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Aw dammit. This was looking good too. Tejeda was pretty decent if not great through the first four, and got through the fifth, although he was clearly out of gas. He only gave up one run on two hits through five. Struck out six, walked four. As I said, decent if not great. Given some more stamina, he might have gone further.
He was matched up against Roy Oswalt. You know what that means. You’re expected to lose. Especially when you throw a “kid” (Tejeda) against him. But Oswalt seemed (for him anyway) pedestrian. His total line was 6.1 IP on 11 hits, 2 BB, and 3K. He gave up all thee (earned) runs the Rangers scored tonight. Could have been a lot worse as we left a ton of guys on base. The frustrating part of that is that we got twice as many hits as the ‘Stros got (12 to 6), but lost the game 5-3.
Our relief pitching was an odd lot tonight. Rick Bauer couldn’t hold the lead, giving up the tying run (at 2-2) in his inning of work. He was followed by Scott Feldman who looked really great during his .2 IP. Problem was he was making a running tag on a runner down the first base line, and twisted his ankle – and had to leave the game. Joaqun Benoit came in, and in the 8th gave up the 3 run double to Adam Everett that lost us the game.
Shame, as it felt like a game would would triumph over Roy Oswalt.

As much as I’d like to write about the Rangers beating the Yankees to take a series split in New York, I just don’t have the time today. Way too busy at work, as my company is about to release a product. Updates might be spotty for the forseeable future due to that.

Oh yeah. We lost to the Yankees again. I decided a year or so ago I don’t write about losses to the Yankees.

Shit.

Milwood strong. Mussina strong. Cordero strong. Otsuka strong. Farnsworth not.
That’s the game. Milwood had a great game, going seven innings (on only 78 pitches), and at one point retired about a dozen in a row. In fact, Kevin would have likely kept going, but had to come out due to it raining in the Bronx, causing another rain delay. Cordero came out, pitched a scorless 8th, and Otsuka a scoreless ninth. Between all three pitchers, we gave up a total of six hits, a really great pitching performance, plus no walks.
Mike Mussina also went seven, giving up 6 hits and two runs, matching Milwood. However, Kyle Farnsworth came out and pitched in the rain, giving up 3 hits and two runs in his one inning of work. That gave us the game.
We’re now two games up in the West, which is nice to see.

Given the way the rains washed out Friday night’s game, and the forecast we were told about, I can’t say I’m surprised at all about the fact that tonight’s game was totally rained out hours before it even started. According to the press release, it will be made up in June when we go back there.

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Going into this road trip, I didn’t have a particularly great feeling. The homestand ended weakly, and my gut feeling was the team was lethargic. The dark storm clouds were all over the start of this road trip, both figuratively and literally on Friday night. I saw this road trip as a major possibility for disaster. We had that 1-12 road trip last year which effectively killed the season for a lot of people. We are in Boston, where we haven’t played well at all in the last few yeras, then to New York for 4, and then on to Houston before returning home again. It didn’t feel good at all.
Which is why the win last night made me feel better. Sure, it’s just one, and we could lose all the rest, but I’d much rather start the road trip with a win than a loss. You don’t often get games shortened by weather for a win, but that’s what happened. Actually, now that I think about it, I used to see this a bunch when I lived in Philly, but down in Texas, that almost never happens, it seems.
Kameron Loe started the game, and looked pretty good, if not dominant, despite his line of 5IP and 0ER on 5 hits (4K, 1BB). I did miss bits of it due to “family stuff”, but from what I saw, it was good, if not “oh my god, he’s shutting out the Sox”. But, you can’t argue with the line, it was a good performance, even if my attention wasn’t focued on it. :)
Clement on the other hand never seemed to get it going, going 5 himself, but giving up 4 runs on six hits over his five frames. Hank Blalock got a home run off CLement, but that was the only longball. Gary Matthews led the offensive charge going 2 for 4 with three RBI’s, and a triple. Rod Barajas and Phil Nevin also chimed in with a double each. We actually didn’t have a bunch of hits overall (7 in 6 innings), but they were efficient, combining for 6 runs. From what they were saying, it seems lke Saturday’s game might get wiped out by rain, too.
Also, I don’t know if you read Baseball Musings, but David over there was at the game last night, and posted his thoughts on attending the soaked Sox game here.