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Well, it figures. The one game that I don’t have tickets for this series is the one where Raffy gets #400. My wife and I were in Baltimore last year when Cal Ripken missed getting his 400th by about two feet – and we missed this one, too. :)
However, Raffy was the only thing going last night. In this 15-4 loss, all four runs were driven in by Raffy. We had a total of four hits, three of them by Raffy (the other one a single by Ricky Ledee). Rick Helling was bad. Matt Perisho was fair. Darwin Cubillan was awful. Francisco Corder was fair to poor.
Was just an awful night all around – with the lone expection of Rafael Palmeiro who hit his 400th home run. I was watching, and when I saw him hit the ball, I hit pause on my TiVo (man these things are awesome). I went to get my wife, who was in the other room on the phone. When I came back, and backed the game up a few seconds so she could see it all (God, I really love TiVo). I had hit pause without even seeing it go over the fence. It was just one of those shots you could tell was going out off the bat. They shot off the home run fireworks 3 times for this one – which was cool. There was a rather large standing ovation, a curtain call from Raffy, and some nice family moments with his wife and kids who were in the first row behind the on deck circle. One funny note about the home run – a fan in the first row in the lower home run porch had the ball in his hands, and dropped it back onto the field. :)
Was a nice moment in a completely forgettable game. Oh wait, there was one cute thing. The Angels tied an AL record for using four pinch runners in an inning, and the two teams combined to set an AL record by using 5 pinch runners combined in a single inning. :)

My wife and I were at this game – and we had tickets to Sunday’s final game, too. We’re thinking before we show up, you know, as we don’t have tickets to the middle of these three games, that’s when Raffy will hit his home run. And of course, I was right. He hit his 400th on Saturday.
Anyway, about this one – Darren Oliver was on the mound tonight, so I just assumed a big loss. Well, Darren didn’t pitch all that badly. He went 6.2 innings, allowing six hits, and two earned runs. Was actually a great performance, and really, he deserved a win. However, Anaheim pitchers were better than us. All five of them combined to allow only 8 hits, and 1 earned run. Hard to win when you’re outpitched like that.
The frustration of this season played out late, when Frank Catalanotto was ejected for tossing his helmet back out onto the field after arguing a close call. Every replay, and all the announcers said that he was ejected after arguing, but no one seemed to notice that it didn’t happen until he was in the dugout already, and his hat had been tossed back out onto the field.
On the injury front, Ricky Ledee was scratched from this game due to stepping on glass at home, and cutting his foot. Rusty Greer was officially shut down for the rest of the season due to the current foot problem he has. I doubt he’ll go on the DL now, but that makes yet another player (I think it’s 9 without looking it up) that have been finished for the season due to injury.

I skipped back and forth between this game, and some other television I was watching.
It was very cool to see an extra inning win. I tuned back into the game right as Scott Sheldon was about to swing for a home run to tie the game in the ninth. That was cool to see – and then we went ahead in the 11th, but gave up a run, so the game continued.
This was a game that was started by a total of 13 rookies on both teams, out of a possible 20 players total. Rather a lot!
Was nice to see Ruben Sierra get some hits and a few RBI’s in this one – I’m really hoping he can hang around for next season, although my gut says he won’t.
This was our only win in the Metrodome all season. Sigh.

Hmmm.. A 15-7 loss to the Twins. About the only thing worth talking about in this one was Raffy’s 399th home run. :)

No real commentary here either – I was watching Monday Night Football. I checked in during the Ranger game from time to time, but there wasn’t much going on.
Rick Helling was the hard luck loser in a game that really was the Joe Mays show. We got shut down 3-1 by the Twins, who have surprisingly had our number this year. After beating the Twins every single game in 1999, it certainly feels like it’s a complete opposite this year.
Gabe Kapler continues to hit the ball well, going 2 for 3 and a walk. His average is now .306. I really hope he keeps it together at the start of next year. I’ve seen too many players figure it all out, get good at the end of the season, only to totally lose themselves the start of the next year.

No commentary on this game, as I was driving back to Dallas from Houston when the game was on.
Was nice to see in the box scores a gob more RBI’s for Kapler, though. :)

The Rangers were officially eliminated from playoff contention tonight with this loss. Anyone surprised? :)
I didn’t see or hear any of this game, as I was in Houston checking out the new Enron Field (which has some things that are better than the Ballpark – and some worse, but it was an awesome park, an awesome night for baseball, too).

Now this game I was at. I drove to the game actually not knowing who was starting for the Rangers, which is odd for me – as I’m usually up on this. Been rather busy with a few things of late, and haven’t been paying as much attention to the Rangers at this stage of the game (let’s say that a crappy season wears on the fan web sites too – it’s hard to write about a bad team as much. I suppose if I was getting paid for it, I’d be doing it, but since I do this for my own fun, eh.. )
Anyway, when I found out that Darren Oliver was pitching, I thought “OH god, we’ll be down 7-2 by the fourth”. Well, guess what? We weren’t. Darren actually pitched well, and looked like he belonged here. Darren gave up a bunch of hits, but seemed to get the outs when he needed ’em. When he came out of the game, I felt like he could have stayed in – which was an odd feeling for 2000 – or for 1998, too. :D However, our bullpen was crap. Darwin Cubillan was totally ineffective, and when Jeff Zimmerman came on, he inherited three baserunners. One pitch later, and all four were home, along with the batter – a first pitch salami ball to Damon. Mike Venafro, who came in later, threw one pitch – that pitch hitting Damon (who later scored). What a mess.
We blew our rather large lead, which we had built up with a 5 run first, and a few runs over the next few for a 9-1 lead in the top of the 6th. Our first five batters all scored – it was 5-0 with no outs in the bottom of the first, and with no outs, too! After the fifth, we were up 9-1, and life was feeling pretty good. Then the rails fell off – we gave up a 7 spot in the top of the 6th to bring the Royals to within one. We then topped off the fiasco with two more runs in the top of the 8th, giving the Royals a lead – setting up the worst loss we’d ever given up a lead to get.
However, we came through with one run in the bottom of the 9th. Just when we were feeling good about ourselves again, the Royals went and got yet another run in the top of 10th off and increasingly ineffective John Wetteland. Given the way we usually perform in extra inning games, I figured that was it. Another Wetteland gaffe, and we lose.
However, we showed some spirit in the bottom of the 10th when Pedro Valdes reached first on an infield single, and then went to third on a double by Raffy. Gabe “Mr. RBI” came up, and sac flied to right, scoring Valdes to tie the game. After Ricky Ledee was intentionally walked, Kelly Dransfeldt came up, and slapped a single to left, scoring a rambling Rafael Palmeiro, who chugged all the way from second to score the winning run.
We used a ton of players in this game – we used every position player except Bill Haselman, who was unofficially done for the season anyway with surgery scheduled for Monday. Boy, I have to say that if we make a coaching change with Dick Bosman, I’d love to see Bill Haselman take over – I think he’d be a great pitching coach.
Overall a great game to sit in the ballpark and watch – but I would have rather won without giving up quite so many runs.

Didn’t watch any of this game – was busy late at work.