What Provokes a Team to Score 30 Runs?

In case you missed it, the Rangers won yesterday. Yes, you are correct in thinking that such an event is a surprise in itself.

30-3. That is a score that you would assume represents an SEC team beating down on a Big Ten team in college football. Possibly the score of a first round women's high school basketball tournament game.

Yesterday, it was the score of a baseball game. The Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles by such a wide margin it raises questions as if someone was playing a video game and stacked the Rangers with a new lineup to think they were cool. I've got news for you, this isn't MLB '98.

There are two issues in the box score from this slaughterhouse fest that I want to make mention of. First, the earned runs. When you see big numbers on the scoreboard, you would assume that there some mistakes involved, yes? Want to know how many runs were un-earned? Zero. All 30 runs scored came as the result of mistakes made by the pitching staff , not ones in the field. Bad pitching, or a collective team was that zoned in that it didn't matter what was being thrown at them. Though they weren't facing Roy Halladay, Johan Santana, or Bartolo Colon, this is still Major League Baseball - they're all professionals out there, except for Cory Patterson. That team was zoned in and the accomplishment last night was amazing.

Second...can you name someone in the Ranger lineup besides Michael Young? No, Mark Texiera is gone. Hank Blalock is hurt, so I'm not allowing that either. Two Rangers went 4-6 with 7 RBI yesterday: Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Ramon Vazquez. David Murphy scored 5 runs and Marlon Byrd scored 4 and drove in another Favre. The first three players I mentioned conveniently hit 7-8-9 in the Ranger lineup. Remember Michael Young? He was 2-5 with a run scored. That's it.

A thirty spot was put up by a bunch of no namers. It's not like it was the Yankees throwing up a Terrell Davis on someone with their payroll that's larger than the gross national product of France. But also, it shows how contagious hitting is.

A coach once told our team that, "In 90% of all games, the winning teams scores more runs in one inning than the losing team scores in the entire game." The coach wasn't the best, but he sure was pretty accurate on that one. Think about that stat for the next week when you are watching Baseball Tonight. I mean, the Rangers did have 5-9-10-6 run innings, but it still works.

You know how Brandon Webb's scoreless inning stretch ended last night? Look for the Rangers not to score for the rest of the season.