I have to admit, the Rangers game took a backseat this evening. Today was the release of “Madden 08”, and once Samantha went to bed, that was what I was doing – playing football on my Xbox 360. I did check in from time to time, and it was nice to see this line for Kevin Millwood.
Seven innings, four hits, thee runs (only one earned), one walk, and nine strikeouts. A very nice line.
Benoit got into a little trouble with allowing two walks in his 0.2 innings, but CJ Wilson came in and shut things down nicely. This is the way it was supposed to work, except with different people at the back end of the bullpen.
I probably should have watched the game, but I was busy playing football. :)
You could use some baseball
A really good site to read regularly is “The Biz of Baseball”. It talks about well.. business related issues to baseball. Anyway, this morning I noticed an article about the Rangers, specifically about the “You could use some baseball” ad campaign.
I wrote about this some time ago – the ads are generally funny, and reflect little “moments” we have when we realize that our entertainment choices aren’t great. The only one that’s a little bit of an eyebrow raiser is the one I talked about back in February about “First base has nothing to do with kissing”. Explaining that to a small kid could be odd, but nothing to really get bent out of shape over. ;)
And unlike some people who take any opportunity to bitch about Tom Hicks, I wanted to say I liked the article a lot, and the ad campaign made me laugh, so yes. It worked. Although I don’t think it would make me attend any more games, no advertising would work on me in that regard. :)
Go read the article at bizofbaseball – it’s an enjoyable read.
G117: Rangers blow out Rays; win 9-1
Going to try a slightly different report..
Three doubles for David Murphy – good.
Kason Gabbard leaves the game early with an injury – BAD
Michael Young home run – exciting
Nice double play by Saltamacchia – cool
Seven different Rangers with RBI’s – nice
Series win – the best part.
Rusty Greer
I’ll have more to say about tonight’s game some time tomorrow. It’s late, and I don’t feel like writing right now. However, I did want to say this. Really nice to see Rusty out there again. Nice tributes and letters. However, I wanted to post a few pictures I took.
After the ceremony was over, and Rusty was taking his “lap around the ballpark”, he got near where I was sitting, and he passed Michael Young. Michael Young tipped his cap to Rusty as he drove by. Most folks will not have seen that, but it was a great moment. I almost got a shot of it, but got it just as Michael put his cap back on his head.
Was also nice the folks who made their own “retired number” sign for Rusty Greer in left field:
G116: Rangers totally dominated by Edwin Jackson, lose 3-0
I was at this game. I will say this for it. It was a very fast moving game. Done in two hours fourteen minutes. The reason for that was Edwin Jackson. The Tampa Bay starter was frickin fantastic – throwing a complete game four hit shutout. It’s odd as Jackson was something like 2-11 with an ERA of 6.50 coming into this game, and then he does that. Granted, he’s one of those pitchers we’ve seen wear the Ranger uniform with a ton of promise, and no delivery on said promise. Every once in awhile those guys will uncork a real gem; it was a shame it was against us.
The reason I was at this game was the Rusty Greer ceremonies. And as has been mentioned elsewhere, Nelson Cruz did a great Greer impression with two all out dives in right field mimicking the former red haired left fielder who manned this park for many a year. It was a nice touch.
John Rheinecker took the hill for the Rangers, and didn’t pitch bad. Six innings, three earned runs, six strikeouts, and one walk. He was beat out by Jackson, that’s for sure – it’s the only way to explain that. Jamey Wright and AJ Murray followed up, not allowing any more runs, but just the first one was enough the way Jackson was pitching. :)
G115: Little Cat’s 5 RBI’s take Rays, 7-4
This game was really powered by Frank Catalanotto’s five RBI night. Three of them came on a home run that just barely cleared the wall in the right field corner, and the other two on a single. It was a productive night for Cat. Speaking of his nickname, “Little Cat”, he got that (I think) because of Andres Galarraga being on our team at the time having the name “Cat”, so Frank got little Cat. Does he really still need to be called that? :)
Michael Young contriubted as well with the other two Ranger RBI’s. They both came on a third inning double by Mike, scoring Vazquez and Kinsler.
We had just seven hits, and scored seven runs. That’s always efficient. :)
Pitching wise, Brandon McCarthy was pretty decent. He threw only 4.2 innings, his biggest problem was again pitch count. Didn’t get out of the fifth inning, and he was at 102 pitches. That’s not good. On the other hand, he didn’t give up any earned runs, either. There were three unearned runs, but those were quite clearly a fielder’s error, so if you take those out, the earned runs were good. Pitch count was most definitely not.
