Game 1 was surreal. I had trouble sleeping for the few days leading up to the game. Scheduling the trip was no easy task as the itinerary had to be altered multiple times to accommodate work, the wife, and TBS. I did not anticipate a large turnout from the locals, but what a mistake that was. The traffic was so congested driving to the field, and then there was inadequate parking so I had to park 2 miles away and missed most of the 1st inning. The Rays mascot had tried to "cheap-shot" me in the hall, and so the obvious solution was to tranquilize myself with copious amounts of beer. Of course, this led to my wife getting stuck with camera duty, and so only a few pix were captured
Cliff of course was amazing. His post season performance was like a metronome.
The Boomstick made a timely appearance
The score only hinted at the somber mood of the stadium. All else for me was a blur
Game 2 was tense. Would the Rays get into CJ's head as all the experts predicted? Was yesterday's game a mere fluke?
Nolan and Ruth looked serious
So did Chuck G
Elvis however looked loose and confident
1st inning and we need to jump on Shields like we did to Price. However Tiny E grounded out
Face gets nothing but air
and Hambone whiffs feebly to end our turn
Now time to see if Christopher John will sink or swim in the post season. Will the doubters be proven right?
Stomach starts to tighten as Bartlett leads off with a hit. Somewhere Evan Grant is poised to unleash a twitter tirade
the knots increase then loosen as Hambone fetches some well hit balls and we escape scoreless
Second inning and we need to put some pressure on but Big Bad Vlad can only ground out
Cruz though quiets the crowd with a nice shot for a double
Kinsler takes a Kinsler swing without success
Shields starting to feel cocky
Moreland flies out and the RISP is stranded
Fortunately CJ starts to settle in and uses his unsustainable BABiP to get Zobrist to line out
then sits Shoppach down with a nasty curve
Third inning starts off with a gift as Treanor takes a meatball to the back, Judy moves him over and Elvis gets another infield hit
Shields feels the urine running down his leg after his throw to 1B goes haywire, letting Matt Fucking Treanor score the first run
Shields starts to unwind and actually stumbles on the delivery, as Elvis continues to pear his brainstem from 3B
From there CJ achieves a Zen-like state. The Force is with him and he cuts through the feeble Rays lineup with little fanfare. A couple of piss stops later and we're up 6-0 and the crowd is actually booing the Rays. Maddon has gone Postal after Mikey Baseball sodomizes one of the 2 Astros pitching scrubs the Rays throw out there.
The crowd has absolutely nothing to hope for until Cliftopher gets bored and decides to tease them. He nicks Bartlett to start off the 6th
then K's Upton
and then makes us wonder if Crawford is worth shopping for at all?
7th inning and some mild tension occurs again. After a leadoff walk to Zobrist and an Aybar double (really wonder why Zobrist was held at third?) the fans come to life again and start praying to their Feline God
Elvis is so aroused by CJ's man-musk that he cops a quick feel
Shoppach then fails gloriously in front of his crowd, and somehow manages to avoid ejection despite doing his best crybaby Shields impersonation before sitting at the little boy bench
Wash decides to step on their froats and give them a double barrel of Darrens
Once again the Rays pray to another indistinct Pagan God
O'Day O'Day O'Day
is more than a match for Joyce
and Other Darren doesn't even get his heart rate over 50 after sitting Bartlett down
From there, it was an orgiastic festival of Rays fans torn between cursing and leaving, with some doing both.
The unimaginable linescore
Your 2010 Texas Rangers celebrating yet another post season victory!!!