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Friday’s game is the halfway point of the season. We head into that game at (wait for it) .500 again, after having dropped the finale of the series to Houston, 7-2. We fell behind bigtime very early, and were never ever in this game.
Millwood gave up a three run triple in the first inning up onto the giant hill of grass in center field, and then in the second inning surrendered four more runs. Kevin was just a mess. He actually threw five innings total, but his first two were so bad, it gave him a line that was bad even if you factor in the three scoreless innings he did pitch. All told, Kevin gave up twelve hits and three walks for seven earned runs. Raised his ERA over five (5.08) – just bad. The only positive to the pitching was that Josh Rupe, Jack Benoit, & Jamey Wright all had scoreless innings to follow, but it didn’t much matter at that time.
Wandy Rodriguez for the Astros threw gem of a game against us, and even if Kevin had given up just a few runs, it wouldn’t have much mattered. In his eight innings, Rodriguez only gave up a single run on five hits. The run that he did give up was in his last inning pitched on a single to Ian Kinsler. We were pretty much shut down all game. There was one surprise hit though – a double by Kevin Millwood. This ends NL Interleague for the season, and our pitchers did pretty well as a group with the stick.
Josh Hamilton & Milton Bradley were in the game, but neither factored into what little offense we did have, and Hamilton had to leave the game after the first inning when he was hit in the hand by a pitch. Anyone else having visions of him being elected to play in the All-Star game, but not being able to?
This ends the Silver Boot series for 2008. Every year someone writes about this – if you recall, the Rangers were making a big stink about getting out of the AL West and going to the AL Central to be more in tune with the time zone we’re in. That was apparently going to happen, and Tom Hicks let Bud Selig off the hook by accepting a guaranteed series each year against the Astros, keeping us with a lot of 9PM game starting times. This was supposed to become a big rivalry, but it hasn’t happened. I do like seeing us play the Astros, that part is nice, but the rivalry is a non issue. The most telling thing of all was the quote by Michael Young about the silver boot that the Rangers won (again on run differential, as the series was 3-3). Young said, “I could care less,” shortstop Michael Young said. “They can keep it for all I care.” That your “face of the franchise” player said that about the boot tells you all you need to know. As much as I like the Astros games, I think I’d rather be in the AL Central with more realistic starting times for my inter-division games.
Philly comes to down for the first time ever. My brother is flying in from Philadelphia, and we’re going to be at all three games. Yeah, I’ll be wearing Phillies shirts – it’s not often I get to see my home town team live. I’ll probably do the thing where I wear a Phillies shirt, and a Rangers cap. Probably won’t see too many of those in the park. :)

I’m still pretty tied down with work, and since I wanted to get this done before the next game starts, I’m going to have to resort to something quick.
1) Scott Feldman can’t catch a break. On a game he doesn’t pitch terribly well, the team goes on to win a low scoring game. They can’t score for him when he pitches great. Go figure.
2) CJ Wilson really feels like John Wetteland in that he gives you a heart attack before getting the save.
3) Welcome Max Ramirez! Not only did he get his first major league hit in the game, he then went on to get his first home run, a two run shot that turned out to be the game winner. That was really nice to see!
Tonight is the rubber game for the series, and for the overall Silver Boot. I should have some time to write about that one tomorrow.

Still busy with the project from yesterday, no time to write.

I was sitting down to write recaps for the weekend’s games and was handed a project by my boss, so I will have to pass on this game.
Nice to see Pidente get his 10th win – probably could be a candidate to be an All-Star pitcher, but the last time he was, there was a tie in the All Star game. :)

The Rangers got out to a lead early in this one, with a leadoff home run by Ian Kinsler, just two pitches into the game. Unfortunately, despite the score, it was NOT one of those games that you get out early and coast. For two reasons.
One – our bullpen lately won’t let you coast.
Two – We let the Nats back in the game fairly quickly.
We did get out to a three run lead in the first inning, then our bats went silent for awhile. It was during this time that Kason Gabbard let the Nats creep back in with a two run fourth, and solo run in the fifth to make the score at that time 4-3.
But a huge seven spot in the seventh inning put the Rangers way out front, and a few single runs in the last two frames assured this was a Nats stomping game.
The Rangers had eighteen hits in all, but mostly just singles. Kinsler’s home run, and doubles by Murphy, Young, & Vazquez were it for extra base hits.

Jamey Wright got himself in some hot water in the 14th inning. Bases loaded, one out. Got a strikeout, but hit a grounder just out of the reach of Michael Young. That was it.
Wasted a good outing by Kevin Millwood. Hats off to the Nats pen, which kept us almost completely down from the third inning on. In fact, from the seventh inning onwards, we had just one hit.
We may have lost Gerald Laird for awhile, as his hamstring looked really bad when he collapsed in a heap. That will probably make Salty the #1 catcher for awhile, they’ll probably bring up one of our kids to be the backup. Nice that Salty did finally get a guy stealing.
Basically, all this boils down to one word – DAMMIT!