Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: The Halos' first 6 runs of the game were on 2 hits in the top of the 3rd . A combination of Yu walking batters and a throwing error to first when Kinsler was trying to turn 2 contributed to that.
Pujols homered twice. Again.
In the top of the 10th Nathan gave up 2 homers which scored 3 runs to put the Halos back up by 3 in the ballgame after the Rangers tied it in the bottom of the 9th.
In the bottom of the 9th the Rangers had the winning run on second with 1 out (an Elvis double) but, the Rangers couldn't bring the run around to score and win the game then.
Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: After being down 6-0 going into the bottom of the 3rd the Rangers rallied pulling to within 1 run, down 7-6 going into the bottom 9th.
Kins tried to make up for the early error by homering in the bottom of the 9th to tie up the ballgame.
Down 3 in the bottom of the 10th, first, Nellie homered to start yet another rally (by the way earlier in the top of the 9th Nellie gunned down a runner at home, which proved to be important). Then Moreland singled in a run.
And last, Elvis had the game winning walk-off hit to score 2. Rangers win the ballgame in the bottom 10th. Wow.
Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: You cannot give teams extra outs which is exactly what the Rangers did early on in this game.
The Rangers have scored the second most runs all year, second only to the Red Sox. But, the Rangers were dead last in runs in the month of July. Just shows how hot the Rangers were earlier in the year offensively and how far the Rangers' bats fell off in July. Well it's August now, hopefully this win on August 1st will prove to be representative of the rest of August and the season when it comes to the Rangers' bats.
Murphy scored three times and had a RBI to continue his hot streak. Napoli also continues to stay hot with 2 RBI's and a run scored. Elvis, Moreland, Kins, Beltre, Cruz, Napoli, Murph, Young and Gentry all either had at least one RBI or one run scored in the win.
Oh yeah, welcome to Texas Dempster, how'd you like your first game with the club?
How cool is it that the Rangers do the fireworks and play the theme from "The Natural" every time a Ranger goes yard? You cannot really appreciate how awesome it is unless you're at the ballpark when a Ranger goes yard. Anyways, I think it's pretty darn cool.
Read more...