[jthig32]

Well...that was awesome. It was an awesome atmosphere; an awesome event. I loved almost every minute of being there.

Cliff was pretty damn good, but Lincecum was like nothing I've ever seen before in person. He was incredible. Every two strike count felt like a foregone conclusion.

That was place eerily silent after the home run. Just stunning. It looked and sounded like a casual flyball to left field. Elvis even pointed to the sky like you do on a routine popup. And it just kept going and going and going. Unbelievable.

Definitely a frustrating series offensively. Their pitchers are great and our hitters came back down to earth, for sure.

But all in all it was an incredible, magical run. Almost no one picked them to make the playoffs coming out of spring training. Think of all the things this team overcame:

We had the cocaine scandal. Josh and Vlad were coming off terrible seasons. Our opening day catcher played one game plus one at bat the next game and never suited up for us again. Our top two pitchers were out of the rotation by August and didn't pitch one game in the post season. Our opening day CF (and opening day lead off hitter) was a massive disappointment. We had darn near league-worst production at catcher and first base all year. Our closer blew up in front of our faces in the first two weeks and got replaced by a rookie. We had a bottom five payroll in the league and no money in the budget to make an acquisitions. We had the contentious, litigious ownership situation.

And through it all this team persevered and gave us a truly magical run. Be disappointed at the way it ended, for sure. My heart literally hurt seeing Rentaria round those bases. But let yourself, at some point, step back and remember where this team was and where it got to.

This was awesome.

Oh, and one last thing. To the stunningly large number of Ranger fans that left the stadium tonight in the top of the ninth with the Rangers down two freaking runs. To those people I say this: Die.In.A.Fire.

Go Rangers.