Texas Rangers 8 Minnesota Twins 0 (August 1, 2006)
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0 commentsSolid starting pitching, a good outing by the bullpen, timely hitting. Sounds easy enough, right? I’m not an unrealistic person; I realize that a team can’t do all of those things every night. But you’d think they could manage it, I don’t know, two out of every three nights.
You never know what will happen today, but for the second time in three games, the Texas Rangers had all the pieces work like their supposed to last night. Adam Eaton had a very encouraging start, shutting the Minnesota Twins out for six innings on four hits. He still showed some control issues, though, walking four and running his pitch count up to 108. If he can continue to improve on his control the way he did in this start, though, he should work out very well for the Rangers.
Unlike Monday night, the offense and bullpen actually managed to lend a hand, too. Both pitchers were cruising through the first three innings, when the Rangers opened things up in the top of the fourth. Twins starter Scott Baker had already allowed three runs in the inning when Gary Matthews turned it into an early rout with a grand slam. Michael Young followed with a homerun of his own to complete the eight run inning. Aside from one more run on a Mark Teixeira single in the ninth inning, it would also complete the scoring for the night.
C.J. Wilson came on in relief of Eaton to pitch 1.2 shutout innings, followed by 1.1 perfect innings by Scott Feldman. Wilson has now pitched seven scoreless innings since being recalled in the middle of July, and has allowed just three hits in those seven innings. His ERA since his terrible April is 2.29.
Eaton lowered his ERA tonight to 2.79. That’s about a five point drop in one game. I love that about having only two starts in a season. Every Rangers starter but Rod Barajas got a hit, even though it took all nine innings for Mark Teixeira to finally get his. Barajas can be given a pass on the hits tonight, though, as he caught two baserunners stealing in one inning to help Eaton out of a jam. Of course, Matthews was the big bat tonight with his grand slam, going 2-4 with two runs, four RBI and a walk. Matt Stairs went 1-4 with a run in his first game as a Ranger.
Apparently the Rangers aren’t quite ready to give up on Brad Wilkerson as a starter, as he was in the lineup again last night playing left field. He went 1-4 with a run and an RBI and actually managed to not strike out. Impressive? Not really, but I like any game where Wilkerson manages not to strike out, considering he has 109 in 90 games.
With the win last night, the Rangers moved out of last place just as quickly as they put themselves there. They moved back to a half game ahead of the Seattle Mariners, and three games behind the first place Oakland A's (which fell to the LAA Angels last night).
The Rangers will try not to fall back into last place when the close out their series with the Twins in a day game today. Kip Wells (1-5, 6.69) will make his Rangers debut against Boof Bonser (2-2, 5.30). Are these names for real? Kip and Boof…sounds like a couple of Disney characters. At any rate, they’ll go against each other at 12:10 CST today before the Rangers head out for a crucial west coast trip, starting with a four game series against the LAA Angels tomorrow.
Date
August 1, 2006
