The Rangers did to the Red Sox what the Yankees had done to them a game before, coming back from a large deficit to win the game. Nelson Cruz (above) provided the game-winner, a 418 foot shot in the 11th for his second walk-off homer this season. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)One day after the Nolan-Ryan Chuch Greenberg group was officially approved by Major League Baseball as the new owners of the club, the Texas Rangers (66-48) played one of it's most exciting games of the season Friday night.
Although Nelson Cruz provided the clutch hit in extra's that won it for the Rangers, Josh Hamilton put the team on his back and refused to allow the Rangers to lose to the Boston Red Sox (66-51).
Hamilton did it in the outfield with two outstanding catches. One that robbed Sox shortstop Marco Scutaro of extra-bases with diving grab in the third, and another in the seventh that robbed second-baseman Jed Lowrie of at least extra bases.
The Lowrie denial was most-impressive as the Rangers' MVP raced to the warning-track in dead-center field, jumping up and crashing into the wall while simultaneously snagging the ball before it could bounce off the top of the wall (or over) for at least a double.
At the plate, the Rangers' slugger was even more impressive. Hamilton went 4 for 5 for the game, increasing his MLB-best batting average to .362 in the process, while also knocking in a solo home run, scoring four runs total, and stealing a base. The most exciting of his runs scored, the play that truly showed Hamilton's effect on a baseball game, came with the Rangers trailing 9-8 in the bottom of the eight inning.
After two straight outs to start the inning, a strikeout by Elvis Andrus and an amazing play at first by Mike Lowell to steal and extra-base hit from Michael Young, Hamilton came to the plate. On the second pitch he saw, Hamilton nailed a double to right field, putting himself in scoring position with Guerrero coming to the plate. Guerrero hit a slow dribbler to the second baseman, sprinted down the first base line and slid head-first into first baseball for an infield single. All the while, Hamilton had taken off from second base and never looked back, somehow scoring on an infield single from second base. This may have been, considering the opponent and atmosphere in the stadium, the top play for the Rangers all season. The pure speed and smarts of Hamilton, combined with the will of Guerrero to beat out the grounder allowed the Rangers to send the game into extras and subsequently win it.
All-in-all Hamilton scored three of the Rangers final five runs for the game while knocking in another, leading Texas to it's largest comeback-win of the season from down 8-2 after the fourth. The win puts a fresh taste in the mouth of Rangers' fans after a bitterly disappointing loss to the Yankees a game ago in the opposite fashion. It also is a coming-out party of sorts for those who didn't realize just how good of an all-around baseball player Hamilton has been this season.
A.L. MVP anyone?
(The original post for the game was somehow deleted, thus the outlandishly late post)
No comments:
Post a Comment