Rangers Lose to Spankees 8-2

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Dempster giving up 5 runs in the 3rd inning was not good.

Kins got picked off at 2nd and Elvis got picked off at 3rd in the game.  Those are essentially free outs they're giving the other team and at the same time they're taking themselves out of scoring position.

Rangers sure seem to get picked off a lot more often than Rangers pick off opposing base runners.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Murph, Hamilton and Nellie continue to produce at the plate.

And it was one bad inning by Dempster in the 3rd, he looked great (perfect) before the 3rd inning and after the 3rd he was good to OK with 6 IP.  Hopefully the 3rd is just an bump in the road.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: I had sure hoped that the last start from Dempster before this one would be indicative of what we could expect from him going forward.  Again, I hope the 3rd inning was just an anomaly for Dempster.

It's a long, 4 game series.  Let's hope Harry can step up tomorrow and have a strong outing.

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Rangers Win 8-3; Win Series Versus Detroit

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Yu continues to walk too many batters to make everyone comfortable, walking 5 in 6.2 IP.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: The offense was great, again.  And Josh Hamilton went yard and had another multi-hit, multi-RBI game.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: A's and Angels lost today, increasing the Rangers lead to 6.5 and 8 over them respectively in the division.  According to all the TV talking heads after the Greinke trade the Halos were supposed to start gaining on and eventually overtake the Rangers.  So far, not so much.

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Rangers/Holland Win 2-1 In Pitching Duel Versus Detroit/Verlander

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Shaky first inning by Doogie Holland, gave up a solo shot in the first inning.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: But, that homer and 2 other hits and 1 BB was all that Holland gave up in 7.2 IP.  Josh continues to hit in August.  Nellie and Olt had the 2 RBI's.  And Olt had the pinch hit game winning hit.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Oh please let Holland pitch like this down the stretch.

Rangers are up 5.5 and 7 games against the A's and Halos respectively going into today's day game.

Yu is up today, he and Wash had a talk after his last in a string of tough starts.

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Rangers Lose to Detroit 6-2

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Scooter Feldman was harmed by the long ball (Prince Fielder's 3 run homer in the 6th).  Lowe didn't look too good in his first appearance since he went on the DL.

Nellie sometimes looks bad in right field, like tonight where he made an awkward dive for a hit that went into the right field corner that resulted in an in the park home run.  Nellie left the game with some back issues.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Josh went yard.  In fact the top of the order looked good as did Young.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes:  Maybe the team to watch out for in the division is the A's.  As of this post the Seamen of Seattle were beating the Halos.  A's lost tonight

Let's have an honest look at how Napoli has been doing at the plate.  This year.  I know it's easy to remember how great he did the last half of last year and in the playoffs.  But that was last year.  What have you done for us lately?  Napoli and his agent probably wish now that they could have worked out a multi-year deal during the offseason with the Rangers.  Right now he's pretty much not batting any better than Soto(or Yorvit before that).  Keep that in mind if you start to see Soto get more chances behind the plate.

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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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