Monday Morning Rangers Update

Pretty good day of sports yesterday. Most importantly, the Rangers held serve against Felix Hernandez with the Angels finally winning a game in Baltimore.

T.R. Sullivan's writes in his game story about how the Rangers are feeling good but know they haven't finished the job yet.

Jeff Wilson's game story is about how Matt Harrison's curveball and Adrian Beltre's friendly rivalry with King Felix featured prominently in the Ranger win.

ESPN Dallas' Richard Durrett has his post game reaction piece which is chock full of fun facts to know and tell.

Terry Blount writes about Beltre finally getting the better of Hernandez. On the pitch Beltre hit out of the park: "It was 0-2, a stupid pitch (he said smiling)."

Evan Grants writes behind the DMN paywall that the Rangers continued success against the A.L. West has them closing in on a postseason berth.

Durrett writes about a chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool Koji Uehara getting a crucial out in the 7th inning with the bases loaded.

Grant assumes that now that Harrison has figured out how to get lefties out, and after striking out a career high 9 batters, he's all but locked up a spot in the postseason rotation.

Durrett suggests that, at least for one game, the secret to Harrison neutralizing lefties was the seldom used curveball that Harrison featured heavily on Sunday. 

Jeff Wilson notes that Nelson Cruz is still trying to get his timing back after returning from injury, Michael Gonzalez is adjusting to a specialist role, and Ian Kinsler is having a note-worthy season among other notes.

T.R. Sullivan's notebook touches on Neftali Feliz's continued dominance of the American League West, Josh Hamilton feeling better at the plate in day games, and in sad news, Esteban German returned to the Dominican Republic after the death of his mother.

Evan Grant has a few similar notes but also writes that rookie hazing happened after the game for the flight to Oakland. I will quote it in full:

The Rangers staged their annual rookie dress-up day Sunday, replacing the clothes of rookies with costumes for the flight from Seattle to Oakland. Perhaps the best: a hot dog outfit for RHP Mark Hamburger

Finally, Wilson writes about the time Derek Holland hallucinated and recreated his nightmarish outing in Game 2 of the World Series. Even in fevered dreams Bengie Molina is wise.