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When Chan Ho Park pitches, two things seem destined to happen. He’ll hit someone, and he’ll give up a home run or three. Last night he actually hit three people, although one of them didn’t count because Juan Gonzalez swung at the same time. :) Juan did however, knock out the Rangers with a three run home run to left field.

Park actually looked good last night. He’s definitely better than the last two years, but rather annoyingly continues to give up the mistake ball or two which kills him. If he can knock out the one or two big mistake pitches, he’d probably been 4-2 with a 3.2 ERA or something like that. He does lead our team in strikeouts, and with all the injuries we’ve had this year to our pitching staff, the possibility of dumping him, or bumping him to the bullpen has probably gone away. :(

Speaking of the bullpen, Carlos Almanzar looks like the best pickup we made this offseason again. He went two scoreless innings – in fact I think he went two perfect innings. What were the Reds thinking?

Blalock continues to slump, although his last five hits have all been home runs. In fact, the entire team is in a bit of a rut lately. Not good with the Yankees rising coming in this weekend. :(

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What’s that sound I hear? Is it the sound of visiting players hitting home runs out of the Ballpark? No, it’s the sound of half the Metroplex falling off the bandwagon. Uh-oh. We’ve lost 3 out of the last 4 – so it’s back to the old ways. Fair weather fans irritate me. If you’re going to get on the bandwagon, stay there, or don’t get on at all.

Having said that, last night’s loss was disappointing. We and RA Dickey were cruising through five innings up by a score of 5-0. Then we let it slip away with a couple of big home runs by Matt Stairs & Carlos Beltran. Mike Sweeney also added a solo shot, but the twin three run jacks did us in. We did get a solo home run by Herb Perry late, and actually had a shot at the end of the game, but it didn’t work out. Brian Jordan finally got an RBI as a Ranger, although his average is a totally anemic .100 or so.

RA Dickey struggled – he did put up some goose eggs in the first several frames, but none of them were particularly easy ones to get. I still get that gut feeling that he’ll pull it together. Perhaps he needs to wear the sleeveless uniform instead of the Kenny Rogers special he picked last night. ;)

Our game was a big contrast to the game of the night. Randy Johnson’s perfect game in Atlanta. As great as a perfect game is, and there’s no way one could get better (although striking out 27 guys might do it), one has to enjoy that it was against the Atlanta Braves. ;)

Brett Carre: Not a great way to start a home stand. We lost to the Royals 7-6 on Tuesday.

We had a 5-0 lead heading into the 5th but couldn’t hold it. RA Dickey is coming back down to reality as he gave up two 3-run shots before leaving in the middle of the 6th.

We really need to win these next two games. Chan Ho needs to make a statement tonight. Will he???

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There’s little to say about this one other than Detroit’s pitching shut us down real good. We had a total of 6 hits yesterday, all singles. Jason Johnson was quite good, and then the reliever trio of former Ranger pitchers (Levine, Yan, Urbina) were lights out. In fact, what’s with Yan? His last inning he pitched against us on Friday night he only needed three pitches to get out of the inning. The inning he pitched today against us he only needed 4 pitches. 7 pitches for 6 outs? Yikes – if he pitched like that with us, he’d probably still be here.

Anyway, Ryan Drese was great, too. He went 6.2 innings, gave up 3 runs (one was an inherited runner that Mahay allowed to score). I thought he looked great if not awesome yesterday. I might be willing to change my tune on him totally if we get a few more outings out of him like that.

We return home Tuesday night to face the KC Royals who did to us the last couple of years what the Tigers are doing to us this year.

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There’s something cool about a Saturday afternoon game. I watched it on TV, and then afterwards I thought I should have sat on the patio in my back yard with a beer and the radio – that seems rather “pure” to me for some reason. :)

We avoid the first three game losing streak of the season with a 6-1 win over Detroit. Powered by three home runs by Soriano, Blalock, & Mike Young, we won easily. We had only 9 hits, with Young, Perry, & Laird getting two, and the other three were from Blalock, Soriano, & Teixeira. We didn’t have a lot of bunched hits, but what we had was fairly efficient.

