After yesterday's adventure, today I decided to catch the trolley as I had on Tuesday, but this time I went on one that left early so I could head straight to the Cuervo club for dinner and be finished before the game. I had a "Nolan Ryan all-natural beefburger", which was more like a steak in a bun than a burger, really. Nolan Ryan is a Hall of Fame player and is, currently, president of the Texas Rangers. In this photo, he's the one sitting in the front row on the left in the red shirt, two along from Barbara Bush, although there was no sign of her husband President George H.W. Bush or his son, who often comes to Rangers games when he's in town.
The weather forecast for the game tonight was worryingly poor, with a 90% chance of Rain+Thunder at 7pm (the start time), rising to a 100% chance of Rain+Thunder at 8pm though to midnight, so I took my coat with me and my hat. The other lady taking the trolley with me from my hotel said she didn't think it would rain at the ballpark. Other people at the ballpark had umbrellas at the ready.
It was bone dry all night.
As you can see from the second photo, the more than the minimum requisite number of fans had tickets for the game today, so we all got a T-shirt on the way in - I did wonder what would have happened if fewer than 32,000 had turned up - would they have collected them back in again on our way out? The crowd is generally a red colour, but they asked everybody to put on their "Over 3,000,000 fans" celebration T-shirts, which meant everything looked white.
I was pleased to see Adrian Beltre in the line up for his game after he left yesterday's game with an injury. Hamilton also had left with an injury and did not play, but we're told that he'll be OK tomorrow. This game was tight with Derek Holland starting for Texas against Zach McAllister for Cleveland and both putting in quality starts, giving up just 2 runs through 7 and 6 innings respectively. However, what killed the Indians during this game
again was errors. Some of them were fairly difficult plays, but balls were thrown into the dugout or booted at short stop or juggled when picked up. It's been a recurring theme through the series - in this game, only 1 of the runs scored by Texas was an earned run. The Rangers finally managed to score twice in the 8th inning so they could hand the ball to Joe Nathan to close out their third victory in a row. Many of the Texas faithful left at the end of the 8th inning. They missed Cleveland handing Nathan his first blown save for months with a solo HR and a two-run HR to give them the lead which Perez saved in the bottom of the 9th. This could be a costly loss for the Rangers in the long run, as they need to win their division and giving away games to last place teams isn't the way to go about it.
I really enjoyed watching games here - they are fun. On many of the advertising signs in centre, they have special additions, like on this ad for the Chick-fil-A chain (it's a recurring theme that cows try to persuade people to eat chicken rather than other meats, such as beef) In this sign, the 'H' flashes when Texas gets a hit, the 'E' flashes when the opponents make an error, and the 'K' flashes when a Texas pitcher strikes out an opposing batter. The 'K' in 'Ozarka' (a bottled water company) also flashes for strikeouts.
After yesterday's adventure, today I decided to catch the trolley as I had on Tuesday, but this time I went on one that left early so I could head straight to the Cuervo club for dinner and be finished before the game. I had a "Nolan Ryan all-natural beefburger", which was more like a steak in a bun than a burger, really. Nolan Ryan is a Hall of Fame player and is, currently, president of the Texas Rangers. In this photo, he's the one sitting in the front row on the left in the red shirt, two along from Barbara Bush, although there was no sign of her husband President George H.W. Bush or his son, who often comes to Rangers games when he's in town.
The weather forecast for the game tonight was worryingly poor, with a 90% chance of Rain+Thunder at 7pm (the start time), rising to a 100% chance of Rain+Thunder at 8pm though to midnight, so I took my coat with me and my hat. The other lady taking the trolley with me from my hotel said she didn't think it would rain at the ballpark. Other people at the ballpark had umbrellas at the ready.
It was bone dry all night.
As you can see from the second photo, the more than the minimum requisite number of fans had tickets for the game today, so we all got a T-shirt on the way in - I did wonder what would have happened if fewer than 32,000 had turned up - would they have collected them back in again on our way out? The crowd is generally a red colour, but they asked everybody to put on their "Over 3,000,000 fans" celebration T-shirts, which meant everything looked white.
I was pleased to see Adrian Beltre in the line up for his game after he left yesterday's game with an injury. Hamilton also had left with an injury and did not play, but we're told that he'll be OK tomorrow. This game was tight with Derek Holland starting for Texas against Zach McAllister for Cleveland and both putting in quality starts, giving up just 2 runs through 7 and 6 innings respectively. However, what killed the Indians during this game again was errors. Some of them were fairly difficult plays, but balls were thrown into the dugout or booted at short stop or juggled when picked up. It's been a recurring theme through the series - in this game, only 1 of the runs scored by Texas was an earned run. The Rangers finally managed to score twice in the 8th inning so they could hand the ball to Joe Nathan to close out their third victory in a row. Many of the Texas faithful left at the end of the 8th inning. They missed Cleveland handing Nathan his first blown save for months with a solo HR and a two-run HR to give them the lead which Perez saved in the bottom of the 9th. This could be a costly loss for the Rangers in the long run, as they need to win their division and giving away games to last place teams isn't the way to go about it.
I really enjoyed watching games here - they are fun. On many of the advertising signs in centre, they have special additions, like on this ad for the Chick-fil-A chain (it's a recurring theme that cows try to persuade people to eat chicken rather than other meats, such as beef) In this sign, the 'H' flashes when Texas gets a hit, the 'E' flashes when the opponents make an error, and the 'K' flashes when a Texas pitcher strikes out an opposing batter. The 'K' in 'Ozarka' (a bottled water company) also flashes for strikeouts.
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