Texas Rangers’ 3-1 Win Over Boston Red Sox On Wednesday Night Sure Felt Like Freaky Friday

ARLINGTON - Maybe the prospect of the Rangers sweeping Boston for the first time in five years and wrapping up a season series against the Red Sox before the Cowboys hit camp resulted in a night that bordered on the paranormal.

No starter available? No closer available? So many players sick that C.J. Wilson wore a bandana in the clubhouse like a virus mask? The Rangers still won 3-1 at Rangers Ballpark to run their winning streak to four games.

After the jump, closer inspection of some of the more curious events that occurred on Wednesday night:

• Long-man Dustin Nippert left Arlington on Tuesday night prepared to start Wednesday since Vicente Padilla was showing signs of joining the team’s expanding flu-ridden ranks. Nippert delivered by limiting Boston to one run over 5.2 innings using 94 pitches. He hadn’t thrown that much since last fall, when he finished the season with six starts. And before he suffered back and rib injuries early this year.

“Whatever they need I’m happy to give them,” said Nippert, who helped start the winning streak on Sunday night by pitching scoreless 11^th and 12^th innings against Minnesota. “It’s helping my confidence out a lot. I just wanted to go out and give as many [innings] as I could.”

• Doug Mathis earned his first major league save, and it was no cheapie. He followed Nippert, inheriting Jason Bay at second base with two out in the sixth. Mathis struck out Mark Kotsay to end the inning, gave up a leadoff single to Jason Varitek in the seventh, then dispatched Boston’s final nine batters in order for 3.1 scoreless.

“It was kind of a weird feeling being out there that long and that late in the game,” said Mathis, who has pitched 14.2 scoreless innings in 10 relief appearances since being recalled from Triple-A Oklahoma in early June. “I’m prepared to go three, four, five innings if needed.”

• Mathis’ final out of the seventh came on Dustin Pedroia’s long fly to deep right-center. Josh Hamilton and Nelson Cruz closed in, each at full tilt. The Rangers’ two-run lead and the well being of two outfielders appeared in peril.

“We both called it,” Cruz said. “If we collide, it’s going to be ugly,” Hamilton said. He sensed Cruz wasn’t going to slow down, so he did. Cruz made the catch a split second before they came together in a hug in front of the Snapple sign.

“Ya have it?” Hamilton asked Cruz. “Yep,” Cruz said, and he held the ball high like a trophy fish as they stood and continued to hold each other, maybe putting themselves in the conversation for the next Dancing With The Stars.

• Another unusual confluence involved Cruz, in the bottom of the fifth with Marlon Byrd on second with one out. Playing for the first time since suffering a slight fracture in his right ring finger on Sunday night, Cruz hit an inside fastball toward shortstop Nick Green. He also broke his bat, and most of the barrel appeared to be racing the ball toward Green. And toward Byrd, en route to third.

“I didn’t even see the bat,” Byrd said, “just the ball.” It took a funny hop and nailed Byrd in the leg for an out. “Somehow, it kicked back and got me.”

• Taylor Teagarden came up with David Murphy and Cruz on second and third, none out in a 1-1 game in the fourth. His goal was to drive a pitch to right-center to score the go-ahead run. But after Red Sox starter Clay Buchholz got ahead in the count on his fastball, he dared Teagarden numerous times to drive a breaking pitch before finally returning to the fastball. Teagarden instituted Plan B: just put it on the ground and hope for the best.

“It was a pitch low and away,” Teagarden said. “I couldn’t take it.” He hit it maybe two feet before it dug into the dirt in front of the plate. It took a huge bounce over a leaping Buchholz toward second baseman Pedroia. That scored Cruz and got Murphy, weakened by the flu but able to DH, over to third.

Teagarden shrugged: “It might have been shorter than Elvis’ squeeze.”

• Which immediately followed, scoring Murphy for what became the game’s final run. That came on a 1-1 pitch, just like Elvis Andrus’ failed squeeze attempt on June 8 against Toronto’s Jason Frasor. That ended with Byrd getting thrown out trying to retreat to third.

That time, Andrus jabbed at the pitch and missed low. Not this time.

“Getting the ball to the pitcher – that’s what I was thinking,” Andrus said. He did. The pitch was slightly away, and he pushed it up the first-base line. It went far enough for Buchholz to be the one to field it but not too close to him. His only play was to first, conceding Murphy’s run. But when Buchholz prepared to throw, Pedroia hadn’t yet made it over to the bag to cover for the charging Kotsay. No play.

(Buchholz told reporters: “I think if it was five feet closer to me, I think we would have had a shot at him at home.”)

Two innings later, Andrus singled to center for his first multi-hit game since June 30. Going into Wednesday night’s play, he was hitting .198 since June 3.

“I’m trying to get my timing back,” Andrus said. “I’ve been working a lot with Rudy [Jaramillo], but it’s not easy. I’m still learning.”

• The Rangers have already clinched the season series over Boston. The last time that happened this early? The strike-shortened season of 1994, when they won two of three in late May at Arlington Stadium, then went to Fenway the following week and swept three to finish 5-1. Not that the Rangers realized they’d won the season series by then, since the teams were supposed to play six more games that were lost.