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Well, this Sunday afternoon brought a nice day to the Rangers, who have definitely had a hard time with the “dog days” of August. We swept the Devil Rays, which was nice as division leader Oakland lost. In fact, everyone moved up. In fact, the AL West is essentially a three way tie, as right now, the Rangers and Angels are .5 back of the A’s. We’re technically in second place due to percentage points. What makes it even more interesting is that we’re tied with the Red Sox for the lead in the AL Wild Card race, too. Most interesting, as we’re rounding the corner into the final stretch of the season. The only thing that concerns me is our recent wins are against the Devil Rays & the Tigers. While a win is a win, you’d rather them be against better teams. Yeah, there’s the story about they’re all Major league teams, but let’s face it. Beating the Yankees and the Red Sox is way different than beating the Devil Rays & the Tigers.
The game itself was led by pitching aberration Ryan Drese. I call him that, because no one is supposed to be able to pitch like this at our ballpark. He has a home ERA of like 2.1 something, which is the best in all of the American League. He’s top 5 in overall ERA. It’s amazing. I said it before, and I’ll say it again. I was way wrong on Ryan Drese. I wanted him out of here almost as bas as most people wanted Chan Ho Park out of here. Drese appears to have figured it out.
Our outfielders appear to be picking it up again, especially since the change in lineup Buck did a week ago or so. Dellucci is doing great in the #2 hole. I’ve always been a proponent that it shouldn’t matter WHERE you bat in a lineup, your job is to hit the ball. However, if it makes them play better, than go for it. Blalock is really starting to concern me, though. Laynce Nix had a home run today, and looked a lot better overall. Mark Teixeira added a home run in the bottom of the eighth. That solved a couple of things. First, it took away a save chance for Cordero, who probalby needed a day off, not to be pitching three days in a row like that. Second, it just proved how amazing his power is this year – he’s got more HR than his rookie year, and he spent 4-5 weeks on the DL. If he had a full number of at bats, I believe he’d be in the lead for homers in the league. Assuming he gets a full season next year? Look out. I just know it’ll cost us big time when his contract is up for renewal in 2006, as he has Satan as his agent.
Oh, and they keep talking on TV about how we have 9 guys with 10 home runs or more. If we get a 10th, it will tie a major league record. As of right now, the 9 guys with that many home runs are Teixeira (28), Blalock (24), Soriano (24), Mench (16), Mike Young (14), Barajas (13), Nix (13), & Fullmer (11). The next one is Gary Matthews, who has 9. I figure he’s good for one more the rest of the season, so that will give us our record tying 10. If we wanted to break the record, it might be a stretch, as the next closest guy is Herb Perry, who has 5. We only have two other guys on the roster with any home runs at all, and they’re Jordan with 2, and Adrian Gonzalez with 1, and he’s not even in the majors. So unless Herb goes on a tear and gets 5 the last 6 weeks of the season, I doubt we’re getting to 11 guys.
One other thing. The Devil Rays have some absolute greased lightning on the bases. Carl Crawford was bad enough, but this new kid they called up? Joey Gathright? I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anyone run that fast – it was absolutely amazing. Oh, and BJ Upton? He was born two YEARS after I graduated high school, and I’m double his age. ACK!

Boy, this game started off ugly. In the top of the first, Bacsik gave up three hits, and hit two batters. Surprised we only gave up two that inning. We stormed back to take the lead in the bottom of the second behind a two run double by Brian Jordan, who is doing well the last week or so, perhaps he’s turned it around. Would be a nice boost in the last 6 weeks of the season.
However, we couldn’t hold it. Nor could the Devil Rays hold the lead once they took it back. This game went back and forth with runs scored in 6 of the 10 half innings between the first and fifth. In fact, the last run scored in the bottom of the fifth when Kevin Mench hit a home run to left off of Devil Rays reliever Franklin Nunez, who was making his major league debut (he got the loss, too). Soriano made a great double play, tagging a runner and throwing to first. There also was a goofy 1-3-6-1-4-6 pickoff play, too.
We probably should have scored more, as did the Devil Rays, we both left a lot of players on board. Both sides committed an error, and our bullpen was great again. The game ended with a thrill, as Gerald Laird threw out the major league steals leader Carl Crawford to end the game.
We go for the sweep tomorrow.

A win is a win. I’d like to say it’s a great win, like a 2-1 win over the Yankees, but it wasn’t. 5-3 over the Devil Rays is still a win, and right now, we need wins any way we can get them. It’s absolutely amazing that on August 13th, we’re still only 1.5 games out, and in the hunt of things. Earlier in the season, I didn’t want to get worked up because I felt it was too soon. OK, NOW I believe in it. It’s 6 weeks to go, and we’re in the playoff hunt. Our rotation is in shambles, and we’re still here. I would think that Showalter would have to get consideration for manager of the year for all this.
Anyway, about the game. Kenny Rogers took the mound, and Kenny’s last few starts have been unlike the start of the season for him. It was getting to the point where I think people were starting to think that Ryan Drese was the only reliable starter we had now. Kenny stepped up a bit. He wasn’t masterful, but he did go long enough to keep us in the game, and get his 14th win of the season. I think those dreams of him having a 20 win season are gone. It mathematically still could happen, but I don’t see him winning 6 more for the rest of the season. My guess is he wins 17-18 now. Prove me wrong, Kenny!
Offensively, we scored 3 of our 5 runs on two home runs. Another alarming stat. We are not the club we were at the start of the season, when we’d drive in a ton of runs w/o home runs. It seems to be back to traditional Ranger baseball, whack it lately. Tex & Dellucci had the other RBI’s, besides Nix & Sori’s HR’s.
Our bullpen was good, although not as lights out as it was in the past. Cordero had to pitch 1.1 innings for the save, and he made it interesting; he even mixed in a balk. But he got the save in the win – and I guess that’s the bottom line. We won the game.

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I don’t have much time to write about this, so here’s a few highlights.
1) Drese was great
2) Kevin Brown lost to the Rangers again
3) THE YANKEES LOST!
That about sums it up.

Ugh 2. We got swept in Baltimore and will now limp home to meet the Yankees. This could get real ugly.