Texas takes two.

David Aardsma just punched Kendry Morales out to nail down a 2-1 Seattle win over the Angels. The six-game Los Angeles cushion over Texas in the West is now 4.5 games. Boston won, but the Rangers still shaved off half a game in the Wild Card chase, drawing to within 3.5 games of the Red Sox. That's a good day. Brandon McCarthy in Game Two tonight: first-pitch strikes to 17 of 22 Blue Jays faced, 11 groundouts and six flyouts (where did that come from?), an acceptable 15 pitches per inning, a really strong 6.1-frame effort that was even better than 6.1-3-1-1-2-2 might suggest. McCarthy and Dustin Nippert saving the bullpen for the most part – just like you figured they would. (Which one pitches on Monday in Cleveland?) On August 30 I wrote: "[Chris] Davis has brought the plane of swing down, creating the deadly backspin that we saw last summer, he's keeping the bat in the zone longer, and he's using all fields. He's hitting just .250/.286/.400 since returning from AAA – but he's about to explode." Since then, Davis is hitting .545/.500/.818 with 6 RBI in three games. He's dangerous again. That Josh Hamilton we saw tonight? I remember that guy. An amazing Neftali Feliz statistic from Game One: of his 20 strikes (out of 27 pitches over two perfect innings), guess how many were swung at and missed? One. Nine called strikes, eight foul balls, two balls put in play. When Feliz commands his breaking ball, something he's been able to do most nights he's taken the ball, the guys with the bat have no chance. When he's rifling 96 at the knees or on the hands, and spinning the ball at 76 and hitting his spots, they're not even able to get the bat off their shoulders. Frankie Francisco slamming the nightcap shut on a mere eight pitches: Huge. Michael Young has been picking his teammates up all year. Time to return the favor. Jamey