AL led off the bottom of the 12th with a double, couldn’t do anything with it. There were a ton of chances in extra innings, but nobody could seal the deal until Young came up again in the bottom of the 15th with the bases loaded and sac flied in Justin Morneau.
Four hours and fifty minutes later, Michael Young gets the game winner for the second time in the last three All-Star Games. Gotta love that.
I have to admit to being somewhat disappointed in the pre-game stuff. Oh, there was nothing wrong with it, and I really did like seeing all the Hall of Famers, but there were quite a few of them that probably should have been there like Johnny Bench & Nolan Ryan. I did like how they staged it so Yogi Berra was the last announced Hall of Famer. Some other things I wished would have happened is have Joe Torre be on the NL coaching staff for some reason. Likewise having Don Zimmer on the AL staff.

No commentary; no time.

I was involved in a church event last night, and will be most of today too, so I have no time to write about last night’s game. Nice try in the bottom of the ninth though. Love the resiliency (sp?).

After his last start, Luis Mendoza looked pretty bad. This was a complete turnaround. Mendoza looked like the guy he did at the end of last season. Great sinker, really good command. His last game was just bad, this one was just good. His overall line was 6 innings pitched, three hits, one walk, just one earned run, and EIGHT strikeouts. He was quite good. Kept Chicago off the board for the most part. It was quite a night and day vs his last start.

Our entire staff was pretty good. The White Sox only had five hits in all. Three of them were extra base hits, which accounted for the runs. Carlos Quentin had a double off of Mendoza for one of the RBI’s. The other one was a solo home run by Jim Thome off of Josh Rupe. No shame there, Thome is a big time home run hitter. I’ll take the performance of our staff. Combined, we went nine innings, just five hits and two earned runs with eleven strikeouts. Warner Madrigal was the only one who didn’t have a great outing. He only went two thirds of an inning, walking three. However, he was bailed out by a play at the plate.

For the second straight game, Brandon Boggs threw out a runner at home. Plays at home plate are in vogue this past week with the Rangers, and you almost kind of hope it happens now, don’t you? :)

Offensively, we were all over Gavin Floyd, the White Sox starter. He only went 2.2 innings, giving up five hits and SEVEN walks. Two home runs, for a grand total of six earned runs. We had two home runs this game. One, a solo shot by Chris Davis in the second inning, and a two run shot by David Murphy in the third. We didn’t have a ton of hits (just nine in all), but we were seriously helped by the walk. With the Sox pitching giving up eight of them, including one with the bases loaded, that helps a lot.

Josh Hamilton had three hits, and Michael Young had two. Ian Kinsler also had a hit, extending his hitting streak to 22 I think it is. Strange hit, though he hit the ball deep into the hole at short, and at the time we had a runner on second. The shortstop was really going away from first, so he threw to third. Our runner was safe, and they called that a hit. It probably would have been had the shortstop threw to first, hence the call. But it was an odd hit.

Speaking of odd, I have to go back to the Chris Davis home run. Usually when a home run ball is hit out onto Greene’s Hill, there’s a pile of (mostly) kids going after it. Well, this one only really had one guy running after it. He was out there way early, and there wasn’t a trail of people after him. There was one guy sort of in the area, but that was it. The guy caught it in his glove. Josh & Tom talked about it. What was amusing is that this guy was a web gem on Baseball Tonight too. I wonder if this guy knows that? :)

Shit.