After getting hit in the ankle Saturday night, his manager thought he would be on crutches Sunday, but Danny Santana hit the go-ahead home run in the eighth then scored the winning run in the tenth.

The Texas Ranger are two teams.

At home, they are pretty much unbeatable, a 636 team, a 103-win team.

On the road, they are pretty much inept, a .318 team, a 51-win team.

If they keep this pace, they will win 52 games at home and 25 games on the road, or 77 games total. That ten games better than last year. And that would be quite an improvement.

The good news is, this past series against the Cardinals was like a road win. There were more Cardinals fans in the Ballpark than Rangers fans. And that’s a shame.

It’s not that the visiting team turned the Ballpark into Busch Stadium southwest. But that there are all these baseball fans living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area who aren’t Rangers fans.

This throng of Cardinals fans did not travel from St Louis just like when the Yankees fans take over the Ballpark, they don’t come down from New York, and when the Royals fans outnumber Rangers fans in the Ballpark, they didn’t make the drive down from Kansas City.

There are millions of baseball fans in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. From the fan patterns at the Ballpark, it would seem most of them aren’t Rangers fans. That’s the real shame.

Maybe I am different. I was a dyed-in-the-wool Reds fan when I moved to Dallas in 1994. But I was a baseball fan. I adopted the Rangers. It didn’t take long for the Rangers to be my team. I didn’t abandon the Reds, even though their ownership did. I got here when the Ballpark got here. I got here when the winning got here.

There hasn’t been much winning the last two seasons. There won’t be much this season, but it will be better than the last one.

Certainly more entertaining.

This team at home is special. Arlington seems to bring out the best up and down the lineup. When Jeff Mathis gets hits, you know something magical is happening.

Yesterday’s game was the prime example. At home it’s a team that refuses to lose. A team that finds a way. A team that’s so much fun to watch.

Now, if they could just get some more fans to watch them instead of the other team.

*****
TODAY’S GAME:Mike Leake (3-4, 4.00) vs. Mike Minor (4-3, 2.61)
Game time: 7:05