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Seventeen hits. Seven runs.
Derek Holland going 8.2 innings.
Let’s kick the Angels in the head. That was a great game! :)

The Rangers go into Anaheim up four games on the Angels. While it’s definitely not a season clincher – it’s just mid August. Still, being up four and going into Anaheim for four games is an important series. While I have to admit to dreaming about sweeping before we played a game at all, I don’t think many Rangers fans expect that. I think you kind of expect a split, and hope for 3-1, and dream for 4-0. We’re playing too good for anything less than 2-2, I think, so at a split we still leave with the same four game lead.
The Rangers have a habit of not doing good against guys making their major league debuts. So the guy the Angels threw out there we had a shot at. Garrett Richards was making his SECOND major league start. Against Alexi Ogando, I figure this was our best shot at a win given the matchups in the series. However, we didn’t get a chance to test that too much, as Richards came out of the game after the fourth batter of the game.
We got some offense early with a leadoff double by Ian Kinsler. After a throwing error by the Angels, Elvis Andrus had an RBI infield groundout for the first run. The Angels answered back in the bottom of the second with a single/double combo by Hunter & Wells to tie the game at 1. The Rangers however got it right back in the top of the third with another double by Kinsler, and then a double by Hamilton. We never looked back.
That’s because the offense exploded in the fifth with a six spot. It was highlighed by back to back home runs by Nelson Cruz & Mike Napoli. Those two home runs were the first two batters faced by Anaheim reliever Rich Thompson, too.
The Angels added a few more runs in the fifth & seventh to make it a bit closer, but the six run inning was an deflator for the Angels, I’d wager.
Alexi Ogando got his 12th win of the season after going 6.1 innings. Bit high on the walks (8) and runs (4), but he got the win, which is ultimately the entire point. Uehara & Lowe kept the Angels under check after that, so we took the win on Monday night.
Five up in the West now.

The Rangers scored three runs in the top of the first and never looked back. Well, OK, they did when the A’s scored four in the bottom of the sixth to tie the game. But it’s a lot cooler to say “they never looked back”. :)
The Angels lost, so we’re going into the big four game series with them up four games. Most impressive.

The Rangers took care of Oakland again, although in this game, the runs didn’t come early, they came late. The game was scoreless going into the sixth, as Colby Lewis & Trevor Cahill pitched a pretty good pitcher’s duel. Even after six it was just 1-0. After 7, it was 2-1.
Colby actually came out earlier than I figured he would. Just went 6.1 innings, but had 101 pitches. A little high, but I didn’t think he needed to come out then. Still, he got out with just one run allowed. No other runs were scored.
The Rangers offense woke up late, and put up a three spot in the 8th and a two spot in the 9th to give us a 7-1 win.
Everyone had at least one hit in this game – Kinsler & Hamilton had two each. Kinsler’s two hits were both doubles. Napoli & Elvis also got into the doubles party, too.
Nice win.

Before the Rangers got to Oakland, CJ Wilson mouthed off about what he doesn’t like about Oakland. Which is pretty much everything. The mound, their fans (for not showing up), etc.. There were some negative CJ Wilson signs in the stadium, but it didn’t matter, as CJ shut ’em down.
He went six, giving up just four hits and one run. Walked a few too many (three), but struck out seven. Got his 11th win of the season, lowering his ERA to 3.28. Tateyama, Lowe, & Feldman followed him up, and each threw a scoreless inning.
The Rangers offense was fairly concentrated. We put up a six spot in the second inning, and then a three spot in the fourth. Most of which came against former Rangers pitcher Brandon McCarthy. Brandon had to come out of the game when Endy Chavez nailed him in the knee with a batted ball, that bounced all the way into the Rangers bullpen, which is quite a haul in Oakland.
As we work in the AL West, it’s nice to see us beating up on Oakland & Seattle. We should do that as the defending AL Champions.

Derek Holland pitched a quality start (6IP, 2ER), but lost the game. Well, technically, he didn’t lose the game, Uehara got tagged with the loss. At the time Holland came out of the game, the score was tied 3-3.
Uehara allowed three hits in his inning of work. That’d do it, usually.
All three of the Rangers runs came from home runs. Josh Hamilton had a solo shot in the fourth, and Ian Kinsler had a two run shot in the fifth. That was it for our scoring.
Bah, was hoping for a series sweep.

