» Comerica

“Bloop”

I’m starting to lose track of how often that word is thrown around by those few fortunate commentators of the Rangers opposition who undoubtedly bear a mile-wide grin upon the utterance of the word. Naturally, this is followed by the excited roar of an away crowd or the all-too-often heard cry in disbelief from the home cats.

Today the Rangers were looking to avoid falling victim of a sweep to the Tigers, “looking” being the key word. What they found was another well executed exercise in what are blatantly their two most glaring weaknesses: pitching, and defense.

Kevin Milwood started for the Rangers, he faced Edwin Jackson. I’m not going to lie; I don’t really know anything about Jackson so I won’t go into too much depth on him. Comerica Park would see a classic Milwood performance on the mound; all said and done he would throw 112 pitches, 70 of which were strikes. Seven innings of shutout baseball, in addition to a productive early offense primarily provided by Ian Kinsler, Michael Young, Elvis Andrus, and Josh Hamilton; each scoring a run in the first three innings. Both Hamilton and Kinsler would knock two-run homers over the fence.

Apart from the chilly 49 degree weather, not much seemed to be able to faze the Rangers, who played pretty well most of the game (at least the part of the game with Milwood in it). Of course, inevitably a single pitcher can’t carry a whole game on his back, so it was time for some relief on the Ranger mound. That relief came in the form of CJ Wilson who in just 24 pitches allowed 6 runs. Yeah, you heard me right: six runs in twenty-four pitches. I know; I couldn’t believe it either! If it weren’t for an easily avoidable error by the rookie Andrus the blow might have been softened, but then speculation never really ends in anything productive. The fact is; the guy on the mound just didn’t perform. Warner Madrigal was called in to try to get the Rangers out of the inning, which he did successfully in twelve pitches, but the damage had been done.

The Rangers would see their last three at bats, but they couldn’t seem to break through the embarrassment they rightly bore on their shoulders. It seemed they had given up.

It’s going to be a long trip back to Arlington, but there’s no rest for the mediocre. Tomorrow is another day, another game, another opponent: the Orioles of Baltimore.