Carpe Datum

Of Events in a Series of Games

It may happen that the attentive reader (or perhaps I should just say "reader" as my readership is so small that demanding an adjective be improperly applied to a reader may leave me with a set of readers fewer than one) to this blog will recall a statement that was made in this space in the not too distant past. More than a statement, it was almost a promise. While plausibly it was not in the most precise way a promise, we will treat it as such and continue on by informing the reader as to the nature of this promise. Here it is, then: I said that if it gets to the end of the month and the Rangers are well over .500 and pitching well, I would have to begin to Pay Attention.

Well.

This weekend saw some remarkable events, which your humble author realizes is within the nature of the game of baseball but nevertheless feels compelled to expound upon at length for the benefit of those who are either unfamiliar with baseball, ignorant of the weekend's events at the Ballpark in Arlington, or both. So, then, it would be proper now to convey a short list of said events. I will proceed to do so immediately: a two hour rain delay in which not a drop of rain fell, a reliever who got three saves in two days, a 15-6 team (said team being the visiting Boston Red Sox) on a 6-game winning streak that got swept, a knuckleball pitcher who didn't walk a single batter and a pitcher's duel at the most hitter-friendly ballpark in the American League.

Now there are those who may dispute my wording of the ultimate item in the aforementioned list, simply because the final score of the Sunday game (the game I assert can be described as a pitchers' duel) was 4-1, not necessarily a score indicative of that type of game unless it involves the Texas Rangers. I must point out, then, that the score was 2-0 going into the bottom of the eighth inning, which indeed was a pitchers' duel between the Rangers' R. A. Dickey and Boston knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, before a couple of relievers got sloppy and, in the space of a single inning, allowed more than double the total number of runs scored in the previous seven and a half innings.

The result of said weekend of baseball has left the Texas Rangers with the best record in the American League and a combined team ERA in the top three. "How, best record in the league?" you may ask, to which I would immediately reply, "Exactly that, yes." To this writer's dismay, the Rangers continue to draw depressingly few walks, which I fear will be their offensive downfall at some point, but for now, they are fun to watch. And so I will watch. For now.

And if you have surmised that I have begun to read and enjoy Steven Brust's latest trilogy, "The Viscount of Adrilahnka", then I do salute you and bid you a good day. I will not, however, continue writing like this because it makes my brain hurt.

Posted by Observer at May 3, 2004 06:56 AM