The Rangers looked to sweep a two game series against the AL West leading Mariners and close within a half game of the top spot.
Vicente Padilla did all he could to make sure that happened. Padilla went 8 strong innings allowing only 1 hit and 1 unearned run. During that 8 inning span, the Rangers tagged Erik Bedard and Mark Lowe for 9 hits, but frustratingly so only had 1 run.
9 innings of baseball and it was still 1-1.
Going into the 10th inning, Texas started to capitalize on their opportunities. After Andrus and Young flied out to right to begin the 10th, Jones, Blalock, Byrd and Cruz hit 4 consecutive singles to extend the lead to 3-1. After Chris Davis walked, Jarrod Saltalamacchia (Who has been fantastic at the plate lately) smashed a grand slam to righ-center giving Texas a 7-1 lead.
They would hold on to that lead after giving up a 10th inning run, giving them a 7-2 win.
Padilla's performance was especially comforting as it was the 7th consecutive really solid outing by a Rangers starting pitcher.
Rangers went up against the A's this past evening going into the game knowing that if they won, they'd be in first place as the Mariners were thumped by Kansas City.
Elvis Andrus did his part early. Andrus socked one that left no doubt into the empty left field stands to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead. He also made some nice defensive plays...something he's been doing more and more of lately.
Scott Feldman had his second straight solid outing and ended out getting the win this time around in a 3-2 Rangers victory.
Andrus (Obviously) Feldman and Holland all deserve major credit in this game.
Holland came into the game in the 7th inning and pitched two scoreless frames to set up Frankie Francisco for the close (Who once more tried to make the game more interesting then it needed to be)
Holland allowed 1 hit, but kept his count low for two innings (16) and threw 13 strikes. Holland also had a 2-1 ratio of ground ball outs to fly ball outs. That's something a Rangers pitcher HAS to do in Arlington where the ball zooms out of the park on most nights.
Holland has now pitched 8.1 innings and has only allowed 2 runs. His ERA rests at a nice 2.16
Your Texas Rangers are in first place and they've done it without Josh Hamilton. Wow.
Now on to the Mavericks who once again folded like a gymnasium chair in the fourth quarter.
This Mavericks team can't go far without Josh Howard. They were without Josh Howard for all but 6 minutes on Tuesday night and they were still in striking distance after 3 quarters. They trailed by just a possession early in the 4th and actually held the lead late in the 3rd.
Stop me if this sounds familiar.
Denver played the game out just like it was game 1. The Nuggets went on another ridiculous run in the 4th quarter starting things off by outscoring the over-matched Dallas Mavericks 16-2. Yikes.
Rick Carlisle really deserves some heat for starting the 4th quarter of a playoff game on the road well within their grasp with the lineup of Singleton, Bass, Kidd, Barea and Wright. REALLY!? That may be the most inept scoring offense the Mavericks could possibly put out there and he put it out there in a high scoring game.
Dirk once again gave it his absolute all. Fighting for every bucket and turning in a 35 point, 9 rebound, 4 assist performance. It simply wasn't enough when no one else was putting up respectable numbers.
Howard was out halfway through the first quarter, but shot 0-3 in the game. Jet found his stroke a bit in the 3rd quarter, but had another rough night shooting from the field going 7-18. Part of that may be due to the report that Jet jammed his left index finger in the first quarter. That's actually better news than originally thought as the Mavs were thinking Terry had broken his finger.
Jason Kidd went 1 for 6. Another bad night for him, although he kept his turnovers down.
Ryan Hollins had a nice little outing as he shot 4 of 4 from the field and had 4 rebounds in limited time. Why was his time limited you ask? That happens when you average a foul more than every 3 minutes like Hollins did. He has the ability to be a factor for the Mavs, but he gets into foul trouble too quickly.
*sigh* Where can the Mavericks go from here?
DEN 117, DAL 105
Game 3 is Saturday afternoon and make no mistake...both Games 3 and 4 are must win games. If Dallas loses even one of them, they shouldn't even bother going back to Denver.
Dallas needs to slow these games down and start getting nasty. It's their only shot.
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