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I didn’t get to see the game again due to the oft told incompetence of my cable company. I was so irritated, that I didn’t want to listen on the radio. I eventually did, and heard Gabe Kapler’s home run, and the rest onwards. Was nice to see the bullpen hold on to one after awhile. Gabe’s home run was the first in awhile, and the first one he’s hit (as a Ranger) that my wife and I didn’t witness with our own eyes. :) His new bald look must be doing something, as he’s batting something like .370 since the All-Star break, and has raised his batting average to .261.
Also, it seems that the Rangers made the right decision with the Scar Green / Jason McDonald choice a few weeks ago in keeping Scar. I’m hoping he can hold on beyond this year – I’ve always liked him for some reason – although his numbers have never set anyone on fire. The throw he made in the bottom of the ninth to win the game was awesome!

The night before this, I only got about two hours of sleep – I was dead tired before the game even started. About 11:45, I couldn’t take it anymore, and fell asleep. When I went to sleep, we were winning, but Rick Helling had just come out. We eventually lost Our bullpen gave away another game.
That’s a shame, because Rick Helling looked masterful. I felt he deserved to win his 11th game of the season. However, our bullpen couldn’t hold it again. I know I said yesterday I wanted to keep John Wetteland, and I still do. I hope he survives the pending shakedown. I really want him to stay. I’d like to keep Segui, too, but I can’t see both of them staying.
Anyway, it was an awesome pitching matchup in both sides until we finally broke through in the 7th inning. It almost wasn’t, that close, but with men on 2nd and 3rd, Mike Lamb made a spectacular play. Chopper to third, and he managed to tag the runner off the base at third, and then toss to first for a double play. One of the better plays made by a third baseman this year (well, at least a Ranger player).
This loss puts us back to 9.5 games back, and I think that unless we manage to sweep Anaheim & Seattle, that’s it – we’re done. Sure, some miracle could happen in the second half once the pressure is off, but even if we got that far, I don’t think the 2000 Rangers have what it takes to make it anywhere in the playoffs, anyway.

About halfway through this game, I said to my wife – “That’s it, season’s over, let’s start on next year”. My gut feeling is that this is it – we’re not going to make a big run at it. In spring training, I felt that this was a year for rebuilding (not a lot of it, just a little), but this year wouldn’t be our year. That’s been obvious both by the play all season, and by the play last night.
We almost pulled off our second most spectacular comeback of the roadtrip in the top of the 9th, but we fell two runs short. Our bullpen is just a mess now, totally unreliable.
In the forthcoming cleaning, I sincerely hope we keep one player. John Wetteland. I really want to keep him. A lot.

Pac Bell Park looked great. Esteban Loaiza did not. That about sums it up. :)
I have to say, the one thing I wanted to see in this series was Barry Bonds hit a ball into the water outside the park. Well, I did see that, but it was a foul ball. I didn’t think the Rangers played all that bad this game – I liked Chad Curtis in this game (despite the bobble in the outfield), but our pitching gave it away again.
I’m really starting to think that if we keep Loaiza, it’ll be in the bullpen – but I’d be curious to see what his reaction to a permanent move to the pen would bring. Worked for Burkett – it might work for Loaiza, too.
This was David Segui’s 1000th game played in his career at first base. Because of that, he can now count in the all time first base stats, which moves him into second place all time in fielding, behind Steve Garvey.

I didn’t think we had a prayer against Randy Johnson – but Matt Perisho pitched well enough to keep the game from getting out of hand. We actually managed to come back and tie the game against Randy Johnson. The Rangers have always hit him at the very least OK, if not great.
Pretty strange lineup against the Big Unit. What surprised me is that Haselman had two RBI hits off of Randy – that was impressive for a guy who doesn’t play a lot. I hope that Bill stays after this year. I know he deserves to have a great front line job, but I think he’s the absolute best backup we could get for Pudge.
That’s another game when Luis Alicea makes a great comeback come true with a late inning hit and RBI. I wonder if we’ll consider signing him again next year. Be curious to see what happens there.

There’s not a whole lot to say about this one. We were shut down by Armondo Reynoso. With the exception of Scott Sheldon’s fluke home run – we didn’t do jack on offense.
This doesn’t bode well, because tomorrow we face Randy Johnson. :(

All through this game, I kept thinking to myself, I’m going to be writing about how Jay Bell did us in, and how we were outpitched by Brian Anderson. Well, that did happen, but something else amazing happened. We pulled off a giant comeback in the 9th inning against B.H. Kim. It’s so amazing that I’m not even going to write about it – I’ll just post the game log from the top of the 9th. :)
TEXAS 9TH: T Lee at first. Conti in right. Byung Hyun Kim relieved Brian Anderson. Greer walked. I Rodriguez struck out swinging. R Palmeiro hit by pitch, Greer to second. Catalanotto hit for Curtis. Catalanotto singled to shallow right, Greer scored, R Palmeiro to third. Segui hit for Kapler. Segui tripled to center, R Palmeiro and Catalanotto scored. Sc Green ran for Segui. Lamb intentionally walked. R Clayton struck out swinging. Da Martinez hit for Je Zimmerman. Da Martinez walked, Lamb to second. Alicea singled to right, Sc Green and Lamb scored, Da Martinez to third. Dan Plesac relieved Byung Hyun Kim. Greer flied out to center. (5 Runs, 3 Hits, 0 Errors) TEXAS 6, ARIZONA 4.