On This Day Five Years Ago ...

... the Rangers kicked off the first half of a doubleheader with a pretty uninspiring lineup, and ended up putting up 30 runs on the Baltimore Orioles in Camden Yards in support of Kason Gabbard and Wes Littleton (the latter of whom recorded a three-inning save, thereby casting some national attention upon the silliness of what does and doesn't qualify as a 'save'). I recall that that was my first day of classes at UT Tyler, and when I got a call from a friend after class was over alerting me to the score, I thought he had misspoke or was off his nut or something. Not so much.

Anyway, there's a lot you could take away from this game, but there are two things that particularly amuse me, first among them being:

Rangers manager Ron Washington said he remembers handing hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo the lineup card.

"I said to Rudy, 'This is the kind of lineup that will get you fired," Washington said.

Of course, the historical record shows that Washington almost ended up being fired himself early on in the 2008 season, and depending upon whom you decide to listen to, the Rangers were literally 24-48 hours away from cutting bait with Washington over the weekend of April 25-27, 2008. Instead, they won that Friday, April 25th game via extra-innings walkoff, went ahead and won the series, and then won the next five series that followed, allowing them to make it back to the .500 mark late in the month of May after a miserable 7-16 start and, by most accounts, saving Washington's job. 

The other thing that amuses me is that Travis Metcalf clobbered a pinch-hit grand slam in the ninth eighth inning of that game, but because the Rangers were already ahead 16-3 at the time and had their win expectancy maxed out, Metcalf was credited with +0.00 WPA for the game.

Here's the Baseball Reference game record.