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Forget Fireworks Night; It Was Goose Egg Night Again As Texas Rangers Rough Up Dodgers, 6-0

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ARLINGTON - Beating the Oaklands and Seattles to build a lead in the AL West since early May, the Rangers went out Friday night and looked like a complete team in shutting out the team with the best record in the major leagues. In blanking the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-0, the Rangers tossed their second consecutive shutout, made nearly every tough play in the field and got production throughout their lineup.

Said manager Ron Washington: “We swung the bats. We played defense. We pitched. We did whatever the game asked us to do.”

And when the game was still in doubt in the fifth inning, winning pitcher Vicente Padilla made a change in the middle of an at-bat that might have played a significant role in the outcome.

The Rangers led 2-0 when LA leadoff hitter Juan Pierre singled to left. Padilla got Orlando Hudson looking for his first strikeout of the game. Andre Ethier fouled off Padilla’s first five pitches, all fastballs, then worked the count to 3-2. As Padilla battled to regain the strike zone, Pierre stole second and advanced to third on the Rangers’ only error – a throw to second by catcher Taylor Teagarden that was both wide and short.

Padilla went back to the windup with Pierre on third and threw a slider that Ethier rocketed toward right field before being snagged by a diving Chris Davis for the second out.

Up stepped Casey Blake. Padilla continued to pitch from the windup and got ahead of Blake 1-2, but not before Pierre bluffed a run at the plate.

With two strikes, Padilla went back to the stretch and got Blake swinging at a 77-mph curveball on what turned out to be his last batter.

“He obviously saw Pierre getting way off once you’re in the windup,” Teagarden said. “There’s not much you can do with a runner out there. Mike [Young] was playing way back in the hole.”

Through Rangers Spanish radio announcer Eleno Ornelas, Padilla said switching to the stretch with two strikes played a role in retiring Blake. And if Blake had driven home Pierre to cut the Rangers’ lead to 2-1, who knows how different the rest of the game would have unfolded.

As it turned out, seven Rangers got hits (two each for Teagarden and Marlon Byrd) and six of them scored. Hank Blalock’s sixth-inning home run ended a 28-inning team homerless streak. Padilla, Jason Jennings and newcomer Jason Grilli combined to strand nine Dodgers. And the speedy Pierre hit into a 6-4-3 double play off Jennings (started by Omar Vizquel) to end the seventh despite base-runner Rafael Furcal running on the pitch.

The Dodgers have been shut out only three times this season, but all three have come in the last 12 games.

Combined with the Kevin Millwood-Darren O’Day-C.J. Wilson 1-0 shutout of Toronto on Thursday night, this marked the first time since April 1981 that the Rangers have thrown consecutive home shutouts on the same homestand. Rangers pitchers have now thrown 19 straight scoreless innings.

“We know we can play with anybody,” Washington said. And he wasn’t interested in adding any added significance to beating the Dodgers, who came in leading their division by eight games:

“It’s only one game. It’s on the schedule.”