Rangers won the series versus the White Sox

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: It was a day game so didn't get to watch. I heard on the radio that it was the first time since June the Rangers won back to back games. Since. June.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: The Rangers have a winning streak going!!!

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: I'm afraid these last 2 months of the season are going to hard to watch and long. At least we have the Cowboys' season to look forward to.  And that crazy owner of the Cowboys is always entertaining, wonder what's he's been up to recently...

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After loss last night Colby Lewis pitches a complete game shutout in 16-0 win over White Sox

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: For the first time in a while I got nothing here.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: For in what seems like forever (this whole season?) the Rangers' bats don't waste a great outing by a starter.  5 homers and all the starters got at least 1 hit.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: That's the most runs and homers for the Rangers all season.

Apparently that's the largest margin of victory in a shutout in the history of the Rangers.

Remember when Danks was part of the Rangers' minor league pitching prospect trio nicknamed DVD? Remember when the Rangers had minor league pitching prospects that could stay in the minors and not be called up because 4/5's of your planned starting rotation was or was about to be injured? (See Holland, Harrison, Lewis, Perez)

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Rangers were swept by CLE in 3 game series this past weekend...

...so now there's that. And more and more 100 losses is becoming a real possibility.

That said they're leading the White Sox 3-0 after 3 in the first of a 3 game set in CHI.

Now it's 5-3 White Sox in the 6th. And the once mighty Rangers' offense has managed a whopping 3 hits. Is that bad?

And that's a final after 7 innings played due to rain, Rangers lost 5-3 managing 3 runs on 4 hits. 4 HITS IN 7 INNINGS.  Pitiful.

Second time recently (this season?) that the Rangers have lost to a combo of an opposing team and Mother Nature. Now the weather is beating up on the Rangers too. Sheesh, they can't catch a break.

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Rangers win 2 out of 3 versus Spankees in Jeter's last trip to Arlington

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: If the Rangers's bullpen had anything last night the Rangers would have swept them. Of course last night the bullpen was terrible and wasted a great offensive performance by Arencibia and the Rangers.

And again last night there was an error in the outfield. Sorry, it's on Leonys Martin as the CF to call his fellow outfielders off when he can make the play and too often this year he hasn't been assertive in his role defensively.

Sadly, this is the first series win for the Rangers in over a month. Is that bad?

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Lewis looked good again. And again Feliz closed out a game.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: This weather recently and this summer generally is freaking me out. It was downright pleasant at the ballpark last night and I'd guess is was more of the same weather-wise tonight.

Beltre quietly is having a great year at the plate. Please, please, please don't let me find out that he has been traded.

Even though he's a Spankee, I never heard about Jeter acting like a jerk like a lot of his Spankee peers (see Clemens, ARod, Texeria, for example). Pretty much a class act. End of an era. That said I will be glad when he's not playing against the Rangers anymore.

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Just tuned in through 4.5 innings versus the Spankees and...

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: ...the Rangers bats have mustered all of 2 hits (of course zero runs) and Yu has given up 2 solo HRs to Brett Gardner. And sure, why not some more salt in the wound, Jeter's 2 for 2.  So yeah, about par for the course/season at that point in the game. 

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Rangers rallied in the bottom of the 5th and put up 4 runs. Then Yu had a shutdown inning in the top of 6. 4-2 Rangers would be the final score. 

And in the bottom of 9 none other than Neftali Feliz had a 3 up 3 down inning to get his second straight save. It's weird but good seeing Feliz close games. Especially close games successfully. 

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: While watching tonight's game versus the Spankess I started thinking of all the things that have gone wrong for the Rangers this past off season and this season. Sure most of them involve injury but I decided to list them in no particular order off the top of my head. Here you go:

- Nolan "retired" and then is an advisor to the 'Stros owner. Huh, that's weird, retirement usually does not mean working somewhere else, much less for a competitor. 
- Holland injured his knee allegedly by tripping over his dog. "Tripping over his dog," allegedly does not mean playing in a rec league hockey game during the off season. 
- Prince got hurt and missed games for the first time ever in his career. 
- Choo signed a huge contract and then bats more like Elvis than Beltre. 
- Martin Perez has to have Tommy John surgery. 
- Profar got injured. 
- Soto got injured, then got caught with weed, then got injured again. Oh yeah, and Soto was the best option the Rangers had for a starting catcher. 

