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Thursday's Action on the Diamonds

Posted on: Friday, 18 April 2008, 06:00 CDT

Vicente Padilla's terrific outing and a team approach helped the Texas Rangers beat a tough opponent.

Padilla pitched seven innings, David Murphy had three doubles and the Rangers beat Toronto right-hander Roy Halladay 4-1 on Thursday night, handing the Blue Jays their fifth straight home defeat.

Murphy went 3-for-4 with three doubles. He scored twice and drove in a run, helping Texas win its second straight following a five-game losing streak.

"It's safe to say that tonight was probably the best game that we've played together as a team so far in this short season," Murphy said. "It all started with Padilla. He just did such a good job, he stayed in the strike zone and he was keeping their hitters off-balance. That was huge."

Rangers manager Ron Washington praised his team for coming together to beat Halladay.

"We faced one of the best in the business tonight," Washington said. "We played great defence, we pitched, we had timely hitting, we ran the bases. We did everything we had to do to win that ball game."

Padilla (2-1) allowed one run and seven hits with three walks and two strikeouts.

"He was awesome," Frank Catalanotto said. "He had really good stuff tonight and he went right after the hitters."

The last time Toronto dropped five straight at home was April 20-24, 2005.

One night after 16 pitchers were needed for a 14-inning game that took four hours, 53 minutes, this one was gentler on the bullpens. Halladay went the distance for Toronto, while Jamey Wright pitched the eighth for Texas before handing it over to C.J. Wilson, who worked the ninth for his fifth save, second in as many games.

"I knew that the bullpen worked a lot last night so I was trying to go as far as I could," Padilla said through an interpreter.

That was just fine for Washington and the Rangers.

"(Padilla) doing what he did gave us an opportunity to use the pitchers that we wanted to use tonight if we had to," Washington said. "The only two we wanted to use are the only two we did use."

Elsewhere in the American League, it was: Indians 11, Tigers 1; Red Sox 7, Yankees 5; Orioles 6, White Sox 5 (10 ings); Rays 7, Twins 3; Mariners 8, Athletics 1; Angels 5, Royals 3.

At Toronto, Halladay (2-2) lost for the first time in three starts, allowing four runs and 11 hits. He walked one and struck out six.

In 19 career games against Texas, Halladay is 7-6 with a 5.34 ERA, his second-highest earned run average against an American League opponent. He has a 5.35 ERA in 11 games against Oakland.

Halladay pitched a complete-game six-hitter against Texas last Saturday, giving up just one run, but wasn't so lucky this time around.

"He had some bad luck," Catalanotto said. "We got some cheap hits, some broken-bat hits. We didn't really square up a lot of balls but we got the big hit at the right time."

A downcast Halladay also felt fate was against him.

"A couple of mistakes, a couple of balls that found the right spots," Halladay said. "That's a tough combination in a close game."

The Rangers opened the scoring in the second when Murphy doubled home Milton Bradley, then added another run in the fourth when Kinsler singled, stole second and scored on a base hit by Catalanotto.

Murphy doubled and scored on singles by Gerald Laird in both the seventh and the ninth.

Toronto's lone run came in the seventh when Gregg Zaun doubled, went to third on a grounder and scored on David Eckstein's two-out single.

Kinsler had three hits and has reached base safely in all of Texas' 16 games.

The Rangers won despite playing without third baseman Hank Blalock (stiff back) and shortstop Michael Young (right calf). Both are expected back for a weekend series in Boston.

Indians 11, Tigers 1

At Cleveland, Fausto Carmona allowed a run in 6 2-3 innings, Ryan Garko and Travis Hafner hit two-run homers and the Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers.

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Red Sox 7, Yankees 5

At New York, Manny Ramirez hit two more homers off an ineffective Mike Mussina, leading Josh Beckett and the Red Sox past the perturbed Yankees in a game that nearly got testy.

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Orioles 6, White Sox 5 (10 ings)

At Baltimore, Adam Jones singled in the game-winning run in the 10th inning, helping Baltimore rally from a 5-2 deficit in the eighth to split the two-game series.

