Thoughts on a 4-3 Rangers win

Rangers 4, Padres 3

• Hey, a win!  Its been a while since we've had one of those.  I was starting to forget what that felt like.
• This was one of those games that could have slipped away very easily, and you definitely got the sense that Jeff Banister was treating this as a "we really need to win this game" game.  Wandy Rodriguez was at just 91 pitches with one out in the 6th when Banister pulled him in favor of Keone Kela, who came in for his A.L.-leading 42nd appearance of the year.  Wandy had given up just one run -- a solo home run to the Upton formerly known as B.J. -- but that homer had led off the 6th, and when Wandy walked Yonder Alonso two batters later, Banister had seen enough.  Kela promptly gave up an infield single on a ball that went off Adrian Beltre's glove, but then struck out Justin Upton and fanned Jedd Gyorko to escape.
• The bullpen was scary tonight, but ended up getting it done.  The Padres had 10 baserunners in the final 4 innings, but only three runs came across.  Tanner Scheppers allowed a pair of runs and also gave up a couple of very long fly balls for outs, but escaped the 8th with a 4-3 lead.  One of the runs scored when Matt Kemp strayed too far from second base, got picked off by Carlos Corporan, and broke for third...Rougned Odor's throw was in time to get Kemp, but it was thrown into the dugout, allowing Kemp to score.
• Shawn Tolleson allowed an infield single and a walk in the 9th, putting the tying run at second and the go ahead run on first, but struck out Kemp to end the game and pick up his 13th save.
• The Rangers got their first run thanks to Delino DeShields.  He led off the bottom of the first with a walk, stole second, went to third on a passed ball, and then scored when Will Middlebrooks caught a pop up in shallow left field and just assumed that DeShields wouldn't be tagging...when Middlebrooks realized DeShields was coming home, he made a good throw, but by then it was too late, and DeShields was in to give Texas a 1-0 lead.
• The other runs were pretty straightforward...Rougned Odor scored on a groundout in the third after leading off the inning with a triple, and in the fourth, Prince Fielder and Adrian Beltre had back-to-back home runs.  After that, the Rangers hardly threatened -- they had a pair of runners on in the 5th after consecutive walks, but Ian Kennedy was lifted and the runners were stranded -- but that was enough for Texas to hang on.
• Fun fact -- neither team got a hit with RISP tonight.  San Diego was 0 for 7, Texas was 0 for 6.
• This is a game that could have gone either way.  Too many of those of late have gone the wrong way.  Happily, tonight, it went the right way.