That's all I can think of right now. Feel free to chime in in the comments if I missed something. 

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Rangers lose 2-1 to Spankees' ground crew's ineptitude and rain

Apparently the Spankees' ground crew had never tried to cover the field with a tarp before trying tonight. And it took them close to half an hour to finally cover the field in a torrential downpour in the Bronx.

Again, the Rangers find another unique, seemingly impossible way to lose a ballgame, with Yu on the mound no less. 

And the Rangers traded away Soria tonight. 

This yet another swift kick to the Rangers' baseball jimmy. And I'm sure there are more kicks to the Rangers' baseball jimmy to come. 

More curse of the Kolan?

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Spankees beat Rangers 2-1 with a walk off hit in 14

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: in the bottom of 12 it looked like to me that Elvis clearly called the ball on a pop up to shallow left-center field. The outfielders pulled up and then Elvis quit on it and it fell in. That lead to a bases loaded 1 out situation.

Soria uncharacteristically gave up a run to let the Spankees tie the game in the bottom of 13.

And in the bottom of 14 Tepesch gave up the walk off winning hit.

And the bats only contributed 1 run in 14 innings.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: The Rangers got out of the bases loaded situation in the bottom of 12 even with Scott Baker on the mound (he'd given up 9 HRs in 16 appearances this year).

And in the top on 13 Arencibia hit a solo HR.

And and in the bottom of 13 Arencibia at 1B made a smart fielding play allowing a weakly hit ball to land in front of him and turn 2 to get out of the inning.

Nick Martinez pitched 5.1 scoreless.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Questlove and Wyatt Cenac (I think that was him, former Daily Show correspondent) were sitting behind home plate and stayed until the end of the 13th in the 14 inning affair.

This was just another kick to the baseball jimmy in this season of multiple, different types of kicks to the baseball jimmy.

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Mikolas pitches Rangers to win over Spankees

Starter Miles Mikolas pitched into the 8th and Soria got the save to pitch the Rangers to a 4-2 win over the Spankees. The bats got to the Spankees' starter Greene and got enough runs on the board to support some good pitching. And now the Rangers are .500 after the All Star break.

And by the way, a friend pointed out that the Rangers' starter tonight looks like a young Nick Nolte. Which fits nicely with me thinking he was going to leave the game, change into a Hawaiian shirt, leather jacket and blue jeans and hit the beat as a 1970's NYC police detective with his older, wiser partner Wash.  You be the judge:

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Rangers are 1-0 after the All Star Break, beat BJ's 5-1 last night

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Choo struggled at the plate again.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: It was weird, timely hitting combined with solid pitching beginning, middle and end equaled a win yesterday night. Beltre continued to be strong to very strong at the plate and he got some help from Arencibia who chipped in with a 3 run homer to break the game open. And Yu was Yu and Soria closed it out in his typical efficient fashion. It's just a shame that Soria hasn't been afforded more save chances. He's just that good.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: During the break reliever Frasor was traded away for a pitching prospect.

Benjie Molina wasn't the 1st base coach last night and TAG wasn't in the booth.

I understand that MLB wanted to honor Jeter during the All Star game. But what about all the other greats that deserve to be recognized. For example, what about honoring the late great Tony Gwynn? Fellow BBA writer Paul Francis Sullivan "Sully" put together an "In Memorium" video honoring the great players that passed away recently, including Tony Gwynn. You can find more from Sully at
http://sullybaseball.wordpress.com, his twitter handle is @SullyBaseball and his podcast is at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/sully-baseball-daily/id580843151.

There is a rare, weird noon game start time today versus the BJ's.

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Swept by the Halos the Rangers limp into the All-Star Break...

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: ...with the worst record in MLB, on an 8 game losing streak, after getting swept in 2 straight series, having lost 22 of their last 25. Since June 1st they've lost 29 out of 39.  To put it into perspective another slightly different way how fast the fall has been, on the morning of June 8 the Rangers were at .500. Now they're 19 games below .500.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: The Rangers can't lose any games during the break. And Yu and Beltre made the AL All Star team.

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