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Rays 7, Twins 3

At Minneapolis, Jason Hammel had his second straight strong outing, Nathan Haynes' single keyed a four-run rally and Tampa Bay beat Minnesota to split the two-game series.

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Mariners 8, Athletics 1

At Oakland, Calif., Carlos Silva pitched Seattle's second straight gem, leading the Mariners to their sixth straight win in the series against Oakland.

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Angels 5, Royals 3

At Anaheim, Calif., Garret Anderson doubled in three runs, Erick Aybar had an RBI double and scored another run on a grounder with the infield in, and Los Angeles beat Kansas City.

National League

Troy Tulowitzki's RBI double with two outs in the 22nd inning scored Willy Taveras and the Colorado Rockies beat the San Diego Padres 2-1 in the longest game in the majors in nearly 15 years, a six-hour, 16-minute marathon.

It was the longest game since Aug. 31, 1993, when Minnesota beat Cleveland 5-4 in 22 innings. It was also the longest game in Rockies history and in the five-year history of Petco Park.

Taveras reached on a two-out grounder when shortstop Khalil Greene's throw pulled 6-foot-7 first baseman Tony Clark off the bag. Taveras stole second and took third on catcher Josh Bard's throwing error. Tulowitzki doubled to left-center of Glendon Rusch (0-1), the seventh Padres pitcher.

Only a fraction of the crowd of 25,984 was around to see the final out.

The previous longest game this season by innings was 15, on April 9, when the Cubs beat the Pirates 6-4 at Pittsburgh. The previous longest in time was 4 hours, 53 minutes, Toronto at Texas on April 16. Texas won 7-5 in 14 innings.

Some Padres players amused themselves in the 18th by taping up the head of a stuffed ram and placing it on the front bench in the dugout. After the 18th, shortly after midnight, the sprinklers came on in the Park at the Park, a grassy knoll beyond the bleachers in right-center.

There was a seventh-inning stretch, a 14-inning stretch and finally, a 21st-inning stretch.

Greg Maddux had his glove on in the dugout in the 22nd. It was wishful thinking, because he's scheduled to start Friday night at Arizona, when he'll try for his 350th career victory.

Kip Wells (1-0), the eighth Rockies pitcher, pitched four innings.

Padres pitchers tied a team record with 20 strikeouts. Padres batters struck out 17 times. Colorado stranded 16 runners and San Diego 14.

The game was scoreless until the 14th.

The Rockies went ahead 1-0 in the top of the inning when Brad Hawpe drew a bases-loaded walk off Kevin Cameron to bring in Taveras.

The Padres tied it in the bottom of the inning when Josh Bard's bases-loaded single off Manny Corpas brought in Kevin Kouzmanoff, aboard on a leadoff single. Tony Clark was forced at home for the second out and rookie Colt Morton - San Diego's last position player - grounded to third in his fourth big league at-bat. It was Corpas' second blown save in five chances.

Braves 8, Marlins 0

John Smoltz and Chipper Jones reminded Atlanta fans of the Braves of old.The Braves began Thursday's game off to their worst start since 1990, but Smoltz and Jones provided a lift to help beat the Florida Marlins 8-0. Smoltz pitched five shutout innings and struck out 10, increasing his career total to 2,996. Jones went 4-for-4 with two homers and three RBIs.

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Reds 9, Cubs 2

At Chicago, Ken Griffey Jr. hit his 596th homer, and Toronto's Joey Votto doubled with the bases loaded, homered and drove in five runs to lead Cincinnati over the Cubs and end the Reds' five-game losing streak.

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Phillies 10, Astros 2

At Philadelphia, Brett Myers (2-1) allowed one run and five hits in seven innings, and Chris Coste tied a career high with four hits.

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Brewers 5, Cardinals 3

At St. Louis, Prince Fielder hit his first home run of the season, a two-run drive off Brad Thompson (1-1) in the 10th inning.

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Mets 3, Nationals 2 (14 ings)

At New York, Damion Easley scored on Joel Hanrahan's second wild pitch in the 14th inning and the Mets beat Washington on the 44th anniversary of the first game at Shea Stadium.

Source: Canadian Press

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