Big Scores in the Big State of Texas

The Texas Rangers lost to the Red Sox at home tonight by a score of 11-3. This after breaking a three-game streak in Texas of at least one team scoring in double digits-a game which did, however, feature 14 total runs. That makes seven of the last ten games (that is, their current homestand) in which at least one team has scored at least ten runs. The three games which fell short still were by no means low-scoring: the winning team scored 9, 9, and 8 in those games.

The Rangers ended the homestand 5-5 against three playoff-caliber teams in the A's, Yanks, and Sox. Texas was outscored 83-79 in the ten games even though they won 17-6 over the Yankees and 19-7 over Boston on successive nights. Four of the ten games ended with the winning team outscoring the loser by at least 10 runs. The average advantage in the homestand was 7.8 runs for the winner.

Are the high scoring contests that were expected when Texas signed Alex Rodriguez finally becoming the norm? We'll have to wait until the 13th when the Rangers return home to host the White Sox in order to see.

By the way, Adam Myette, the losing pitcher tonight, has thrown 6.2 innings and given up a total of 14 runs in his last two starts since Dave Burba was released. He has lost both games and has seen his ERA go from 9.39 to 11.91, over twice Burba's ERA at the time of his release. Some thought the notion of holding on to the aging Burba (35) when younger arms could use the work, would be advised to remember that those young arms had better be major-league caliber or the work will come at the fielders' expense. Strking out over a hitter per inning is nice, but holding opponents to fewer than one run per inning is even nicer and might lead to actual wins.