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Texas Rangers beaten by Giants on wild pitch in 11th inning

Jennings' two-out toss gets away; AL West lead stays intact

12:28 AM CDT on Sunday, June 21, 2009

By ANTHONY ANDRO / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

SAN FRANCISCO – The way things are going for the Texas Rangers, an ending like Saturday night was bound to happen.

Jason Jennings' wild pitch scored Nate Schierholtz with two outs in the bottom of the 11th to lift the San Francisco Giants to a 2-1 victory.

The loss was the fifth in seven games for the Rangers, who are still in first place in the American League West by half a game because the Los Angeles Angels lost.

Schierholtz hit a ground-rule double to open the 11th and went to third on a one-out grounder.

Jennings (2-3) got a strike on Bengie Molina on a pitch in the dirt that catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia dug out. The second pitch Jennings threw was also a strike in the dirt, but Saltalamacchia had no chance to block it.

The loss was especially tough to take given that it featured the emergence of rookie left-hander Derek Holland.

The Giants honored one of the greatest left-handers of all time before the game in Randy Johnson. The Rangers 22-year-old left-hander then took over and recorded the best pitching performance in his brief career.

Holland pitched seven innings of one-run ball and kept the ailing offense in the game. While the offense once again failed to deliver, Holland certainly did.

After shaky outings in each of his first four starts, Holland displayed the promise that made him one of prized prospects in baseball.

He looked nothing like the Holland who was 0-3 with a 7.08 ERA in his other four starts and everything like the minor leaguer who blazed through three levels in 2008.

Holland allowed just four hits in seven innings. He made one costly mistake, a 1-1 fastball that Aaron Rowand hit for a solo homer in the third inning.

Other than that, Holland matched San Francisco ace Matt Cain pitch for pitch.

Holland didn't fall behind batters and was economical with his pitches. He threw just 95 pitches in his seven innings, 62 of them for strikes. He walked just one and matched his career high with five strikeouts.

AP
AP
Ian Kinsler (right) hit a solo home run for the Texas Rangers' only run of the game.

It would made things even better if the Rangers could have managed some offense. But Cain, Brian Wilson and Sergio Romo were having nothing to do with that.

The Rangers scratched for just three hits. Ian Kinsler's 18th homer of the season, Texas' 14th consecutive solo homer, was the offense. The only other hits the Rangers had were a leadoff single by Kinsler in the first and a one-out single from Jarrod Saltalamacchia in the third.

Texas was 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position and 3- for-17 (.188) in the series.

It was a record-setting night for the offense, though. Chris Davis struck out three times, giving him 100 for the season in 219 at-bats. That's the fastest anyone has reached 100 strikeouts in a season, breaking the mark set by Melvin Nieves of Detroit in 1996.

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