Thoughts on a 2-1 win

Rangers 2, Padres 1

• 4 in a row. 8 wins in their last 10. 14 games over .500, the high-water mark of the season.
• In the third inning, with the score at 2-1, I thought to myself, "After 3 runs scoring in the first, there probably won't be another run scored all game." Sure enough...
• Matt Harrison wasn't great, but he was good enough, and made pitches when he needed to. 6 innings, with the only run he allowed coming in the first inning. And a very Harrison outing in that he didn't strike out many (4) or walk many (2). In every game this season, Harrison has struck out no more than 6 and no fewer than 3 batters, and walked no more than 3 batters.
• Mark Lowe was very good. Mike Adams and Joe Nathan were, like Harrison, not great, but good enough.
• Weirdness on the next to last batter of the game...with one on and two out in the 9th, Nathan left a pitch up to John Baker, who lined it a couple of steps to the left of Adrian Beltre. Beltre, though, never moved, and apparently never saw the ball until it was past him. Beltre probably wouldn't have made a play on it even if he'd seen it off the bat, but still, it was weird.

• David Murphy's 2 out, 2 RBI single in the top of the first brought home the only runs of the game for Texas. Its strange...the Rangers scored a lot of runs in each of the three Houston games, but there seemed to be a lot of complaining about the offense in the game day thread and on Twitter, as the offense didn't do anything early in the game, then put up big innings later on. Today, Jason Marquis, about as bad a starting pitcher you'll see in the majors, struck out 10 Rangers and gave up just 2 runs in 7 innings, and yet there was much less complaining. Moral of the story...score early, and the fans will be satisfied.
• The Padres left 11 runners on base, scoring just 1 run. That's gotta sting.
• Aside from Murphy's RBI single, Ian Kinsler had a pair of singles, Elvis Andrus had a single, and Leonys Martin had a double. That was it for the Rangers, in terms of hits. The Padres shut the bats down.
• Martin had a scary play in the 8th, seemingly overrunning a fly ball to left field before adjusting to make a catch and end the inning. He made the last out of the 9th inning, but then was pulled for Josh Hamilton for defense in the bottom of the 9th. It says something about Ron Washington's level of trust in Martin that he'd be pulled in that situation, as well as it being kind of odd that Wash would let Martin hit instead of Hamilton.
• Michael Young was 0 for 4, didn't get the ball out of the infield, and looks like a player in dire need of a day off. I don't know that Ron Washington can continue to justify sitting Mitch Moreland against righthanders in San Diego so that Young can play first base.