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WOW! What a finish! An absolutely amazing win in a great game means we now are only 2 games out of first place with 10 games to go in the season.
I spent most of the morning at the law firm that represents my company, so when I returned, I didn’t have much time to pay attention to the game. I was buys doing work work and didn’t pay much attention. I know the game changed hands a few times, and when Park gave up a HR ball three pitches into the game I wasn’t filled with a lot of excitement about our chances for a sweep.
I didn’t really get to start paying attention to the game until the 8th inning. We were down 3-2, and then we went down 4-2 when Jeff Nelson gave up a home run ball – the third we gave up today. Then after a 10 or 11 pitch at bat, Blalock jacked a solo home run to bring us back to one run. Following that, Mike Young (who went 4-5 and is now 6 hits shy of setting a new record for hits with a season – he currently has 205) doubled down the line to bring the tying run to the plate. Ken Macha walked Mark Teixeira intentionally (which was his second free pass of the game, his 5th in the game, and a new Ranger record for walks in a 9 inning game). That brought up Brian Jordan who grounded out, in what sounded like a DP ball on the radio. So now we’ve got runners at the corners with two outs. Down a run.
Up steps David Dellucci who has been in an 0-20 slump or something like that. Dellucci gets down with two strikes. We’re down to our last strike, and he then jacks a double (I don’t remember where it went exactly), which scored both Mike Young and Brian Jordan to win the game in walkoff fashion.
My words here simply cannot do justice how cool this win was. I wish I was there, and I might have been had I not had to spend all morning at a lawyer’s office. We’re done with Oakland for the season. Next up is Seattle. Bring it on!

We won again on Eric Young’s first home run of the season – what a great time for it.
I can’t spend much time, as I just got back from the law firm who represents my company (spent the morning there), and I need to go do some work now. :)

As I write this, it’s 5:30PM and I realized I totally forgot about today’s update. I have to leave in 10 minutes, so I have just enough time to slap together an update, but can’t write much.
I was at this game, and boy was it great to see us spank Mulder again for the second time in a week. It was capped by Mike Young’s grand slam which was most awesome in person. If the hit that McLemore botched in the first inning wasn’t called a hit, it would have made the grand slam his 200th hit of the season. He’s got 201 now, and needs 10 more in the last 12 games to set a new Ranger record. That’s probably pretty likely to happen.
Anyway, Drese got the win, the Rangers got the win, and the bullpen didn’t give up anything. A really nice win that seemed like a no doubter from the start. And Owen, it was a blast going with you, we should have done that more this season.,
As is Ichiro’s pursuit of the all time hits record as well. It’s possible that might happen when we finish up the season in Seattle, although if Mr. Suzuki gets a couple more 5 hit games like he did last night, it won’t be a problem.

We did something we haven’t done in about four years or so. Won a 1-0 game. I mean. WOW. There were a total of NO earned runs at all this game, as the one we got was unearned due to a Guerrero muff in right field of a fly ball. I thought Saturday’s 2-0 win was great, but this was better. Four pitchers for another shutout. Was really great. I just wish we could do this to the A’s. Speaking of that…
We come back home to play the A’s this week. It’s make or break time now, I think. If we lose the series at home against Oakland, that’s probably it for the season, I would think.

Wow! Just when I thought things were looking to cave in on the season (suspensions, Soriano gone, didn’t gain any ground on Oakland), this happens. A 7 pitcher 6 hit shutout of the Angels in their stadium. The best thing I can do is to copy the pitching line here:

TEXAS                        ip       h   r  er  bb  so  hr    era
J Benoit                      4       2   0   0   3   6   0   5.83
E Ramirez (W, 5-3)            1 1/3   0   0   0   0   1   0   4.41
J Nelson (H, 8)               1       0   0   0   0   2   0   5.48
R Mahay (H, 13)                 1/3   0   0   0   0   0   0   2.67
D Brocail (H, 3)              0       2   0   0   1   0   0   4.87
B Shouse (H, 9)                 1/3   0   0   0   0   0   0   2.50
F Cordero (S, 45)             2       2   0   0   1   3   0   1.83

The best part is that Benoit came in and gave 4+ innings of two hit shutout ball, something I wouldn’t have expected from him. This wasn’t as great as that 6 pitch no hitter the Astros had against the Yankees recently, but this was great! I was at the office at the time, but I did get to listen to a good portion of it. Was really nice – wish I was home to watch it on TV. There may yet be a road to the playoffs, but time is definitely running out. We need to step up and stop treading water like we’ve been if we want to get to the dance in 2004.

When this game started, I thought we were going to walk away with it. We had a couple of home runs in the first inning, and were up 3-0 right away. But our pitching couldn’t hold it. Chan Ho Park gave up 5 runs in his 5 innings. RA Dickey gave up 3 runs (2ER) in his two innings. And Frankie Francisco, appealing his suspension, gave up a solo shot. Longballs did us in. We tried to come back with a couple in the ninth, but it wasn’t enough.
However, the bigger news of the day was the handing down of suspensions by Major League Baseball for the fracas in the bullpen last Monday. Frankie got 16 games, which is effectively the rest of the season, but I think it was declared to be 16 so that if he has a failed appeal, the games will carry over into next season, too. Doug Brocail got seven games, Carlos Almanzar got five games, and hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo got five games. All are appealing, and were in uniform for tonight’s game.
Additionally, it was found out that Alfonso Soriano is out for the rest of the season. There’s a lot of speculation that he may have played his last game as a Ranger. There’s a lot of options available if we want to go that way, but I’d be surprised if Ranger brass has made the decision on that for 2005 already.

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