The Rangers turn the tables on the Cardinals and win Game Two by One Run

The Texas Rangers defeated the St. Louis Cardinals by the score of 2-1 in Game Two of the World Series on Thursday night. Jaime Garcia and Colby Lewis started and they were both great. The Rangers bullpen was a little better though and that is what decided the game. Jason Motte has been so good for St. Louis but not in this game and he took the loss. The offense once again was not there for either of the teams. It is amazing how everyone thought it would be an offensive series and so far that hasn’t been the case at all.
Lewis pitched 6 2/3 innings for the Rangers. He gave up four hits and one run with two walks and four strikeouts. Alexi Ogando pitched 1/3 of an inning giving up a hit, Mike Adams who got the win pitched an inning giving up a hit and a walk but no runs and Neftali Feliz got the save pitching an inning and giving up a walk with two strikeouts.

Garcia pitched seven innings for the Cardinals. He gave up three hits and no runs with a walk and seven strikeouts. Fernando Salas struck out the one batter he faced, Marc Rzepczynski pitched 2/3 of an inning with a strikeout and Motte took the loss giving up two hits and two runs without recording an out. Arthur Rhodes got credit with a blown save, he pitched 1/3 of an inning getting an out and Lance Lynn retired both batters that he faced.

Ian Kinsler was the star of the offense for the Rangers. He had two hits and a walk. Elvis Andrus had a hit, Josh Hamilton had an RBI and Michael Young had a hit and an RBI. Adrian Beltre had a hit, the Rangers were 1-2 with runners in scoring position and they left three men on base. Kinsler had a stolen base and he made an error.

Nick Punto was the only player on the Cardinals with a multi-hit game. Punto had two hits, Rafael Furcal had a hit and Lance Berkman had a hit. David Freese had a hit and Allen Craig had a hit and an RBI. Furcal had a double and the Cardinals were 1-5 with runners in scoring position and they left nine men on base.

There was no scoring in the game until the seventh inning. The Cardinals took a 1-0 lead on an RBI single from Craig. In the ninth the Rangers scored two runs to take the lead. Hamilton hit a sacrifice fly and Young hit a sacrifice fly. Kinsler hit a bloop single and stole second just beating the throw to start the inning. Andrus singled and it was first and third no outs. Rhodes came on to replace Motte at that point which was a little peculiar considering Motte is the closer and has been so good in the postseason. The two sac flies followed and that was how the game would end after Feliz walked the leadoff hitter in the ninth and then got the next three batters out.

The World Series is tied at one game each with the series shifting to Texas now. The two teams will have an off day on Friday and then resume play on Saturday. The third game will be at 8:05PM Eastern time, 7:05 Central time. The win by the Rangers was the first win in the World Series by a team trailing in the ninth inning since Game Seven of the 2001 World Series by the Arizona Diamondbacks. Matt Harrison vs. Kyle Lohse will be the pitching matchup for Game Three. Young had this to say “For us to come back in the ninth there and win this ballgame, it’s huge for us. Going back home, we know what our ballpark’s like with 50,000 people, it goes crazy in the postseason. So we’re looking forward to being back there and I know we’re going to feed off of it.”

Moneyball

I went to see Moneyball finally tonight and I was very happy that I did do so.  It was pretty much what I thought but there was more inside the clubhouse stuff then I thought.  I would say you need to be a baseball fan and understand Moneyball and the whole concept to see it.  There were some woman in the audience and from what I could tell they don't know what was going on and didn't really care for the movie which makes sense.  I am a baseball enthusiast and nerd if you want to say that so I really enjoyed it as well as my brother who is the same.  I believe you need to be into baseball and understand it to get the movie and enjoy it. 

What is moneyball??  Moneyball is about the Oakland Athletics being a small market team and because they were losing players to bigger markets they came up with a sabermetric approach to baseball.  Moneyball has many different layers and can be very complicated.  The A's under Billy Beane and his top advisor Paul Depodesta came up with a statistical analysis approach to building their team and it worked. 

There are many teams now that have adopted that, the Boston Red Sox being the biggest example, the Toronto Blue Jays are another and to some extent I would say just about every team has some principles of it in their organization.  The Yankees even do some things in that model although they are still the Yankees and will spend money.  There are several teams including the Yankees who have sabermetric people on their stuff. 

Brad Pitt as the lead actor, he was Billy Beane did a great job but I think Jonah Hill was even better playing the part of Paul Depodesta who was Beanes sidekick and now is a member of the Mets front office.  I think the movie was pretty accurate, there are always some things you can say because it is a movie.  I didn't notice any fatal flaws though, I think Pitt accurately portrayed Beane and Depodesta was accurately portrayed as well.  They got the 20 game winning streak right from the Athletics 2002 season.  I think certain players were portrayed well, overall it was a very good move.  I would recommend this movie to any baseball fan and especially the hardcore fans such as myself. 

Batting Cages

There is some downtime right now as the World Series doesn't start until Wednesday.  I can talk about the Jets and Giants sure, but I will start getting into that more after the World Series ends.  I am a baseball fan big time and also mostly a baseball blogger/journalist so I have to keep my focus on that until sadly the season ends in about a week or so. 

