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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.

Vicente Padilla had a technical quality start. He went 6+ innings, gave up 3 runs on 3 hits with 3 walks and 5 K’s. But he hit a wall in the seventh, that cost him.
But as I sit here and try and write about this on Friday, I have to say I don’t want to – because I was really disappointed that we lost the game. We should have swept the Twins.
Sigh.

I think the picture to the right about sums up this game in several ways. I don’t think I really need to explain it, do I? I mean, if you’re gonna lose, lose big. Losing 15-5 is pretty big, although it didn’t even feel as close as 10 runs for most of the game. Felt like 20-0, almost instantly. And yes, I took the easy way out and watched something else. Was watching E3 coverage, as my industry’s trade show is going on right now in Los Angeles.
Justin Morneau hit two home runs and drove in 6 RBI’s. Millwood just raised his ERA about 1.6 to 5.1 by allowing 9ER on 9 hits in 1.1IP. That can’t be good for the ol’ ERA. :) Thing is, none of the 4 relief pitchers we threw out there (Bauer, Feldman, Alfonseca, & Wilson) had clean slates. All gave up runs (although Wilson’s was unearned).
We stunk hard. However, our home streak of games without any home runs is over – Mench & Blalock had home runs.
I’ve said this before – if we’re gonna lose THIS bad, it might as well be something REALLY interesting and we lose 27-3 or something like that. :)

While we won this game, I felt bad about it. The reason was that I was completely disgusted with the Yankees series. We couldn’t do a thing against the Yankees. Then we beat the Twins, who are floundering. It just confirmed what happened in the Yankees series to me. Now if this game had been against the Red Sox, or the White Sox, or even the A’s, I would have felt better. But the Twins are 13-19 and should have lost. No accomplishment there. :(
I didn’t get to see the game, as I had forgotten it started at 6PM. My TiVo at home caught it, but I turned on for the pregame show on my way home from work, and got the game, so I listened. No score while I was driving home, but when I got home, ate dinner and all that, I discovered that my TiVo had picked up the ESPN feed of the game, and not the local coverage, so I didn’t watch anything, which at this point was in the 7th inning. I ended up doing family stuff, so I barely saw any of this one. 6PM ESPN really mess with me. :)
Hank Blalock had an odd line. He went 4 for 4, but had no runs scored, and just one RBI. Mike Young was 2-3. Mark Teixeira was 2-3 with two runs scored, and Gary Matthews was also 2-3. Phil Nevin led with 2 RBI, and no one else (Tex, Blalock, Mench) had more than one – the 6th run not coming on an RBI.
John Koronka (who I’ve had on 7 of my 8 fantasy teams for about a month now) contiunues to be solid for us. He went 6.1IP, giving up 7 hits and 2 walks for 3ER. Not as sharp as he’s been in the past, but still “technically” a quality start, and certainly well enough for the win. Benoit followed up with 1.2IP of shutout ball, and Otsuka got the save, after giving up a run.
But a win is a win, even if it doesn’t feel like the greatest win, because it was against the struggling Twins.

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You know, for awhile there the game was 8-1. We were losing, and it was obvious we were losing. I stopped watching, because quite frankly, I’m sick of watching the Yankees win. Yankees lose, I’ll watch anyday. Decided to spend some time talking to my wife.
After a time, I peeked back in to see what was going on, and saw we had gotten back in it 8-7 in the bottom of the 8th, so I backed up the Tivo a bit, and watched all that. I got all excited, thinking we’d come back and win.
I almost wished we had lost 8-1, that would have been easier to take.

The Baltimore Orioles could only muster four hits against Ranger ace, Kevin Milwood. Kevin pitched a complete game, the first such game for a Ranger pitcher this season, only a day after John Koronka set that record with 8.1IP. It’s the kind of pitching performance I’m sure everyone envisioned when he signed with us. The kind of thing that Chan Ho never really did in his time here.
Milwood did give up a home run to Jay Gibbons, the second such hit for Jay in two games. Kevin also walked two and struck out one. The Orioles didn’t get much, but they did bunch the couple they got together aside from the home run, as it did produce some small offense.
Our offence bombed Bruce Chen, a player whom I’ve never much cared for since he was in Philly. Chen was blitzed for 11 hits and 8 runs (7ER) over 4 innings pitched. The remaining four innings were handled by two guys out of the Baltimore pen who didn’t give up any more, so this was all on Chen (11 of the 14 hits were Chen’s, too).
This was our sixth win in a row, and a really nice one to have, although my gut tells me we might need it against the Yankees, too bad Kevin won’t face them this weekend.