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Well, it’s now third down and long. If we don’t get some yards soon, we’ll be forced to punt again to the Yankees. Oh wait, wrong sport. However, the analogy probably isn’t that far from the truth. :)
Even though we lost, this was a very well played baseball game. The entire game (except maybe the top of the 9th) seemed like a big deal at every moment. It’s great baseball, even if we lost. The curse continues.
I’m really hoping we win at least one, before getting knocked out. My original prediction was the Yanks in 5, but I figured we’d split in NY, split here, and lose game 5 up in the Bronx. We may not make it back to the Bronx. I’m going to the game Saturday night, and I’m also hearing it’s supposed to rain. Oh god, does that bring up bad memories of last year’s playoff game here.
Rick Helling looked good, and surprisingly, didn’t give up any home runs at all. I expected him to give up a few of them in Yankee Stadium. This start was rather indicitave of his entire 99 season. No run support. He pitches an awesome game, but loses the game, because we didn’t score any runs for him. As frustrating as that is to us the fans, it must be worse for him. I feel that Helling should have gotten 20 wins again this season, if only he had run support. Rick was perfect the first time through the lineup, and also a batter or two into the 4th. Was a great start. Too bad it didn’t finish that way.
Andy Pettite always seemed on the verge of giving up a bunch of runs, but never did. He saved himself on several occasions from being pulled. It’s annoying, we were “this close” to busting it open in my eyes, and we didn’t.
Juan Gonzalez got our 1 run for the off-season, we’ll probably get shut out on Saturday again. Going back into the regular season, we now have a 5 game losing streak. I really don’t want our season to end on a 6 game losing streak. Especially to Roger Clemens. :(
One funny moment. In the first inning when Chuck Knoblauch was up to bat, Don Zimmer put on a pith helmet that had the Yankees logo on it. It was damn funny, and I wish I have a picture of that; I don’t. Zim sounds like a really fun guy to be around.

I’m still sick, and honestly, I wished last night’s game wasn’t on. I felt like complete crap during the game, and almost fell asleep a few times (because of my condition, not because of the Rangers’ performance). Thank god game one wasn’t in Arlington, I don’t know how bad I would have felt if I was at the game!
Anyway, the Yankee curse is still in effect. Despite every piece of evidence pointing to the Rangers being better, we were shut down completely. In fact, it was even worse than last year’s shutdown in the playoffs. This time, we had two hits all night, and both of them were by Pudge. Pudge was our best thing going last night. He also stole a base, and generally seemed to be the most “with it” player we had. The entire rest of the Rangers went 0-25 for the night. El Duque was pretty much the star of the show. Not a whole lot more needs to be said here.
However, on the other side, Bernie Williams was the story for the Yankees. He alone had 6 RBI’s – if you take him out, that makes the game 2-0, which is far more reasonable. However, that’s no excuse, we should have scored SOMETHING. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!
I didn’t feel the Rangers pitching staff pitched as bad as an 8-0 score indicated. We seemed to be doing fairly well, until Sele seemed to lose it in the 6th. He was a bit shaky in the fifth, but a 3-0 lead isn’t all that bad. I am having a hard time pointing to any one bad play pitching wise that caused this.
Again, I hope we can bounce back. This is now a four game losing streak going into the regular season. I felt bad for Don Zimmer, the ex Ranger manager who got wailed on the head by a Mr. Twinkie foul ball. Was nice to see him back up and on the bench quickly.

I’m sorry, but I won’t be writing any commentary for the Angels series. As I write this on Monday, I’ve come down with what feels like the flu, and my head is rather woozy. I can’t think straight for more than a few minutes at a time. I just wanted to get the site updated before the games against the Yankees tomorrow.
I did notice that of the six division winners, the Rangers had the fewest wins. We SHOULD have had the best, since the Indians and the Yankees also fell apart in the final weekend, plus all the game we played against bottom feeders in September that we lost, cost us a serious shot at the best record in baseball (which was owned by Atlanta with a 103-59 record; we had 95-67).

I’m sorry, but I won’t be writing any commentary for the Angels series. As I write this on Monday, I’ve come down with what feels like the flu, and my head is rather woozy. I can’t think straight for more than a few minutes at a time. I just wanted to get the site updated before the games against the Yankees tomorrow.
One thing about this game – it was nice to see old buddy Al Levine get a start. I still wish that he was still a Ranger.

I’m sorry, but I won’t be writing any commentary for the Angels series. As I write this on Monday, I’ve come down with what feels like the flu, and my head is rather woozy. I can’t think straight for more than a few minutes at a time. I just wanted to get the site updated before the games against the Yankees tomorrow.

Listened to this game at work today as it was a day game. I listened over the Internet as opposed to the radio that’s sitting on my desk. Somehow it just seems “cooler” that way. :)
Anyway… This was very much a game of records. Check these things out:

• This was shutout #9 for Rangers pitching this season.
• We set a franchise record for wins with 95.
• Juan hit a home run, giving him 39. He needs one more for 4 straight years of 40 HR’s.
• We now have 936 runs scored as a team, which is 4 shy of our own record.
• The team ERA is just a shade under 5 now.
• John Burkett had his first winning season since 1993, when he went 22-7 with the Giants with a 9-8 record this year.

John Burkett sounded dominating, as did the three relievers (Crabtree, Zimmerman, & Venafro). Between the four, they only allowed 4 hits (3 by Burkett, one by Venafro) over 9 innings, and 8 strikeouts and 3 walks. It was an extraordinarily well pitched game. The radio guys were spooging over Zimmerman saying his slider looked like the best he’d thrown all season. Burkett managed to pitch out a jam later in his appearance where the Mariners were threatening to tie up the game (it was 2-0 then). He looked really good, and again, he pitched well in the end of the year, and I suspect we’ll probably pick up his option for 2000 and invite him to spring training. Of course, that’s depending on what happens in the off-season, I’m sure.
This is the end of the home season at the Ballpark in Arlington. We finished up with 51 wins at home for the season (out of 81 home dates, I believe). We went 7-5 for the final homestand, shutting out Seattle twice in the last three games.
We got out early with a Lee Stevens solo home run in the bottom of the second, and that was the game winning hit – we didn’t need anything more. Juan Gonzalez followed up with another solo home run in the bottom of the third. We got three in the 6th, and two in the 7th to close out the scoring. Was a nice spread, with Lee Stevens getting another RBI, and Tom Goodwin getting a couple, while Pudge chimed in again as usual.
We head to Anaheim for the final three games of the season. Given the way Anaheim has been playing, I wonder if we can’t get to 98 wins out there. :)

No commentary, as last night was my bowling league, and the game was on during that, and I couldn’t see it. However, it was nice to see that Todd Zeile wasn’t really hurt. However, we have lost Danny Kolb for the rest of the season, and could be losing Mike Munoz for the rest of the season.
In looking at the box score, Aaron Sele had an uncommon off night (especially in the second half of the season).