Josh Hamilton is up for a Job Dialogue!

While most of the baseball world's eyes are prob focussed on the "It's the Yankees! It's the Red Sox! Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! My Gawd!" this weekend, they should be watching what is going down in Detroit.

The Rangers split a doubleheader yesterday w/ the Tigers in what has been an absolutely thrilling early-season four game series.  The Rangers plated eight in the first inning of the first game, eventually winning 10-4.  The Tigers won the nightcap 3-2, a great pitcher's duel between Neftali Feliz and Justin Verlander.

Uh, I loooooove me some contract year, just had a relapse Josh Hamilton.  He is looking like he did in June 2010, one of the best months for any MLB hitter the last ten years.

(He just hit another one.  Rangers up 1-nil, Top 2.)

The Rangers and Tigers are the real class of the American League.  And the Angels are gonna wake up.  They are going to be good, real good, but not as good as the Rangers.  Derek Holland (w/ the crappy mustache) is very quietly becoming our ace.  Neftali Feliz' transition to starter has been amazing, again.  (This is the third year in a row the Rangers have successfully converted a reliever to a starter.)  And the Rangers are attempting to become like the 1984 Detroit Tigers, who started the season 35-5.

Renee and I are going to have the greatest Sunday ever today.  And this Okie/Texas boie loves himself this heat.  More please.  And hotter!

Everybody check out Veep and Girls tonight.  We will be riveted, eating grilled sausages from Cafe Rouge, drinking fabulous wine.







I love you all,
Michael

Rangers win the pennant (again!)

"What, we get another crack at this World Serious thing-y?"

Who would have thunk it? Once again I was in baseball limbo, furiously hitting refresh on my iPod touch (thanks, Steve Jobs, RIP, bruvver) at work.  Down one nil, then two nil, then up three two, then, after a mad rush of customers, and refilling the beer cooler, up nine runs to two.  Wha? Did that really happen?

And then I started to get really nervous, because, now I could taste it, back-to-back American League pennants.  That kind of stuff just does not happen to the Rangers.  I thought immediately of Alex Gibney's fantastic 30 For 30, Catching Hell doc about scapegoats and the Bartman incident, and how the truly bizarre, weird, crushing stuff always happens in Game Six.

The wife thought I was insane to be worried.  And to be honest, I did not really feel comfortable until Cruz hit his sixth home run of the series.  We were home by this point and I watched it unfold on the teevee from the bottom of the fifth until the confetti and I Like Texas ("love to drink that Shiner-Bock beer") by Pat Green showed up.

(And, what a wife? She drove a v nervous [basically I am insane, and unbearable re the Rangers] boie home from work, having procured a fab Chow pizza for me for dinner, "They scored nine runs in the third, what are you worried about?" Everything, love, everything.)

I love the Tigers, and I am so glad the Rangers will not have to go back to Comerica until next year.  Or see Miguel Cabrera until Spring 2012.  Or Justin Verlander.  Jim Leyland is a true class act, and a first ballot Hall of Fame manager, who was eloquent and graceful in defeat, a real gentleman.

And the series, though not going the full seven, was just a great series, much better than the Rangers pennant clinching series against the Yankees in 2010.  Extra innings twice, a postponement, rain delays, balls bouncing off of bases, smoking hot bullpens mowing batters down, twenty home runs (thirteen by the losing club, six by Cruz), starting pitching on both clubs looking for answers (after a v pitching dominant regular season this year), a walk-off Grand Slam, and on and on.

And how about this bad-ass NOLA resident doing the Funky Chicken?

I am still in pleasant, ludicrous shock, and I love it.

Mwah, ... 

I promise, I promise, I promise

This will not be a fucked-up (loaded) victory post.  I promise.

Because it def ain't over yet.  Verlander goes tomorrow, and Holland and Lewis for the Rangers have not exactly inspired confidence in this series.

Sorry, you do not to get to pass Go.

There was a moment for me at work, following on my iPod touch, going to the top of the 6th (Porcello had allowed one hit and struck out six) that I was like the great Spalding Grey, "So, if we do not make it to the World Serious, at least, We had a great year!" You know, lowering your expectations to deflate your sorrow.

But the Rangers rallied, took the lead, had Alexi Ogando, the Tiger-killer in there.  It was 3-2 Rangers right when I wanted to leave, but as I punched out, after no one watching any baseball, at all, tonight, there on the break room teevee was Inge celebrating his game tying home run.  (I completely missed the thrilling Cruz/Napoli/Cabrera play at the plate on the walk home.)

I was still a nervous wreck, especially during the Ollie and Boychik Feldman innings, but Hamilton lined his second double in a row off of Valverde, and I knew then it was over.

And I hate the Fox network.  And Fox News, for good measure.  And, I cannot tell you how glad I am that this game ruined the frickin' X-factor tonight.

Mwah, ... 

The baseball gods must have been

Busy elsewhere, or taking an extended nap, on Four, Eleven, Eleven, when they let Alexi Ogando and two relievers best Justin Verlander two-nil at Comerica Park in Detroit.

(I listened to the game at home, Eric Nadel and Dave Barnett, chatting with my Ranger buddies on BBTiA, and scoring the game.)  Here are those scoresheets:




Tigers




Rangers

 Comerica Park has been a House of Horrors for the Rangers since it opened and I took a great amount of pleasure in their gritty win that day.

(Ogando went seven innings, striking out six, while Verlander pitched a complete game.  The big Ranger hits were a pair of RBI doubles in the seventh by Michael "Face" Young and Mitch Moreland.  Verlander only walked one batter, Josh Hamilton, who subsequently scored on Face's double.)

I was so pleased with the victory and the Rangers' 9-1 start that I even wrote a short post on this blog, quoting my own comments on BBTiA later that day.

Well, the baseball gods woke the hell right up after that victory and promptly put Josh Hamilton on the DL for six weeks the very next day at Comerica on a head-first slide at home that also brought out tension between the star outfielder and the third base coach that sent him.  The Rangers, natch, lost that game and then the next four at Comerica, returning the basball universe to its' normal equalibrium.

************

This is going to be an extremely tough series for the Rangers to win, even though I believe the Rangers are the slightly superior team.  But in a short series against a club that will have Verlander going (at least) twice, my belief cuts v little ice.

I also expect the TradMedia to overwhelmingly pick the Tigers and the the stat geek/Baseball Prospectus crowd to slightly favor the Rangers.

And I am hoping that the baseball gods are either asleep at the wheel again or feel the karmic wheel should turn the Rangers' way next week in Detroit.  It should be a great series.  Let us play some baseball.  Go Rangers!

mwah, ...
kisses and love for all, ...