Cripes!

A friend once told me that the Texas Rangers scare him more than any other team. The reason? Win or lose, the game is probably gonna be a blowout. Well, the Rangers game in Boston tonight wasn't a blowout, but sure had the fixings for one.

The Red Sox started the game with 10 runs in the bottom of the first, including two David Ortiz three run home runs to take a 10-0 lead. By the middle of the sixth however, the Rangers were leading 15-14. Not wanting to be humiliated like that at home, the Red Sox came back to win 19-17.

The Rangers became only the forth team in the past 50+ years to score 17 or more runs in a game and still lose. Oddly enough the third time was barely over a month ago, when the Marlins lost to the Rockies in Colorado 17-18. Only once has a team scored more than 17 and lost, and that was in 1979 when the Cubs lost to the Phillies, 22-23.

The Red Sox and Rangers combined for 36 runs on 37 hits. That's getting good production if I do say so myself.

Texas puts its priority in its bats. Pitching? Not so much.

Just doing my usual stat perusing and I noticed that not only are the Rangers known for having a good offense year after year and a crappy pitching staff, this year they are actually first in all of baseball in runs scored and last in baseball in runs given up, leading each stat by 32-35 runs.

590 runs scored, 623 runs given up.

It takes a special team to lead baseball in runs scored and yet still have a negative run differential.

It should be noted though that it's not entirely the pitching staff's fault. After all, they're actually only second to last in baseball in earned runs given up, trailing Pittsburgh's pitchers by 7 runs. But the Rangers are 43 runs ahead of the third most earned runs given up. The Rangers lead all of baseball in unearned runs given up with 72. They also lead baseball in errors with 89.

You know, It's generally not a good thing when a case could be made that the best starter you've had all season is Sidney Ponson, especially when he's not even with the team anymore.