It wasn’t pretty but it wasn’t ugly either. Matt Harrison had a hard time finding his spots in innings one through three but was fine after that, even being a bit miffed at being pulled in the seventh with two outs. He had three walks. Again. But, it does appear he figured some things out. In baseball you don’t have to figure things out until you are struggling it appears. He still picked up his 13th win and is tied for tops in the AL. The most encouraging part of his game was getting the double play ball. Last season he lived by those. Not so much this year. Last night he had two. Wash maybe had a bit of a quicker hook because Mitch Moreland hit on into the right center fountains with two aboard to give us a then 5-2 lead. Nothing spectacular but it was our first three-game win streak since early July. Something to keep our eyes on? Alexi Ogando, who closed in the resting Joe Nathan’s place. Joe has been a little inconsistent and with him being rested after prolonged outings (by his own hand), had the night off. Snoop, who I guess doesn’t normally get to do this, threw with wild-abandon. Except he wasn’t that wild. What he was, was powerful. Nipping 100 m.p.h. on the radar he disposed of the Royals in short order in the ninth for the save.
The Angels, in the meantime, played last night’s game against the White Sox under protest. I am guessing they are waiting on AL Veep Joe Torre to rule. Otherwise, newly acquired Zack Greinke got knocked around pretty good. The Angels lost on Alex Rios second homer of the night. A walk-off job in the 10th. Curious as to way their closer didn’t see action after not getting into the game Thursday night. The winning home came off of David Carpenter who we had success off of Thursday night. Oh woe to be in the Angels bullpen right now. The loss dropped the Angels six games behind the Rangers. The A’s won a 13 inning affair with the Blue Jays. The Athletics stay 4.5 games back and while the prognosticators all say not to worry about them, I am bothered to say the least.
Other notes on last night’s Rangers-Royals tilt…Adrian Beltre hasn’t had an RBI in eleven games. I wonder if his trip to the three spot messed with his head…Josh Hamilton is having a different kind of year with all of the talk of his meltdown being about God punishing him for not quitting the dip….seemingly every day he does something to either lower his value or make us (and other teams) wonder about signing him next season… Is it just me or when you see the opposing starter is having a horrible year, they always handle us pretty well. Such was the case with last night’s Royal starter Jeremy Guthrie.
Scooter Feldman is on the bump today. If he continues getting out of his own head, he will have success. We need that. I wonder if today is the day we have a bit of a travel hangover. It always seems to be the day after travel that we have a hard time.
No Pepper 