ALCS 2010: Texas Rangers Erase History, Beat Rays To Advance

The old Texas Rangers would have folded like a cheap suit in a deciding playoff game. The old Texas Rangers would have waited for a home run. The old Texas Rangers wouldn’t have had an ace.

The new Texas Rangers rise to the occasion. The new Texas Rangers are aggressive on the base paths and create runs. The new Texas Rangers have a lights-out ace.

Lee was masterful in Game 5

The Rangers showed the world that this team is different from Ranger teams of years past as they moved past the Tampa Bay Rays in their best-of-five ALDS on Tuesday night in Tampa. The Rangers defeated the Rays in Game 5, 5-1 and won their first playoff series in team history.

There were two stories to this game.

First was the dominance of Rangers’ ace Cliff Lee. I am going to go ahead and say it — I have a man-crush on Lee.

If you have a son and he is left-handed and wants to be a pitcher, just have the kid watch a replay of Lee’s performance in Game 5. It was that good.

Lee went the distance allowing just six hits, one run, didn’t walk a batter and struck out 11 in the 120-pitch effort. All you need to know about Lee’s performance was that he threw 38 cutters and 33 of them were thrown for strikes.

Lee was spot on all game, but really took it to the next level when the Rays were introduced to his curveball. Lee didn’t throw a curveball until the second time around for the Rays and in the bottom of the fourth, he struck out Carlos Pena, BJ Upton, and Dan Johnson on the hook. Pena and Upton went down looking.

I would say things got unfair at that point.

The second story of this game was the Rangers’ base running. I don’t know if the Rays ate too many tacos or what before the game, but they were a step behind the Rangers all night.

In the top of the first with Elvis Andrus on second, Josh Hamilton hit a slow roller to first. Pena took his sweet time and eventually flipped the ball to David Price covering first. Andrus took advantage of the Rays falling asleep and scored all the way from second without a throw home.

The TBS announcers were putting the blame on Price, but this was no way his fault. Pena fell asleep on the play. He was the one who was facing the field on the groundball. Of course Price’s back was turned to the play. How else is he supposed to run to first base?

Then in the top of the fourth, with Nelson Cruz on second after a double, Cruz stole third and then scored when catcher Kelly Shoppach threw the ball into leftfield. That I will say was Price’s fault. He completely ignored Cruz on second.

The irony of that whole sequence was that Cruz should have been on third in the first place. His double should have been a triple, but Cruz spent a good portion of the play staring at his achievement of hitting a ball of the wall.

However, the icing on the cake came when Vladimir Guerrero of all people scored from second on a ball once again hit to Pena. Guerrero runs these days like Greg Oden, so this was a major embarrassment for the Rays.

The Rays were trying to turn a 3-6-1 double play, but Price was late on covering first, missed stepping on first, and then while he was briefly arguing, Guerrero sprinted around third to score. This one I will blame on Price.

That play made the score 3-1 Rangers and I thought was the final nail in the coffin for the Rays. They looked like they just got punched in the face after that play.

Here are some other observations from Game 5…

Price pitched six innings and gave up three runs. A quality start by baseball standards, but I thought Price was mediocre at best. He tried hard to establish is curveball early and it never happened.

I also thought Price fell asleep a couple of times on the mound.

Bengie Molina stole a base in this game. That’s when we all knew it was the Rangers’ night.

Shoppach had a terrible night both offensively and defensively. His bad throw led to Cruz scoring in the fourth and he went 0-for-3 at the plate only seeing five pitches total.

Riddle me this: Joe Maddon elected to start Johnson against the lefty Lee, but pinch-hit for him in the seventh with Wily Aybar with Lee still on the mound. Why not just start Aybar in the first place? Makes no sense.

Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria hit a combined .172 in five games. Probably not going to win too many series with production like that from your three-four hitters.

Ian Kinsler is red hot. .444 with three HR’s in five games. His two-run HR off of Rafael Soriano was the exclamation point.

Rangers have to feel pretty good that they won this series with Hamilton and Michael Young not doing much. One figures they won’t stay quiet for long.

The Rangers will open up the ALCS at home against the New York Yankees on Friday.

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