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Johan Santana. That was all you can say about this game. Santana just dominated the Rangers in every way possible. In eight innings, Johan gave up only two hits (both to Sammy Sosa), and struck out 17 batters, setting a new personal best, and a new Twins franchise record. It was totally dominating. Sosa actually almost tied the game, the pitch before he hit a double in the seventh he jacked a ball that just missed the left field foul pole by a couple of feet. It was mildly amusing to see closer Joe Nathan get booed for the 9th inning. I personally would have loved to have seen Santana go out there for the ninth, and if he gave up any kind of hit, then bring in Nathan. I would have loved to have seen Santana get 20 strikeouts. The way the Rangers were flailing up there, I thought it was a real possibility.

This all overshadowed a great pitching effort by Kevin Millwood. Millwood deserved to win this game the way he pitched. 7 innings, four hits, one run. Few too many walks (five), but you can’t argue with 7 innings, one run allowed. He’s been very good lately, and hopefully can carry this over into 2008.

But this game wasn’t about the Rangers, realy. This picture below sums it up, in my opinion.

Ranger pitching was the star of this one. Kameron Loe came off the DL, and threw five innings of shutout ball. It wasn’t the most crisp outing I had ever seen (three hits and five walks), but it was enough to get the job done. The Rangers turned three double plays this game, so that helped a lot. Loe was followed up by Mike Wood (2IP), Frank Francisco (1IP), Joaquin Benoit (1IP). Of the three relievers, there was only one walk issued (Francisco), and no more runs, so Ranger pitching was pretty well today.
It’s nice to see because of the quote that came out in the paper over the weekend from Thad Levine (I think, I can’t recall for sure as I write this) saying that the free agent pitching class this off season is going to be rather thin, now that Zambrano is off the market. The quote said something about if there’s a great deal available, they’ll get involved, but wouldn’t be surprised to see the Rangers make no free agent pitching moves. We’ll need a lot more days like the one we got today before that will be swallowed without complaining by knee jerk radio call in Ranger “fans”, swallowed by the Ticket, and especially Randy Galloway.
Boof Bonser (my vote for silliest name in all of the mlb) was not good. In 4.2 innings, he gave up 7 hits, 5 earned runs, and 3 walks. Of the hits, two of them were home runs. One to Saltamacchia, and one to Marlon Byrd. Byrd had a great night. Went two for 4 with the aforementioned home run. He drove in four runs in all.
Michael Young was 2-3 keeping his average at .305. He has 149 hits, and with about 40 games left, he won’t have much time to go cold if he wants to hit 200 again. It would be a nice feat considering how horrendous the start of the season went for him.
Always nice to see a shutout thrown by our boys.

You know, I enjoy great pitcher’s duels. In all honesty, that’s what this game was. Both Kason Gabbard and Carlos Silva pitched really well. Between the two of them, they combined for 13.2 innings, and combined gave up 10 hits and two earned runs. A pretty good pitcher’s duel. Even the pens were pretty well stacked in the stats categories. But as I’ve written about many times here, I’m no fan of extra inning games. I’m OK if we can get by inning #10, but when we lose extra inning games (which is a lot), it always seems to happen in the 10th. If we can get by that I feel better. It’s a bit irrational, I admit, but there it is.
Kason Gabbard pitched really well again, seemingly having no ill effects from the game he had to come out of early not too long ago. Kason went 6.2 innings, gave up five hits and one earned run. Walked three and struck out three. He deserved better than this. He left with the score tied, and I felt like he should have gotten the win, especially against Carlos Silva, who has historically (although not in recent vintage) been a pitcher that gets bombed a lot. The only real good moment was a towering majestic home run for Saltamacchia, his first in a Ranger uniform. Frank Catalanotto had three hits in this game, but none counted for anything. There were only three other hits in all total for the rest of the team, we were pretty much shut down.
As for the end of the game.. That’s what I get for thinking Jamey Wright had figured it out. The Twins won the game in the 10th on a “walkoff wild pitch” by Wright, allowing the winning run in. That brings up a silly statistical issue I have. The wild pitch technically counts as an unearned run. Screw that. It was the pitcher’s direct fault that the run scored by throwing it away. The rules need to be changed to make that an earned run. I don’t have the exact rulebook text in front of me, but I believe it says something along the lines of a run is unearned when it scores due to no fault of the pitcher. Feh – tell me the wild pitch wasn’t Jamey Wright’s fault – that should be an earned run.
A quick note to a big Red Sox fan of mine… How’s that Gagne trade workin’ out for ya right now? ;)

I was all ready to write a lot about how John Rheincker had a great pitching effort. Went 7.1 innings, gave up just two earned runs, left with a tie, but still, feeling good.
Then came in Willie Eyre, which is in my mind never a good thing. Might be the nicest guy in the world, but I never think good things when he came in. Boy was that fulfilled tonight. Eyre seriously stunk up the joint, got the loss (deservedly so). He only threw 0.2 innings, but gave up three hits, one walk, and four earned runs.
I got so mad at the ending of that game, I don’t feel like breaking it down.

Who would have thunk it? Certainly not me the way I was ragging on Padilla earlier on Wednesday. I don’t think most Ranger fans were really frothing at the mouth at the chance of seeing #44 pitch again. I sat down last night to watch the game, and bam – bam – bam. Padilla struck out the side in the first inning. That was very unexpected. And then something else happened. I fell asleep on the sofa.
Next thing I knew, I woke up right before Michael Young’s double in the sixth, so I missed most of Padilla’s performance. But the first inning was quite good. In all, Padilla went five innings, giving up just four hits and EIGHT strikeouts – wow. There were 15 outs while he was the pitcher, and he struck out eight of them. That was a very nice number. He did give up one unearned run. This was quite the performance. I understand five innings and 80 pitches on first start back from the DL, I’m sure that’s the reason he came out when he did.
CJ Wilson had his first shaky save – although not really his fault. There was a throwing error by Gerald Laird in the ninth, as well as a ball that just ate up Michael Young. Took a wicked hop, and went over his head, but knocked him on his backside at the same time – you don’t often see that, no matter who the fielder is. Two runs did score in the ninth, only one earned. We were helped out by a double play to end the game.
Some nice defense as two Royals were thrown out at the plate, one by Nelson Cruz, one by Marlon Byrd.
Offensively we were led by a two run double by Michael Young, and a solo home run by Ian Kinsler – Kinsler’s home run ended up being the difference, as it was the fourth and final run we got.
Nice win, wish I wasn’t unconscious for most of it. :)