There will be the winter coming and for those who are baseball coaches or players, why not take a look at the link below for your batting cage needs.  Of course you also may just love baseball and be interested in it for that reason.  Jug sports does a great job and you should look into it.  I wouldn't recommend anything that I don't think is a good product myself.  I hope everyone has a great winter and comes back strong and ready to go in the spring for another great baseball season in 2012.  Enjoy the World Series everyone and remember to visit the link and Jugsports for your batting cage needs, thank  you for the time. 
http://jugssports.com/batting-cages/

Jon Lester speaks out about the Red Sox collapse and locker room

Here is a link to a story in Boston.com from today.  Peter Abraham who is an old friend, he used to be the beat reporter for the Yankees and the Journal News.  He also had a famous blog, Lohud Yankees that a lot have tried to copy off of or at least get inspiration from. I am included in that list and now he does a great job with boston.com and the Red Sox.  It is amazing how the mighty have fallen quickly.  I wouldn't count them out just yet but they sure are going through a lot with their manager and general manager gone and the criticism the players are getting.  Lester comes out and defends what was going on in the locker room but also admitted it, I wonder how this is all going to play out with the fans.  It will be an interesting winter up in Boston, that is for sure. 
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/2011/10/more_from_jon_l.html

Texas wins their second straight American League Championship with a blowout victory over Detroit

The Texas Rangers defeated the Detroit Tigers by the score of 15-5 on Saturday night. The win gave Texas it’s second straight American League Championship and sent them to the World Series. Texas will now await the winner of the National League Championship Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers. The National League will have the home field advantage. The Texas offense erupted in the third inning for nine runs and they never looked back in this game. Nelson Cruz set the record for most homeruns in any single season series in postseason history. Cruz hit six homeruns during the series to eclipse the record of five.
Derek Holland started the game for Texas and he pitched 4 2/3 innings giving up seven hits and four runs. He didn’t walk a batter and struck out five. Scott Feldman retired the only batter that he faced, Alexi Ogando got the win pitching two innings giving up one hit and striking out three and Mike Adams pitched an inning giving up two hits and one run. Neftali Feliz pitched a perfect inning to close out the game. Max Scherzer started for Detroit and pitched 2 1/3 innings giving up five hits and six runs, he walked four and struck out one. Scherzer took the loss, Max Schlereth didn’t record an out and gave up a hit and a run, Rick Porcello pitched 1/3 of an inning giving up two hits and two runs with a walk and Ryan Perry pitched 2 1/3 innings giving up two hits and one run. Brad Penny pitched 1 2/3 innings giving up seven hits and five runs. Penny walked two and struck out one and Al Alburquerque pitched 1 1/3 innings giving up a walk and two strikeouts.

Ian Kinsler had two hits and three RBI with a walk for Texas, Elvis Andrus had two hits and a walk and Josh Hamilton had a hit, RBI and a walk. Michael Young had three hits and five RBI, Adrian Beltre had two hits and an RBI and Mike Napoli had a hit and a walk. Cruz had two hits and two RBI with a walk, David Murphy had two hits, two RBI and three walks and Craig Gentry had two hits and an RBI. Cruz, Young and Beltre each had a double. Young and Cruz each had a homerun and Cruz set the new postseason record with his six homeruns during the series. Texas was 8-18 with runners in scoring position and they left 11 men on base. Andrus and Murphy each had a stolen base and Andrus was also caught stealing.

Detroit saw their big hitters come up big but it wasn’t enough on this night. Austin Jackson had two hits and two RBI, Miguel Cabrera had two hits and two RBI and Victor Martinez had three hits. Jhonny Peralta had a hit and an RBI, Brandon Inge and Ramon Santiago each had a hit. Cabrera hit two homeruns and Peralta and Jackson each had a homerun. The Tigers were 1-1 with runners in scoring position and they left three men on base. Delmon Young and Ryan Raburn each committed an error in the game.

In the first inning Cabrera hit a solo homerun to put the Tigers in front 1-0. In the second Peralta hit a solo homerun to make it 2-0 Tigers. The Rangers struck for nine runs in the third inning to take a 9-2 lead and they would not look back in this game. Young hit a two run double, Beltre hit an RBI single and Murphy hit a two run single. Kinsler hit a two run single and Young hit a two run double. Young had four RBI in the inning. In the fifth Jackson hit a two run homerun to make it a 9-4 game in favor of the Rangers. Hamilton hit a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the fifth to make it 10-4. In the sixth Gentry hit an RBI single and Kinsler hit an RBI single to make it a 12-4 game. In the seventh Young hit a solo homerun and Cruz hit a two run homerun to make it 15-4. In the eighth Cabrera hit a solo homerun to make it 15-5 and complete the scoring for the game.

The Rangers won the American League Pennant for the second consecutive season. They won the series in six games just like they did last year over the Yankees. The Rangers will now await the winner of the NLCS, the Cardinals and Brewers will play Game Six on Sunday night. The World Series will begin in the home of the National League Champion, the National League has home field advantage for the World Series. Cruz besides hitting his six homeruns became the first player to drive in 13 runs in a single postseason series. The Rangers became the first AL team to repeat winning the pennant since the Yankees did it in 1998-2001. The last non Yankee team to do it was the Toronto Blue Jays in 1992-93. Ron Washington the manager said “It was very tough, but when you have a group of guys that’s committed to each other and committed to a purpose, usually good things happen. I have to give a lot of credit to our pitching staff. You have to give a lot of credit to the guys that showed up every day. I have to give a lot of credit to the organization for getting us pieces when we need it and jus trusting us with all that talent that they gave to us. More then anything else, the players deserve a heck of a lot of credit because it took a lot behind the scenes to get to this point. And more than anything else, we defended our American League Championship.” The World Series will begin on Wednesday and the middle three games of the series will be in Arlington on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The Rangers are the second team in postseason history two win a best of seven playoff series without a win from their starters. The 1997 Indians also won the ALCS without a win from their starters.