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Winning Isn’t Everything: Texas Rangers Beat Angels In First Game, But Aren’t Overwhelmed By Performance

ARLINGTON – The Rangers beat the team favored to win the AL West Friday night. They won their fifth straight game. They moved as high as seven games above .500 for the first time in nearly four years.

And still this question must be asked: Could such a win ever be a bad win?
In the wake of nearly losing a seven-run, ninth-inning lead before holding on for a 10-8 victory, the Rangers surveyed all answered “no.” But they did think about the question for a while.

“The ninth was kind of a momentum-killer,” said 2B Ian Kinsler, who homered twice as the Rangers built a 10-3 lead through eight innings. “We had all the momentum and they kind of took some of it in the ninth. I think they feel like they gained some.”

The Debbie Downer attitude in the clubhouse said two things about the 21-14 Rangers. One, they can still author a breakdown with the best of them. And two, simply winning isn’t sufficient for them. They feel like they have a legitimate shot to contend for the AL West, which they currently lead by 2.5 games. Championship teams don’t win games like Friday’s because they don’t ever play them.

“The thing that makes everybody in here a little bitter right now is that we know how good of a team we are and to let them back into the game is unacceptable,” said starter Kevin Millwod (4-3). “Now, we have to learn from this and do it a little better next time.”

Here’s what the Rangers have to learn from:

Leading 10-3 and with plenty of rested arms in the bullpen, the Rangers asked rookie LHP Derek Holland to pitch a third inning. He got the first two outs of the ninth to close within one swing of his first career save just days after picking up his first major league win.

But that’s about the time Holland, who hadn’t thrown more than 48 pitches since being called up from the minors nearly four weeks ago, started to falter. Actually, it wasn’t about that time, it was that time. Holland allowed the next four hitters to reach as the Angels cut the lead to 10-5 on back-to-back doubles by Erick Aybar and Bobby Abreu.

But it still took two more relievers to work through the inning, Darren O’Day, who surrendered a three-run homer to Kendry Morales to cut the margin to two.

Manager Ron Washington finally went to C.J. Wilson, who walked Juan Rivera before getting Howie Kendrick to bounce into a sigh-inducing, game-ending force out to shortstop Elvis Andrus.

Andrus has changed a pair of wins over Seattle with his defense. On Friday, he helped the offense by standing still.

With the Rangers leading 2-0, he led off the third inning against Joe Saunders, who he has never faced. Andrus decided to see at least a couple of pitches in the at-bat to get some kind of internal scouting report.

Saunders missed with two fastballs at which Andrus had no desire to swing. Even after Saunders got the next pitch over, Andrus watched Ball Three swerve too far inside and then he watched Ball Four zoom out of the strike.

“He’s had a lot of quality at-bats lately,” 3B Michael Young said. “He listens to instruction. He knows when is the right time to play with the scoreboard and take some pitches and he knows when it’s the right time to let things go.”

Said Andrus: “I was just trying to get on base anyway I could. I haven’t seem him before, so the more pitches I saw in that first at-bat, the more knowledge I would have about him.”

And the real trouble began. Saunders left his next pitch – a flat changeup to Kinsler – over the plate, the Rangers second-baseman drove it out to left for the club’s first home run. The second came three batters later when RF Andruw Jones drove home Michael Young. Josh Hamilton also homered late the in game, driving a ball 460 feet into the upper home run porch.

It made the score 10-3. It had the Rangers feeling really good. And then the ninth brought them back down to earth a little bit.