Adrian Belts Trey, Sends Rays Home

Adrian Beltre's three solo home runs helped the Texas Rangers beat the Tampa Bay Rays 4-3 and advance to the American League championship series.  Matt Harrison scored the win, Neftali Perez chalked up his third save while starter Jeremy Hellickson took the loss for Tampa Bay, who were closed out of the playoffs in four games of a five-game series.

Bloggers and sports hacks everywhere celebrated the chance for a once-in-a-lifetime headline pun.

Nolan Ryan says "good job"

Beltre became just the sixth player to hit three home runs in a playoff game and just one of four to hit them in a series-clinching game.  We couldn't care less about playoff record-keeping since the post-season now takes up an entire month of baseball, but we tip our hat to a guy who had a helluva day.

Nolan Ryan says "do better"

Ian Kinsler homered the second pitch of a game in which the Rangers would never trail.  Overall six Rangers were held hitless and the rest were held to one hit, leaving Beltre to carry the day.

Beltre's success depended primarily on two factors, the first being young Tampa Bay throwers who left pitches out over the plate and up in the zone too often for the Texas slugging staff to overlook.  The second factor was the unconsciously clutch Mike Napoli giving it a rest, going only 1 for 4 for the day. 

"I thought they said he was 1 for 11"

The game for Tampa Bay looked better on paper as they outhit the Rangers 7-6 and were 2 for 4 with RISP but left six men on base, one less than the Rangers, and never led in the game.  The lack of long ball and failure to move runners were sorely evident as Texas's advantage rested solidly in the bat of their third baseman, who came in to Tuesday's game 1 for 11 in the playoffs.

Hellickson was tagged for three homers, lasted four innings with a walk and a strikeout.  He was replaced by Matt Moore who struck out two and walked one in his three innings but also served up Beltre's third big fly in the seventh.  The Rays scored in the bottom of the ninth inning with a man on second but ran out of outs and sensed deja vu as they exited the playoffs in the same round and to the same team as last year.

Johnny Damon, Evan Longoria, and B.J. Upton all went 0 for 4.  Angel alums Sean Rodriguez and Casey Kotchman did well, Rodriguez scoring three runs and Kotchman knocking in three RBI's. 

Those guys are pretty good...

The Rangers now await the winner of the Yankees-Tigers series to decide the American League entrant into the World Series.