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Who would have thunk it? After the bad stretch we’ve been in since, well.. opening day really, (although I was going to say the six game losing streak), who would have thought we could pull out a 4-0 win like that?
Tonight I ran into a problem with my computer at home – I had a hardware failure, and had to spend the night figuring out why a data drive failed, and my USB mouse/keyboard were no longer working. Figuring that out took longer than I was expecting, but while doing that, I had the game on the mlb gameday audio on my laptop.
So I was listening to the game while I was getting annoyed at my hardware problems. But this was probably good, as there wasn’t a lot of action in this one in terms of offense. The A’s had a total of 9 hits, but weren’t able to put a run across the board. All the A’s hits were singles, according to the box score. The Rangers had less hits (six), but were able to get a fourspot in the top of the sixth, which was the only scoring for the entire game for both teams. The funny thing is that only one of the four runs was earned, and listening to Eric & Victor on this one they say that the other one was sort of “unearned” because we shouldn’t have been put in the position to get them – one of those “mental error” type of things. The game winning hit was a two run single by Sammy Sosa, who finally came through with the bases loaded after a few failed attempts recently. The big “hit” of the night was Marlon Byrd, who got three hits himself (and the other RBI besides Sosa’s 2), and the entire rest of the team only got three. So he had a good night.
Mike Wood started this game in a spot start function. He did pitch five scoreless innings on just five hits, but also gave up five walks. Too many walks. Obviously, the rest of our pen got some scoreless innings in, with a shutout, but it seemed odd that Gagne got a save in a 4-0 score. I did miss the bottom of the ninth due to my needing to down my net connection at the time, so it must have been one of those deals where it’s a save based on the guy on deck.
Still, it’s nice to see a win, but we need way too many of these for it to matter much, I suppose.

They had a chance in the 8th. Bases loaded. Sosa pinch hit and stuck out again. Gerald Laird fouled out. That’s about it in a nutshell. Had a chance; blew it. You know, this picture from tonight’s game kind of sums it up in an odd kind of way.

But, on the positive side, seeing this picture below online with the title “Jays send reeling Yankees into the AL cellar” kind of cheered me up – even just a little.

OK, I lied. I freakin’ loved that headline and picture. But they’ve got a long way to go to join our little team from Arlington below the Kansas City line (forget the Mendoza line, we’re so far down, we’re below the Kansas City line).

That’s right, with this loss, nobody sucks worse than us – we officially have the worst record in major league baseball! 18-33, .353 (KC and Cincinnati are both 19-33, .365)

BONUS FACT: The Yankees are 13.5 games out in their division, we’re only 12.5.

Additionally in place of part of the game, I watched a new episode of Doctor Who tonight with my wife. That was probably more entertaining right now.

It shows you were fans are with this team that I didn’t even watch this game. I had it on my TiVo, but I didn’t even watch a frame. After spending some time at church today, I came home, and decided I was going to play Uno on Xbox Live, and then some Super Paper Mario on my Nintendo Wii. I then took a nap. All of those were more enticing than watching the Rangers this day.
I missed another frustrating ending. In looking at the box score, Kameron Loe actually pitched well enough to get the win, but our supposed “lock ’em down” back end of the bullpen (Otsuka & Gagne) faltered pretty big this game.
We tried to come back, scoring some runs in the bottom of the ninth, but it wasn’t enough. This was game 50, and our THIRTY SECOND loss of the season so far. It’s the first time I looked at the standings in awhile, and was quite surprised to see we were 18-32, with a winning percentage of .360. EVEN THE KANSAS CITY FREAKIN’ ROYALS HAVE A BETTER RECORD THAN THAT! That’s some serious shame right there.
Only one team in all of baseball has a worse record, that was the Cincinnati Reds at 18-33, and that’s only one game away.
Anyone up for a game of Uno on Xbox Live?