Nate Robertson looked good for Detroit, striking out 10 Rangers in 5.2 innings. Kenny Rogers only had two strikeouts, but he didn’t walk anyone, either. Carlos Almanzar looked great in relief, as did Jay Powell, which is good, as Jeff Nelson is out till August now. :(

Brett Carre: The mini-skid is over after a 6-1 win over the Tigers on Saturday. We had the long ball theme today with home runs by Young, Blalock, and Soriano.

Kenny Rogers pitched well today and Almanzar pitched great in relief. Hank Blalock also had some great plays at 3rd base today. I know A-rod is going to be the starter at 3rd in the All-Star game, but if Hank doesn’t make the team then that is just bull.

Another thing that is getting me pissed, everyone who is not a Ranger fan is saying that we are slowing down and we will be in last place soon. If we win tomorrow we will be 4-2 on this 6 game road trip. I can’t remember a time that a team that went 4-2 on a road trip was slowing down.

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Wow. I didn’t think it would be any worse than the 3 hit we had tossed against us last week by the Tigers. It was. We were two hit tonight, and one of the hits was a leadoff triple by Mike Young that we left there.

Wow. Esteban Yan never pitched like that when he wore the Ranger uniform.

Wow. There was some serious wind blowing out to left, and helped at least one, probably two (but not Pudge’s that was a true blast) of the home run balls out to left. Speaking of that, we probably would have had two ourselves in a ballpark that wasn’t so cavernous.

Wow. What a play by Hank Blalock to almost throw out Pudge. While the umps reversed the call and got it right, Blalock made one HELL of a play. Would have been a season highlight reel one, that’s for sure. EY had a great running leaping catch in center field, too.

Not wow. Benoit continues to be mediocre most of the time. Too bad Colby Lewis is out for the season now, it means Benoit will be in the rotation longer.

The final indignity of this is that the game ended with a top of the ninth where the Rangers went down on three pitches.

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No commentary from me, as I didn’t get to pay a lot of attention to the game because I was at work, but RA Dickey wasn’t terribly sharp here. I think that’s about it. :)

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The night of the longball. Man, there were a lot of home runs flying out of the park. We had four. Blalock, Soriano, Fullmer, & Mench. We did have an interesting vareity in the home runs. Blalock’s was his usual bomb to mid right field, as was Fullmer’s. Soriano’s was a monster bomb which probably would have hit way high up on the back wall of the stadium if it didn’t hit one of the catwalks. Mench’s was right down the right field line and hit just inches over the wall on the foul pole. As I recall, Soriano also had another one to right that just barely missed getting out of the park – it looks like Soriano’s power is coming on finally. Speaking of that, we also had five doubles, two by Nix.

On the other side, Tino Martinez & Aubrey Huff had home runs. Huff almost had a second in the bottom of the ninth in a VERY scary save for Cordero. Of the 18 half innings, runs were scored in 8 of them, but all of those 8 were crooked numbers except one. With so many home runs, there obviously wasn’t a ton of quality pitching. :) Chan Ho Park got the win, but he didn’t really deserve it, as he couldn’t keep a lead early. He got better as the game went along, but he’s still far too unpredictable to rely on, I think.

Brett Carre: Another wild game on Wednesday. We had a 9-5 lead going into the bottom of the 9th. Jeff Nelson gets the first two out then walks two and get pulled. Coco comes in and gives up a rbi single bringing up the tying man in Huff. Huff just missed a homer by inches, but 2 runs scored to make it a 9-8 game. Coco struck out Lugo, who was the winning run to end the game. Release Jeff Nelson. It seems like every time he comes in he gives up a run or two.

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No time to write a lot here – but it was nice to see the longballs. Some real bombs in Tampa. Shame about Ryan Drese – I thought he was outstanding till the bottom of the 6th.

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