The Texas Rangers haven’t played at Busch stadium since dropping the final two games of the 2011 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, but they didn’t seem daunted by the venue over the three game series, completing a three-game sweep thanks to a clutch hit from Ian Kinsler, bringing home Lenoys Martin and the 2-1 victory.
Rain seemed to be the most memorable thing about the weekend of games between the AL West and NL Central leaders. The Saturday game (4-2 for Texas) was delayed by over an hour. The third game was delayed by more than two, with the Rangers pulling off a 2-1 win that infuriated Cardinals starting pitched Adam Wainwright, especially for not being on the mound after the 7th inning.
Guys were running on the field and he’d already spoken to the umpire. No amount of lobbying, I wasn’t going to stay in that game. But I mean, no, I didn’t want to come out of that game. I felt I was as strong or stronger at the end there than I was in the beginning.
Wainwright was having quite an outstanding day of pitching until the 7th inning, when Lenoys Martin got his only hit of the day and brought home David Murphy. Martin was the one who scored the second run, as Ian Kinsler got his second hit of the night to give the Rangers the win. Neal Cotts, Tanner Scheppers and closer Joe Nathan, despite allowing two hits in his closing inning, made sure the Cardinals weren’t going to get their bats hot at their expense.
Sometimes it’s nice and sometimes it’s pretty and sometimes it’s beautiful and sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s nice and sometimes it’s pretty and sometimes it’s beautiful and sometimes it’s not.
St. Louis batter only 7-of-32 on the day, facing a pretty solid Nick Tepesch, who spent 5.2 innings in the game, giving up only 4 hits and one run (a homer for Matt Carpenter, his sixth of the season) before making way for the bullpen that did a good job in keeping the best hitting team in the league at bay.
The Cardinals messed up especially with runners in scoring positions, finishing with 0-of-5 in that situation, including twice by Pete Kozma, who finished a rough day at bat with an 0-for-4, just like Carlos Beltran and Yadier Molina for the Cards, while Adrian Beltre and Mitch Moreland were just as unsuccessful for the Rangers at batting as well.
Robbie Ross, who came on only to close out the sixth Inning, was the pitcher who got the win to his name, improving to 4-1 this season.
We were stuck watching them quite a bit. That’s what you were working for and I’ve still got a lot of work to do.
Both teams actually have an off-Monday, as the Rangers head to New York to play the Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals travel to Houston, but that didn’t change the waiting for the start of the game, as both teams weren’t too interested in having the game postponed.