Pitching Struggles Continue, But Rangers Win 10-9 Over Red Sox

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Matt Harrison and Roy Oswalt both gave up 4 ER's each.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Harry is reported to have had flu-like symptoms before game time but pitched anyway and took an IV after the game.  Oswalt looked good for a while but, went back out for the 7th where he gave up the 4 runs.

Josh, Nellie, Soto and Moreland all went yard.  And Josh was 3-5.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: The Rangers seem to like August a lot better than July.

I just heard TV talking head and ex-MLBer John Kruk gush about how great the Halos are and how this race in the West will be close between the Rangers, Halos and A's down the stretch.  Well, I don't know if Kruk can count but, the Rangers are 6 games up on the A's (that's right the Angels are 3rd, 6.5 GB) with less than 2 months of baseball left.  And the Rangers played about as bad as they can in July and maintained their lead in the West.  No respect, no respect.

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Thank You Ryan Dempster, Rangers Win 6-3

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Errors hurt.  Most MLB teams will make you pay if you give them an extra out and that's exactly what happened when Kins committed an error in the 7th.  All 3 Boston runs were scored after the error and were unearned on a HR where it sure looked like a fan reached down and caught it, otherwise it would have hit the Green Monster.  Umps let the 3 run homer stand.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: David "Charlie" Murphy continues to produce at the plate.  Josh, Nellie and Kins had 2 hits each.  Even Soto got a hit.  And the Rangers scored 6 runs without the benefit of the long ball.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: What did I say about Dempster?  Or what did I say about Dempster here?  He stepped up and showed what he can do against one of the best offenses this year.  6.2 IP, 6 K's and 1 BB.  If Dempster can continue to step up and fill the "ace" role then hopefully that'll settle down the rest of the rotation.  Then Yu, Harry, Holland and Feldman can hopefully just go out and pitch and not over-think it.

And by the way, this year in past games Kins has been thrown out of ballgames for seemingly doing/saying little to nothing but, Pedroia can whine and moan and yell at the 1B ump for minutes, yell at him from the dugout after he eventually leaves the field and then finally half an inning later Pedroia finally got run by the 1B ump.  What gives?  Double standard much?

The win tonight is also big because the A's and Halos are in the middle of a 3 game series against each other.  A Rangers' loss would have meant that one of them would have gained a game.

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That Was Not Good, Boston Beat Texas 9-2

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: It was 2-1 Boston in the top of the 4th and Nellie had a lead off double.  Then, Nellie proceeds to get picked off at second after taking a ridiculously big lead off.  It was uphill sledding offensively from that point forward.

Yu got beat up for 6 ER's and 4 BB's in 6.2 IP.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Beltre had a homer in the top of the 9th.  Nellie did have 3 hits.  And Josh had a hit.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: I blame this on Oz-gate (Oswalt refusing to go out for a 3rd inning in the last game vs. KC) and/or a hangover from the tough loss in the finale versus KC.  The team looked unsettled.  Including Yu.

Next up Dempster.  Let's see if he looks like an ace tomorrow night.  If they have needed a strong start from an ace pitcher this season I'd say tomorrow is it.

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TTRB on Twitter

The Texas Rangers Blog - TTRB now has a twitter feed for those that consume Texas Rangers stuff in such a way.  The twitter handle is: TTRBTweets, http://twitter.com/TTRBTweets.  Down on the left side of the page there is also a link.

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Rangers Lose Finale Versus KC; Multiple Blown Chances

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Looking at the box score Elvis had an OK to good game.  But, in the top of the 7th Olt was on third and Elvis was on second with no outs and Young at the plate.  Young singled and of course Olt scored.  Elvis ran through third base coach Dave Anderson's stop sign and was thrown out at home by a country mile.  Again that was the first out of the inning.  Few batters later Nellie had a deep flyout for the last out of the inning that would have scored Elvis easily had he been on third where he was supposed to be.

Then in the top the 9th with Olt on 3rd and no outs Elvis couldn't get the bat on the ball for a bunt suicide squeeze and Olt is out.  The pitch was low, away and in the dirt so it was hard to get the bat on the ball.

Elvis leaves the game and and in the 10th Alberto Gonzalez comes in and commits an error.  Next batter, Olt commits a throwing error, winning run scores.

Oh yeah, Holland didn't look good either.

 Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Beltre broke out of his hitting slump with RISP.  Josh hit and scored and Olt is continuing to impress at the plate.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: This one got away.  Period.  Way too many chances that the Rangers let slip away.

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Rangers Over KC 4-2; Go for Sweep Tomorrow in Early Game

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Offense was a little more quiet than in recent games managing only 4 runs, otherwise not much to gripe about.


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Olt and Josh had the RBI's in the ballgame.  Good to see both those guys with RBI's.  Scooter Feldman is starting to look like the pitcher he was a few years ago with another strong outing.


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: A lot of TV talking head "experts" keep saying that the Halos are the best team in the division if not in the AL, well going into tomorrow not only are the Halos (6 GB) not first in the West but, they're 3rd behind the A's (5.5 GB).  Weird how the talking heads forget to mention that when they're gushing about the Angels...

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Yours Truly Talks Rangers Baseball on the Radio

The great great guys from the radio show Three Point Stance had me on their radio show last night during the Rangers/KC ballgame to talk all things Texas Rangers.  Thanks to hosts E.J., Scottie and Robbie for having me on.

Though the show emanates from Long Island, NY you of course can find their show online every Friday night at 8:00pm central time at: http://www.wlie540am.com/

They're on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ThreePointStance

And check out their twitter feed: http://twitter.com/3ptstanceradio

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NOT a Pitching Duel, Rangers Win 15-9, Split Series With Halos

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Dempster probably was hoping for a better first outing with his new club, giving up 8 ER's in 4.2 IP.

It was at least 105 degrees at first pitch.  And it was windy, the wind felt like a huge blow dryer was hitting your entire body.


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: The bats continue to produce on this second day of August and the Rangers beat up on C.J. Wilson in the process.  Lots of offense but of note are the new additions, Soto and Olt, both of them contributed to the offensive explosion.  David "Charlie" Murphy continues his hot streak going 2-2 off the bench.  Nellie and Kins both went yard for the second straight night.  And...Josh Hamilton had 4 RBI's in the ballgame.  


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Look, if the Rangers put up 7+ runs each game they should be hard to beat.  If Josh is getting right again the timing couldn't be more perfect especially if Napoli, Nellie, Murph and Kins continue to do what they've done recently at the plate.  Let's hope, wait and see.

C.J. Wilson, former Ranger and current Angel, is, to put it nicely, an interesting character off the field, here's some local media types having a little fun at CJ's expense using his own quotes:

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Rangers Rally to Win in 10 Over Halos

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.

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Dempster Is a Ranger; Rangers Lose Second in a Row to Halos

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Yup, Rangers lost another game to the Halos managing just 2 runs against the Halos 6 runs.


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: They lost to Weaver who arguably is the best pitcher in the AL right now so what did you expect.

Dempster is a Ranger!  And Dempster will hopefully cure what ails the Rangers, at least when in comes to having some type of veteran anchor in the rotation with Colby Lewis out for the year.


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Pitcher Martin Perez was sent down from the big club to Triple-A Round Rock to make room for Dempster.  Perez's ERA was a tad north of 4, not too bad for a newbie.  The only problem with Dempster being added is that it doesn't address the offensive problems the Rangers have been having.

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