Thoughts on a 6-1 win

Rangers 6, Astros 1

• Regardless of who the opponent is, you can never feel bad about taking "only" 2 of 3 on the road. Yesterday's loss was disappointing, but the Rangers took care of business against Houston.
• My thoughts today are based largely on the box score, since I was at the zoo with Seth for most of the game and only saw the 9th inning. The zoo was pretty awesome, though. And we rode the train through Hermann Park, as well.
• Terrific outing for Colby Lewis, who needed a good outing after having allow 19 runs in his previous three starts. 3.30 ERA on the season for Colbyashi now. Colby also allowed both a walk and a homer, and he now has 13 homers allowed and 9 walks allowed on the year. Only 17 pitchers have allowed more homers than walks in a season while pitching at least 162 innings, although two pitchers, Bronson Arroyo and Josh Tomlin, did it last season. 15 of the 17 instances have occurred since 1998, and Brad Radke, Rick Reed, Carlos Silva, Jon Lieber, and David Wells have each done it twice.
• I wasn't a big fan of Ron Washington's decision to have Colby start the 9th inning. He was at 113 pitches and the Rangers were up 6-0, so it didn't make a lot of sense, to me, to have him go back out for the 9th. Colby ended up throwing 9 pitches to Jed Lowrie, who sent the 9th pitch into the right field bleachers, ending the shutout and knocking Lewis out of the game. I have to think that, even if Lewis had retired Lowrie, Wash might have come and gotten him with his pitch count at 122.
• The 122 pitches Lewis had today tied for the 6th highest pitch total in a major league game this year. The 5 ahead of him are Justin Verlander (131), Derek Lowe (127), Felix Hernandez (126), Josh Beckett (126), and Verlander (123). Interestingly, Lowe's 127 pitch game was a complete game shutout in which Lowe walked 4 batters and struck out no one.

• Lewis also had 2 hits on the day. In interleague play, the Rangers have had a pitcher get 2 hits in a game only three times -- Chan Ho Park did it in 2005, and Lewis did it today and in 2010.
• Currently, the box score shows that Nelson Cruz had a 2 for 5 day, but he actually had a 3 for 5 day after a correction by the official scorer after the game on a bizarre 9th inning play. Michael Young led off the 9th with a single to left, and then Nelson Cruz lined a ball into the gap in left-center field that Justin Maxwell dove for, caught for a moment, and then dropped. Maxwell through the ball in to second, but Michael Young had stayed at first base, and Cruz had peeled off after rounding first and headed back to the dugout. The Astros stepped on second and then threw to first, arguing that it was a double play, but Cruz was actually out for passing Young on the basepaths. The official scorer originally had it as an F8, but it was corrected after the game. Regardless, that was either a screw up by Young for not advancing, or by Pettis for not telling him to go.
• Josh Hamilton had a nice game, going 2 for 3 with a walk, and bringing his average back up to .389. Elvis Andrus and Young also had two hit games, and everyone on the team had a hit except for Adrian Beltre, who was 0 for 5.
• David Murphy followed up his inside-the-park homer yesterday with a "real" homer today, a solo shot in the 5th inning off of Jordan Lyles to give the Rangers a 6-0 lead. Murphy was also allowed to hit in the 9th against lefty Wesley Wright, in a situation where I thought Washington might use Craig Gentry, both because Gentry is a righthander and because I figured Gentry would enter the game in the 9th for defense.