Well, it sucks to be a Rangers fan right now. The team has lost 8 of its last 10, the outfield has quit hitting, the starting pitching is coming back down to earth, and top pitching prospects John Hudgins and Edison Volquez both got rocked tonight at AAA and AA, respectively.
However, on the plus side, the Rangers are still just 2.5 games out of first, as the Angels blew two leads against the Mets. Up 2-1 heading into the bottom of the 9th, K-Rod gave up an inside-the-park homer to Marlon Anderson to tie the game at 2. Then, after scoring on unearned run after Doug Mientkiewicz (whose only real skill is his terrific defense) booted a ball with two outs to extend the top of the 10th, the Angels gave up a two-out, three-run walk-off homer to Cliff Floyd.
So at least we didn't lose any more ground tonight.
One other kind of interesting note from tonight...the Pirates scored 18 runs off of the D-Rays. This was their starting lineup:
Freddy Sanchez
Rob Mackowiak
Jason Bay
Ryan Doumit
Daryle Ward
Jose Castillo
Humberto Cota
Jack Wilson
Oliver Perez
That's one of the worst offensive lineups I've seen run out all season. I would have set the over/under on Pirate runs for the game at about 3.
And they exploded for 18 runs...
This is a strange game...