Yesterday I wrote: “I hate 15–9 baseball. I’m a 3–1 guy. Arena league baseball doesn’t appeal to me at all.”
2–1 works just fine.
Last night Texas and Cleveland combined, over nine full innings, for three runs and six hits.
The night before, there were single innings with as much action.
Tuesday night, Tyson Ross turned the clock back to 2015 and Robinson Chirinos turned the clock back to Little League and the bullpen turned the clock back to Not Monday and Belts didn’t turn the clock back because time is a foreign and unheeded concept to Belts, who turned 94 at the letters around and clocked it 401 feet at 103.1 mph and turned a 1–1 tie into a 2–1 lead that, minutes later, turned into a 2–1 win, and it’s good that Belts doesn’t recognize time because he can’t leave, ever.
It was the one-year anniversary of Belts turning a 6–5 deficit into a 7–6 lead that eventually became a 9–6 lead and a 9–6 win, all taking place during a three-hour, 50-minute 9th inning in Yankee Stadium that was largely spent waiting out a rain delay that Joe Girardi talked the umpiring crew into when Aroldis Chapman went to three-balls-one-strike on Shin-Soo Choo because he apparently couldn’t grip the baseball due to a rain that had been coming down for four innings.
It was the two-year anniversary of Yovani Gallardo and Shawn Tolleson shutting Toronto out on three hits, 4–0. Chirinos homered.
(And of my chance-of-a-lifetime opportunity to play in Dirk Nowitzki’s Heroes Baseball Game, going 2 for 3 with a rope single to right center and a rope single to left and a 4–3 groundout that gifted second baseman Steve Nash the opportunity to pad his career assist total of 10,335, third all-time in the NBA.)
It was the three-year anniversary of Texas 5, Minnesota 4. Belts homered.
It was the four-year anniversary of Texas 2, New York 0, with Derek Holland going the distance on a two-hitter in Yankee Stadium that Joe Girardi couldn’t talk the umpires into halting.
It was the five-year anniversary of Texas 13, Detroit 9, with Belts contributing three non-homer base hits and Roy Oswalt (five runs on 13 hits in six innings) “earning” the win.
It was the six-year anniversary of the Rangers taking a day off, because they can’t always win on June 27.
It was the seven-year anniversary of Texas 10, Houston 1, with Oswalt (eight runs on seven hits in 4.2 innings) taking the loss but he was with the Astros, and Belts homering but he was with the Red Sox.
It was the eight-year anniversary of San Diego 7, Texas 3, because the Rangers can’t always win on June 27 or take the day off and because 2009 is the local baseball equivalent of B.C.E.
Texas 2, Cleveland 1 worked out just fine. Belts and Chirinos and Ross and the bullpen turned the clock back, and the club turned the clock back to what the club does on June 27’s, and Yu Darvish has a chance tonight to secure at least a series draw, which after Monday night would be more than acceptable, thanks.
Dallas attorney Jamey Newberg has been commenting on Rangers from the big club down through the entire farm system since 1998.
Scott Lucas was born in Arlington, Texas, to Richard and Becky Lucas. He lived mostly in Arlington before moving to Austin, where he graduated from The University of Texas. Scott works for Austin Valuation Consultants, Ltd., and has published several boring articles about real estate appraisal and environmental contamination. He makes a swell margarita and refuses to run longer than ten kilometres.
Eleanor grew up watching the AAA Mudhens in Toledo, Ohio. A loyal Ranger fan since 1979, she works "behind the scenes" at the Newberg Report.
