This is the new marketing slogan for the Texas Rangers this year. (Ed. note: it would also be appropriate to use as the title of Ron Washington’s next club meeting, but that’s a discussion for another day) It certainly applied to our night last night.
Matt received 4 free tickets through work to attend last night’s game against the Tigers. I jumped at the chance for our whole family to do something fun together that didn’t revolve around playlands, bounce houses, or church. Since we’ve been to our fair share of Ranger games, we’ve pretty much sampled seats in every area of the ballpark. We’ve determined that there’s really only one area where the seats are not so good (down the first base line, lower level, near the foul pole – can’t see the ball, mezzanine noise is too loud, can’t see the jumbotron, and people are constantly walking in front of you. For $20 sit somewhere else!!). Everywhere else we’ve sat, we’ve felt like we’ve had “good” seats. Last night, we had GREAT seats. 11 rows back, third base side, about 25 feet from home plate. No foul balls came our way, and we were too far back to enjoy any balls thrown into the stands, but we were able to really see the game and feel like we were part of it.
Trey is at the perfect age to start coming to games like this. He was so interested in all the different aspects of the game. Baseball is really a simple game…until you start explaining it to a 7-year-old. But we had a great time helping him understand how it’s played and even some of the strategy behind the game. He and Crisana both got a kick out of watching Don Wakamatsu (watsamatta u?) giving the signs to the runner at first.
The Rangers didn’t let us down either. It was a true pitching duel between two of the league’s most ineffective pitchers, Nate Robertson for the Tigers and Vicente Padilla John Rheinecker for the Rangers (not much of an improvement, I must say) Rheinecker managed to load the bases in the bottom of the first (escaping with no runs, miraculously), only to have the favor returned by Robertson in the bottom of the first. Hairston led off with a single, Young and Tex followed up with walks, Sosa singled in a run, and then Victor Diaz hit his second GRAND SLAM of the year. Byrd then TRIPLED, and Roberston was finished. Grilli came in and allowed a sac fly scoring Byrd, allowing Robertson the grand distinction of having an era of infinity for the game. 6 ER on 6 batters, no outs recorded. Maybe the Rangers should sign him. He sounds like our kind of guy! Detroit made a game of it, slowly chipping away on Rheinecker, but after he was pulled in the top of the 4th our bullpen came in and pitched 5 shutout innings. We left after the 6th, but Young added an insurance run for us, on a run-scoring single that scored Kinsler (after Kinsler had stolen 2 bases!), so the final ended up being 7-4, Rangers win.
The weather was great, we had a fun picnic supper outside the ballpark before the game, got some neat pictures of us and the game, and we enjoyed seeing some former Rangers play: Pudge Rodriguez, Craig Monroe, Marcus Thames. It was a relaxing family evening together, something we don’t have often enough.
I couldn’t agree more, we sure could have used some baseball.
Rheinecker also loaded the bases in the top of the second as well. Yep, a real pitching duel there. I do have to say I have more faith in Rheinecker than in Padilla. He has earned the distinction as being the only Ranger pitcher to loose 8 games before June 1st. It was a fun time.