CJ Wilson got his fourth save, and when he comes out, you get that “gut feeling” that he’s a closer. Just seems to have “it”. We shall see what happens when Aki comes back.
Hairston on DL
- IF/OF Jerry Hairston Jr placed on 15 day DL, retro to Aug 8
- OF David Murphy recalled from AAA [ Link ]
G114: Rangers lose finale to Oakland, 6-3
No commentary from me. No time.
Congratulations to Barry Bonds
You know, all the problems, all the investigations… I have to say, congratulations to Barry Bonds. No matter what you think of him, no matter what you think he may or may not have done, it’s still an impressive accomplishment. No, I don’t have a problem with this, really.
The way I look at it is this. Even if I took twice the amount of things people have said Barry did. Heck, even four or five times the amount, there’s no way it would make me hit baseballs like that. The natural talent is still there, and it’s still impressive. Even if you go back to a time before all these issues are alleged to have started, he was still a hall of famer. Great player. To hit that many baseballs takes talent that I don’t think any drug can give you. Plus, to be honest, it is still a big deal, and I’m not going to get all mad about it, get all pissy like a lot of sports people will probably do (Jim Rome comes to mind). I’m going to enjoy it. Partially because I figure Arod will probably beat it a few years down the road. :)
The local connection is that former Ranger Mike Bacsik was the one who gave up the shot. Quite a fiasco in the stands rumbling around for the ball.
Also, I was QUITE surprised at the video message from Hank Aaron. Given how much has been written about how Aaron can’t stand Bonds, I was quite frankly shocked to see that there, especially given the remark that Hank Aaron made not too long ago saying he “didn’t know how to spell his name”. So it was quite surprising to see him there. Barry definitely loves his dad – that much showed in his speech.
I say let it go, because if you asterisk this event, then where do you stop with the “steroid era” stuff? Do you just eliminate anything that happened between 1985 or so and now? You can’t do that either, so you just live with it, I think.
Now if something definitely happens, and we have concrete proof and he admits something, I might change my opinion, but for now…
Congratulations Barry Bonds.
G113: Rangers beat A’s, 8-6
Kason Gabbard took the hill in this game, and looked pretty decent. He got in a bit of hot water in the third, but got his way out of it. Not so much in the fourth when he gave up the first run of the game on a hit to Donnie Murphy. Gabbard gave up a single to Piazza and then a home run to Mark Ellis in the sixth after setting down the previous four in a row, and 7 out of 8 before the Piazza single.
The bottom of the sixth was a big one for the Rangers. It started off with a Cruz walk, and then a rather interesting play on a screaming liner by Jason Botts. It forced Cruz to dive back to first, that was an odd looking play, we almost ended up with two runners at first. Then Cruz was doubled in by Saltamacchia. Gerald Laird then doubled in two runs, knocking out Chad Gaudin (who I dropped from about four fantasy teams I had him on before the game). After the pitching change, Ramon Vazquez bunted Laird over to third, which seemed a bit of an odd move in the middle of a big inning. Frank Catalanotto then doubled in Laird. Then a real puzzler, the A’s intentionally walked Michael Young to get to Marlon Byrd. It ended up working, as Byrd grounded out to third, ending the inning, but it worked – we scored four runs.
Kason Gabbard came out of the game in the top of the seventh after a pretty decent line. Six innings, three earned runs (technically a quality start), five hits, three walks (too many), and four strikeouts. Way too many pitches, though – 107. Still, six innings is doable.
Wes Littleton came on, and was completely ineffective, allowing all three runners to get on base, leaving for Frank Francisco with the bases loaded. But Francisco navigated his way out of that mess, and did not allow anyone to score. I know how that feels, the Rangers have done that. Nice to have it happen for us, as opposed to against us. Francisco just mowed ’em down in the seventh. Cust flied out, Piazza struck out, and Mark Ellis grounded into a fielder’s choice. Into the eighth, Dan Johnson lined out, and Marco Scutaro flied out. Those five outs in a row came on just 12 pitches. Donnie Murphy’s at bat end that with a double, followed by an RBI single by Curt Suzuki, followed by a home run by Shannon Stewart making it 7-6, a close game again. Frustrating outing by Francisco, as he was totally dominant his first five batters, and then totally not the next few after that.
The Rangers did add one in the bottom of the 8th, and had a chance to bust it wide open, but just settled for the one.
That was it for the A’s, though. CJ Wilson came in and pitched the rest of the game, not giving up any runs, and getting the save. Kason Gabbard got his first win as a Ranger, and his first in Texas.
Random comment: Jason Botts just looks gigantic at the plate. :)
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