Thoughts on a 3-2 Rangers win

Rangers 3, Yankees 2

• Woo-hoo!  Rangers win, Marteen gets a Quality Start, and Elvis Andrus drives in the winning run.  What more could I ask for?
• The Martin Perez experience continued today, and he teased us by striking out the side to start the game.  Then he tormented us by walking the first two batters in the second.  And then he didn't strike out or walk another batter all game.  It was weird.
• Just two runs allowed by Perez in 6 IP, one in the second, when Starlin Castro singled in the first batter he walked, one on an Alex Rodriguez home run.  18 first pitch strikes out of 24 batters faced, so he was getting ahead of hitters.  Still, he didn't seem to have his A game tonight.  He wasn't bad, just not as good as we've seen Perez before.
• Marteen was lifted after 6 IP and 86 pitches, in favor of Jake Diekman.  I'm curious as to how much of that was due to Banister having a rested back-end of the pen and an off day tomorrow, and how much was wanting to get Perez out on a high note, rather than send him back out for the seventh and risk him struggling.
• 22 straight games now to start the season where the Rangers starting pitcher has gone at least 5 innings.
• It was kind of a flat night from the bats, on the heels of last night's explosion.  Just 5 hits and 3 walks.  With over the hill C.C. Sabathia on the mound, I was expecting more, I think.
• Ryan Rua got the start at DH, and was almost single-handedly responsible for the Rangers' first run.  Rua went the other way for a single that went into the big hole left in the shift.  Rougned Odor hit a looper into left-center that fell for a single, and Rua, who got a great read, was going all the way and made it to third on a play where it looked assured we'd have runners at first and second.  And Odor even made it to second on the throw!  It was great.  Elvis had a grounder to third for the first out, runners holding, but when Hanser Alberto followed that up with a tapper back to the mound, Rua broke home once Sabathia threw to first, beating the throw back from Mark Teixeira.  It was tremendously heads-up baserunning twice in the inning, and the type of thing you love to see from a guy getting just sporadic playing time.
• Rougned Odor advanced to third when Rua went home, but when Brian McCann threw down to third, Odor came off the bag, and was called out.  Alas.
• Bottom of the sixth, two outs, Odor walked, and then Elvis drove a ball to the right-center gap that got by Carlos Beltran and went to the wall for a triple.  Elvis has been hitting so well that I'm scared to talk about it, but its worth noting that he's currently got an 854 OPS, and he's never had an OPS that high this late in the season.  I'm not expecting him to keep up this pace, but he's hitting the ball hard and looks good at the plate, which has me encouraged that we'll at least see better offense from him going forward than we have the last two years.
• So yeah...nice game, back to two games over .500, series won after the ugly sweep in Chicago.  Winning definitely makes baseball more fun...