2010 MLB Baseball Play-offs: ALDS Texas Rangers at Tampa Bay Rays - Game 2

Live Score Card Blog: Live Scoring as many games as I am able, with this HTML score card

Another triple header in baseball post season play again today. First game is scheduled for a 2:37 PM EDT first pitch, New York Yankees at Minnesota Twins starts at 6:07 PM EDT (5:07 PM CDT) and Game 1 of the NLDS Atlanta Braves at San Francisco Giants is scheduled for a 9:37 PM EDT (6:37 PM PDT) first pitch.

The year of the pitcher failed to represent itself very well in Minnesota last night although Francisco Liriano had the Yankee's number for the first 5 innings. Then something interesting happened - the Yankees slowed the game down to a snails pace, they began taking walks between pitches, asking for time and so on. As Liriano closed in on 100 pitches the strategy seemed to work, in the 6th the wheels fell off Liriano's cart, and he surrendering 4 runs. CC Sabathia seemed to have is 'A' game but for some reason, it wasn't fooling the Twins. Sabathia left after the 6th in a tie game and the official scorer gave him the 'W'. Boone Logan, David Robertson, Kerry Wood and Mariano Rivera cobbled together the final 9 outs for the win. The Minnesotans gave up runs in the 6th and 7th only, but that was all that was necessary; Yankees 6 - Minnesota 4.

The Roy Halladay no-hitter yesterday in Philadelphia was only the second such thing in post season history. The other, obviously was the Don Larsen perfect game in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series.

Not to take anything away from Halladay, or to compare him to Liriano, or to call out the Reds hitters, or coaches, or to raise the Yankees to Gods; but one thing I've noticed in all the no-hitters I've been lucky enough to see, it seems to me that when no-hitters are successful (and they get harder and harder to pull off the closer they get to 27 outs) the batters are accepting the timing of the delivery of pitches as set by the pitcher. When a team of batters gets it in their heads that a pitcher is un-hittable (and Halladay's stuff was the most un-hittable sh*t I have ever seen) they, unconsciously I think, allow the pitcher to set the tempo of the match - and this contributes in a big way to the fulfillment of the belief paradigm. The Yankees at Minnesota in game one on the other hand, did a very interesting - thing as I noted above - they took control of the tempo of the game, and Liriano went from God to no account --- he didn't even get the loss :) .




Game Schedule - ALDS Texas Rangers at Tampa Bay Rays

Game    Matchup          Day     Date     Time ET
Gm 1    TEX 5 @ TB 1     Wed     Oct. 6   1:30 PM
Gm 2    TEX @ TB         Thu     Oct. 7   2:30 PM
Gm 3    TB @ TEX         Sat     Oct. 9   5:00 PM
Gm 4*   TB @ TEX         Sun     Oct. 10  1:00 PM
Gm 5*   TEX @ TB         Tue     Oct. 12  5:00 PM

Chart from MLB


Texas Rangers at Tampa Bay Rays - Game 2
Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, Florida
Thursday, October 7th, 2010
2:37 PM EDT

Starting Pitchers:

Texas Rangers

C.J. Wilson    G  GS CG SHO  IP    H   R   ER  HR BB SO  W  L  ERA
2010  stats    33 33 3  0    204.0 161 83  76  10 93 170 15 8  3.35

Tampa Bay Rays

James Shields  G  GS CG SHO  IP    H   R   ER  HR BB SO  W  L  ERA
2010  stats    34 33 0  0    203.1 246 128 117 34 51 187 13 15 5.18

Game Notes:


5th Inning

J Maddon ejected by J Wolf after the home run. Complaining about the check swing, (called no swing - ball by the 1B umpire), on the pitch before the home run swing?. Bad move, his team is presently convinced the post season is over just like in game one when Price was less than a God. Maddon needs to be with them on the bench right now. It's only the 5th inning of game 2, it's not over unless they think it is - and by the looks of it - it's over.

Final	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Texas Rangers	0	0	1	1	4	0	0	0	0	6	9	1
Tampa Bay Rays	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	1

Texas Rangers	1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		H	AB	BB	R	RBI	LOB	PO	A	E
1. E Andrus SS		6-3				GB2nd BH4 #8 2,3 SB ---		Shields out --->		GB6 BH7 #9 1,2 <>		FO9 /						GB6 6-3 x /
2. M Young 3B		Ks				Eth1 #8 3,h #1 1,2 6-3 #1 2,3		TB's post season over? --->		HR8 3RBI <>				GB5 5-3 IFBH CS
3. J Hamilton CF		Ks /				FO9 /				BH9 x				FO8 8-4 #2 out!
4. V Guerrero DH				4-3				FO9f		GB2nd FC 4UA <>				Ks /
5. N Cruz RF				2BH8 --				5-3		BH9 #4 1,3 --						K
6. I Kinsler 2B				6-3				HR9 RBI <>		Qualls/x BH7 RBI #5 1,2 -						K
7. M Moreland 1B				FO7f /				pop FO4 /		FO7 /						FO7 /
8. M Treanor C						HBP <>				HBP x		Ks						BB x
9. J Borbon LF						GB3 3UA #8 1,2				bunt5 FC5-4 <>		Ks 2-3						Ks

/Inning Totals	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Totals
Runs	0	0	1	1	4	0	0	0	0	6
Hits	0	1	1	1	5	0	1	0	0	9
Errors	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	1
LOB	0	1	1	0	2	0	0	0	0	4

Pitching	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	HR	p-s	ERA
C.J. Wilson (lhp)	6.1	2	0	0	2	7	0	104-65	0.00
Darren O"Day (rhp)	0.1	0	0	0	0	1	0	5-3	0.00
Darren Oliver (lhp)	0.1	0	0	0	1	2	0	26-16	0.00

Tampa Bay Rays	1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		H	AB	BB	R	RBI	LOB	PO	A	E
1. J Bartlett SS		BH9 -				6-3						HBP -		FO8 /
2. B Upton CF		pop FO3f						K				Ks				5-3
3. C Crawford LF		FO8						GB4 E4 -				Ks				4-3
4. E Longoria 3B		X /						FO8				5-3 /				Ks /
5. B Zobrist 1B - 8th 2B				LO8(9) nice!				LO9 /					bunt	BB ---				FO9
6. W Aybar DH				pop FO8(7) nicer!						LO9				2BH8 #5 1,3 --				K
7. K Shoppach C				Ks /						BB -		Wilson out --->		K				pop FO3f /
8. S Rodriguez 2B ph 7th Matt Joyce - 8th RF						Ks				LO8				Ks
9. D Jennings RF ph 7th Dan Johnson - 8th 1B						K				pop FO6 /				BB -

/Inning Totals	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Totals
Runs	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Hits	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	2
Errors	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
LOB	1	0	0	1	1	1	3	0	0	7

Pitching	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	HR	p-s	ERA
James Shields (rhp)	4.1	4	4	4	0	2	1	68-38	8.31
Chad Qualls (rhp)	0.1	4	2	2	0	0	1	17-10	10.80
Randy Choate (lhp)	0.1	0	0	0	0	0	0	3-2	0.00
Dan Wheeler (rhp)	1.0	0	0	0	0	2	0	13-9	0.00
Jeff Niemann (rhp)	3.0	1	0	0	1	4	0	40-25	0.00

mh