Seattle actually managed to hit the ball around a bit in this game. They put up all six of their runs in the first three innings against Alexi Ogando who was unusually awful. Not like I’m pretending he’s unhittable, but this was pretty awful for him. Just 2.2 innings pitched, eight hits and six earned runs. That was it for the runs the Mariners got. The Rangers had five relievers follow Ogando. They were Tateyama, Lowe, Oliver, Adams & Feliz. No runs from any of them, so that’s good.
The Rangers had nearly as many walks given to them as hits. They had nine hits, and six walks. That kind of combination is usually bad news for the opponent, and it was this night, too.
The Rangers had four out of their nine hits as extra base hits. Two doubles (Young, Torrealba), and two home runs (Chavez & Kinsler). Chavez had a good night overall, going 3-5 with two RBI’s and a run scored. He’s turning out to be very much the valuable extra guy who does well when you plug him in. Glad to see that. I’ll wager he’ll be around next year, too. :)
The walkoff was against the final Seattle pitcher Aaron Laffey who faced just two batters, and didn’t get either of them out. He allowed singles to Endy Chavez & Josh Hamilton, which scored Ian Kinsler ,who led the inning off against another pitcher.
Gotta love walkoffs at home. :)

Nope, Seattle’s still pretty bad. They have one of the best team blogs out there in USS Mariner, but the team itself, pretty awful. They have two really good starting pitchers (Felix Hernandez & Michael Pineda), and an extremely good fielding centerfielder (Franklin Gutierrez) but that’s about it. Team still can’t hit.
As evidenced by their two run, six hit attack against Matt Harrison, who pitched well. Seven innings, five hits, no walks, six punchouts, and just two runs. Nice start for Matt, who earned his 10th win of the season, joining I believe everyone else on the starting rotation in that regard. Mark Lowe & Darren O’Day followed, each turning in a scoreless inning.
The Rangers jumped all over Charlie Furbush (who?!?), the Seattle starter. Four innings pitched, eight hits, four walks, seven runs allowed (six earned). There wasn’t a ton of power, just a lot of sustained hits. We only had two extra base hits in the fifteen overall we got. Both were by Nelson Cruz (double, home run). The Rangers also walked seven times.
Yeah, Seattle’s not that good. Bet Don Wakamatsu is either laughing somewhere or is pissed off. Not sure which.

Colby Lewis started this game, and gave up all three runs to the Indians. Had an decent line if not stellar. 7.1 innings, five hits, three runs. unfortunately, the Rnagers offense didn’t wake up until he was out of the game. Colby left down 3-0. Does it still count as a quality start if you’re losing?
Darren Oliver & Mike Adams followed him, not allowing anything.
On the other side, though, we didn’t have a ton going ourselves. We managed just seven hits for the entire game. But there was a good concentration in the bottom of the eighth, as we threw a five spot up there. The first six batters in the inning reached (walk, single, single, single walk, single). After that, we had a force out, but that was constructive, as it scored a run.
Michael Young also reached 2,000 hits for his career in this game. Was nice that it happened at home. It obviously brings up the question of can he get to 3,000? It’s possible, sure. But he’ll definitely have to play for awhile. He’s 34 at the moment, and there’s 47 more games this season after this one. Figure that would put him conservatively at 3,050 for a career total after the 2011 season. That means he’d need 950 to get to 3,000. Would mean if he sustained 200 hits per season, he’d need to play into the 2016 season to get it. And he’d have to not have any dropoff in hit production to get there. If you play more conservatively, and say he gets regularly 150 hits per season, he’d need to play into the 2018 season to get there, at which point he’d be 41. Not impossible here in the AL, but probably unlikely. We’ll have to see how sustained he can keep hitting over the next 4-5 years to see how realistic of a chance he would have for 3,000.

CJ Wilson & Fausto Carmona had a good pitcher’s duel going. After 6 innings, the score was 0-0. Then the wheels fell off. Well, not completely. Wilson still had a good line when he came out of the game. 6.2 innings pitched, five hits, 3 runs (2 earned), 9 strikeouts, two walks. Not bad at all. Darren Oliver and Koji Uehara followed up nicely, allowing just a single walk between the two of them.
At this point, the Rangers were up 4-3, on the strength of a four run bottom of the 7th inning. Couple of singles, an error, another single, and a sac fly produced the runs. Not sexy, but it worked. We were winning.
Then Neftali Feliz came in for the top of the ninth and laid an egg. Double, sacrifice bunt, single, flu out, double, home run, then a couple of outs. Actually, the home run was givien up by Tateyama. It was’t a pretty ninth inning.
We did pick up a run in the bottom of the ninth, but the top was pretty deflating. Made for an even more annoying than usual loss.