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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.

Ugh.

Lost to the Orioles. Erickson was “OK” in his first Ranger start. Rodrigo Lopez was awesome. That’s about it.

Ugly from the start. The only good thing to say about this game was that our pen was pretty decent once we got into the guys who are normally out there.

A really quick, nicely crisp moving game lead to a Rangers sweep in Detroit, and our retaking of first place, with our 60th win of the season. I know a lot of the local press in spring training was saying this was about all the wins we’d get total, as they were saying 100 loss seasons. Ha!
Ryan Drese earned his eighth win of the season, and did it in a way we don’t normally do. Nice, quick pitching, and a low scoring game. All told, there were 3 runs, and 13 hits for both teams. Thing is, both teams had a few other opportunities to score, and didn’t. The Tigers had the bases loaded twice, and didn’t get anything, and we had bases loaded once, I think, and we didn’t get anything, either.
Drese, and Ledezma for the Tigers were cruising along through five, when Ledezma came out due to a pitch count limit. Esteban Yan came in, and gave up a solo home run to Soriano to win the game. Our bullpen (Mahay, Almanzar, Cordero) was spectacular, not allowing any runs on the way for CoCo’s 33rd save of the season.
A really nice, very National League feel to this game.

I have to say I wasn’t thrilled at seeing another in our line of starting pitchers (the 14th this season now) go out there. I was thinking “Oh great – here’s another guy who will get pasted and sent back to the minors”. I was wrong about that. Mike Bascik went 7 innings, gave up just four hits, and NO runs. He walked no one and struck out four. Was a stellar performance. Sure, it’s just the Detroit Tigers, but still. It was an impressive line. I’d say he earned himself another start with that.
Another Ranger that had a good night was David Dellucci. He went 3 for 5 with an RBI, and two runs scored. However, the best night probably was by Laynce Nix. Nix was 3 for 3 with 2 RBI’s, a walk, and three runs scored. He also had a couple of diving catches in centerfield, and an assist on a putout at home plate. Was definitely a good night for the boy from Midland.
The Yankees also won, which brought us back to just half a game out of first. The Red Sox also lost, which gave us a 1.5 game lead in the Wild Card race. Things are looking good. I think I might allow myself to believe, even given the shaky state of our rotation.