The Rangers were doing fairly well on Saturday, up until the sixth inning. We actually took the lead first, going up 1-0 on a double by Sosa, and a single by Marlon Byrd who was called up for this game. Boston took the lead, 2-1 in the top of the fourth, partially helped by a fielding error by Mike Young.
We retook the lead in the bottom of the fifth, with a three spot powered by a Gerald Laird double. The scoring was topped off with a sac fly by Kenny Lofton. But as I saw on one national report, the “wheels fell off” for Vicente Padilla in the sixth. In fact, it was so weird, I’ll just cut/paste the play by play for that inning.
– K. Youkilis singled to center
– D. Ortiz flied out to deep center
– M. Ramirez tripled to deep right, K. Youkilis scored
– M. Ramirez scored on wild pitch
– J.D. Drew walked
– M. Lowell singled to left, J.D. Drew to second
– J. Benoit relieved J. Benoit
– C. Crisp singled to center, J.D. Drew scored, M. Lowell to third, C. Crisp to second advancing on throw
– D. Mirabelli walked
– A. Cora hit sacrifice fly to center, M. Lowell scored, C. Crisp to third
– J. Lugo walked, D. Mirabelli to second
– K. Youkilis walked, C. Crisp scored, D. Mirabelli to third, J. Lugo to second
– D. Ortiz grounded out to first
Obviously Joaquin Benoit didn’t relieve himself (no pun intended) there. The triple by Manny Ramirez is apparently not a typo, but you get the point. Was an ugly inning for both Vicente & Joaquin. Blech. That cost us the game. CJ Wilson & Aki followed up with scoreless relief, but we couldn’t get any more scoring.
The game wasn’t as “flat” as we’ve been for a lot of the season, but just another loss to stick on the pile. Sigh.

The “home team” version of the official mlb.com recap for this game had the title “Rangers’ pain continues”. That’s certainly true. This game was mostly painful, except for the bottom of the fourth.
First off, it was against the Red Sox. Now if you go back and read my game recaps for the last several years, I used to enjoy going to Red Sox games. In fact, they were my favorite opponent to see come into town. The games were always good, I liked a lot of the other players. That’s not the case anymore, and it’s pretty much the same reason I don’t like going to Yankees games here. Stands are full of jerk visiting fans. Now I know I’m generalizing, and they’re not all that way, but since the Sox won a few years ago, they have become the Yankees. Both in spending habits of the team, and of their fans, who are quite proud (especially when filled with liquid libido) to inform you of such. And as to the general suckiness of your team, you yourself, and your grandmother. It’s turned me off of going to Sox games. I went to opening day, because, well, it was opening day. But I would have enjoyed that better if it was someone else. Even the Kansas City Royals or the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Only satisfaction is that the jerk Sox fans out there last night got wet. On the other hand, one of the best moments I was ever at was that “SWEEP” the Homies started a few years ago when the Sox were in town. Now that my rant is out of the way…
This game started off like most did, with the Rangers playing from behind early. This time it was a 4-0 deficit after the top of the second. One of the worst things you can do as a pitcher happened this frame – McCarthy walked the bases loaded to start the inning. After a sac fly, McCarthy walked someone again, reloading the bases (twice) on walks. A couple more singles and a sac fly, and it was 4-0 quickly. The game felt over, given the general lack of well, spunk this team has showed this season. In fact, I was so disgusted, I switched over to some Pro Bowling stuff I had on my TiVo, and watched that for a bit. :(
Brandon McCarthy came out after two – which after the four run frame, I initially thought was due to his pitching, but I read later it was due to a blister. Those aren’t good, because they tend to flare up again the next start, I wonder if they’ll be able to keep him off the DL.
The Rangers did have some life in them briefly in the fourth – and I had just tuned back over from my bowling footage right before the fun started, so at least I got to see the best part of the game. The Rangers got to Matsuzaka with a cycle for the inning. Tex started off the inning with a triple that Manny Ramirez misplayed a bit in left. It was followed by a double from Sammy Sosa, and then a chip shot home run by Frank Catalanotto – so Dice-K was rocked pretty quickly. After a couple of outs, Gerald Laird squibbed a single, and he was followed by May sensation Ramon Vazquez, who homered to right, and put the Rangers up 5-4. It was at this moment that the picture I took off the TV screen happened. We’re having a great inning, and Josh & Tom are talking about the mushrooms that were growing at the park with all the rain we got. Now at the time it made me chuckle a bit; Vazquez’ HR prompted Lewin to say “The Rally Mushrooms are alive in Arlington”, but in retrospect it seemed a bit of an odd thing to say. I honestly can’t make up my mind whether I liked the mushroom shtick or I did not. Mushrooms aside, we were back in the lead, and it felt like we could win.
The Sox bullpen had other ideas. Of the remaining five innings, we scored just one run. The Rangers bullpen decided they weren’t going to pitch like that, and gave up six more runs in the fifth and sixth innings. A couple of singles and a double in the fifth gave the Sox the lead back, and then they stepped on our throats in the sixth with a walk, a triple, a couple of doubles and a single. It was 10-5 at that time, and I kind of tuned out. I finished watching my bowling footage, and then went and played some Uno on my Xbox 360. The final run we got we didn’t even “get”, it was a gift run on a wild pitch.
The most exciting talk at the moment seems to be what the Rangers would get for Mark Teixeira in a trade this July. Oh well.