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Got extremely busy, didn’t have time to write much. But the best thing to write about is the total lack of good pitching in this game.
Chan Ho Park got his 100th career win, but he really didn’t deserve it the way he pitched. He was bailed out by our offense who beat up on an even worse pitcher, Jose Lima.
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Aw dammit. A team we were expected to stomp on continues their odd mastery of us by taking a pitcher’s duel on Friday night by the score of 2-1.
Pedro Astacio took the hill for the Rangers and had a good performance. He gave up just two runs in his seven innings pitched. I could whine about that, but then I look at what Roger Clemens is going through this year, and it could be a lot worse. Still, one hates to waste a good pitching performance by the most inconsistent of our starting pitchers. That’s exactly what we did by scoring only one run, and that run was not exactly a power display.
Our offense was asleep on Friday night. KC’s Hernandez isn’t exactly a bad pitcher, but he isn’t one you would expect to give up just one run over six innings, but that’s what he did. The Royals threw out three relievers who threw shutout ball, so we couldn’t mount any kind of comeback.
The saving grace is that the entire AL West lost last night, so we remain .5 of a game back of the Angels for first place.
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Sorry, no time for an update for this game.

The streak has come to an end at nine wins. Ryan Drese didn’t keep the great pitching performances intact, going 6.1 innings, giving up 10 hits and 6 runs (5ER). On the positive side, he didn’t walk anyone, but gave up too many hits. But it wasn’t all bad, Drese looked good through 6 innings, as we were up 4-1, and feeling good. But the wheels fell off in the seventh inning, when we gave up a 5 spot to the Tigers. That was the game in a nutshell, unfortunately.
Offensively, we had a few more home runs by the currently hot Richard Hidalgo, and the extremely hot Kevin Mench. Dellucci went 3 for 5, but no runs scored, or RBI’s.
The bottom line for me is that the game felt like the 10th win in a row until the seventh inning when all the air went out of it due to the 5 spot the Tigers got.
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Rogers finishes the month 6-0. His era was 1.6something or other. Several consecutive shutouts. I bet Roger Clemens would kill for some of the offense Kenny Rogers was getting this month. Kenny was godlike this month, and it was the backbone to our winning ways in May. May 2005 was also the month with Kenny Rogers on the calendar the Rangers handed out in April. For the record, Ryan Drese is the calendar boy in June, so hopefully he’ll have the same kind of month. :)
Don’t have time to write much else, but it was really nice to keep the streak going. Let’s see if Drese can keep it going tonight in Detroit, and keep us in FIRST PLACE – something we gained last night when the White Sox beat the Angels. :)
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Going into last Sunday’s game against the Astros, I don’t think most people thought Chan Ho Park had a shot in hell to beat Roy Oswalt. And he did. The further thought occurs that I think even fewer people figured Chan Ho could pull it off twice in a row, beating Jon Garland. But he did. That’s the most amazing thing about this 8 game winning streak to me – Chan Ho Park has won twice during it, and hasn’t been blasted out of the water, like he had been the last few years. We beat the White Sox – the team with the best record in baseball coming into this series 2 games out of 2 (third was lost in a rainout). That’s the first time our team has ever (including the Senators days) gone 8-0 in a homestand. Most impressive.
This game didn’t start out that way. After 5.5 innings, we were losing to Garland, 3-1. He was pitching well, and Chan Ho wasn’t. Chan Ho didn’t stink up the joint, but he did walk too many, and had too many jams. It’s quite amazing actually that he only gave up three. Anyway, Garland was doing well. Until the sixth when we just teed off on him. Hits were all over the place, and we put up a 6 spot to go up 7-3, and we didn’t look back. We added 5 more runs in the final two frames to really blow it open – something I don’t think anyone would have guessed.
Don’t have time to run down all the individual stats today (you can check out the box scores below). But I mean – wow. Now we’re going into Detroit, who has been playing better, but I think we match up well against. We should stomp on Kansas City (although we’ve had trouble there the last few years), and then we’re off to my hometown team Philadelphia. Not sure how we’ll do there. I just wish I could see them in person there.
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Rainout. It’s going to be made up when the White Sox return at the end of August. I did wonder about the TV coverage, since this was supposed to be a national game, and the national coverage cut out after 6PM. If the Rangers had ended up playing the game, I wonder if our local coverage folks would step in and broadcast the game locally anyway. Would have been irritating to lose the game like that.
Oh well, doesn’t much matter, it’s being made up later. Park & Garland have been pushed to Sunday instead. We will end up missing Mark Buehrle because of the rain, so that’s a good thing.