Rangers Win 6th in a Row – Walk-Off Home Run from Josh Hamilton

“A fantastic ending to an extremely trying week for Josh Hamilton and this franchise”. Words spoken by Dave Barnett moments after Josh Hamilton hit a two-run walk-off homer to win the game. The Texas Rangers had to come back twice to win tonight’s game. With two outs Elvis Andrus hit an infield single tackling Oakland’s Conor Jackson in the process. With a booming upper-deck home run – Josh Hamilton ended the game. Rangers win 7 to 6 over the Oakland A’s.

In tonight’s high scoring game, offense was the story. The Rangers now lead the majors in games with 10 or more hits with 44. After being down four runs to none, they rallied back to tie the game at five in the fifth. In the ninth they rallied again to win the game. All-Star Josh Hamilton was the entire story of this game. Josh was 4-for-5 with three RBIs in the game, in an especially tough few days it was great to see him dominate. In addition to Hamilton’s bomb, Adrian Beltre picked up his 18^th homer of the season. I always talk about chances with runners in scoring position, but tonight that stat didn’t matter at all. The team was only 1-for-7 with RISP and still managed to score seven runs.

Pitching was secondary in this one but the starter was decent, and the bullpen was serviceable. Colby Lewis went six innings in tonight’s game, aside from one bad inning – it was a decent performance. The tough inning for Lewis was the 2^nd; he allowed four runs including a leadoff home run from Josh Willingham. His final line for the evening was six innings, five hits and five runs allowed. He had nine strikeouts and allowed three to walk.

On a note not related to the game, did you realize that the Rangers have only used six starting pitchers the entire first half? For a team historically built on offense, this is a refreshing statistic. Wilson/Lewis/Harrison/Holland/and Ogando have really done well this first half of the season.

Tommy Hunter and Darren Oliver pitched from the ‘pen tonight. Hunter went 1.1 innings allowing a home-run. Oliver picked up the win tonight pitching 1.2 innings allowing only one hit and no runs.

Tomorrow the Rangers play their final game before the much needed All-Star break. They look to take their second straight series sweep. Matt Harrison will take the mound for the Rangers.

–Jonathan