Thoughts on a 6-5 Rangers win

Rangers 6, Reds 5

• I swear, this season has been so weird.
• So, Yu Darvish back on the mound tonight.  After starting off looking good in the first, Darvish was a little wonky the next five innings.  He allowed two runs in the second inning, despite not allowing a hit...instead, it was HBP, a fly out, a walk, a walk, a fielder's choice, and then a run-scoring passed ball when Jonathan Lucroy flat whiffed on an outside fastball.
• Things settled down for Yu until the fifth, when he was victimized by bad defense again...a one out single was followed up by a slow grounder to shortstop by Billy Hamilton.  Because it was Billy Hamilton, the fastest player in the majors, there was no play at first...but Elvis Andrus threw to first anyway, and threw wildly, resulting in runners being at second and third, setting up a run scoring on a ground out.  Two more runs scored in the sixth, on a one out single, a walk, a ground rule double, and a sac fly, the end result of which was the Reds putting up 5 runs on Yu, and tying the game at 5.
• Of course, only three of the five runs were earned, so Yu still got credit for a quality start.  Yay?
• On the plus side, the bullpen was great today.  Jake Diekman, Matt Bush, and Sam Dyson each pitched an inning, with the only runner coming on a Diekman walk.  The back end of the bullpen pitched like we would hope the back end of the bullpen would pitch.
• Meanwhile, the Rangers broke their scoreless streak with a three run home run by Nomar Mazara in the second, and then got back-to-back home runs from Yu Darvish and Ian Desmond in the fifth.  Yes, Yu Darvish it a home run.  It was amazing and ridiculous and I'm still flabbergasted that it happened.  I'm also peeved the photo database doesn't have a photo of Darvish homering.  There's like 8000000 photos of Darvish in there, but they don't (as I'm writing this, anyway) have a Darvish home run photo from tonight.  Bah.
• Anyway, after Yu allowed Cincy to tie the game, Adrian Beltre came through in the 8th with an RBI double, driving home Ian Desmond with Beltre's 2900th career hit.
• So its a game where Yu Darvish homered and Adrian Beltre had a game-winning hit that put him just 100 hits away from 3000.  And people wonder why I watch baseball.
• Oh, and Seattle lost, so Texas is up 6.5 games in the West.  Yay!
• Also...there are just two more road trips the rest of the season for Texas -- one of which is a three game road trip to Oakland.  With 35 games to go in the season, Texas has 22 home games against just 13 road games.  Things set up well for this last stretch of the season.