Were going back home, thats where we won it last time, hopefully we can do the same thing again,” said Drew Doughty. The Rangers von zgr123s Blog
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BALTIMORE - Some people like to mark their birthday with a cake and candles. Derrick Henry Womens Jersey . Nelson Cruz has a different approach. Cruz hit his 26th home run on his 34th birthday, and the Baltimore Orioles breezed past the skidding Texas Rangers 8-3 Tuesday night. "A homer and a victory. That was a nice day," Cruz said. "I like to celebrate with homers." In five career games on his birthday, Cruz is 7 for 19 with two long balls. On this night, his third home run in seven games left him only seven short of his career high of 33, set in 2009 with Texas. Cruz needs one more homer to match his total from last year with the Rangers, a season cut short by a 50-game suspension as part of the Biogenesis performance-enhancing drug scandal. None of that really matters to Cruz. After signing a one-year, $8 million contract with Baltimore during the off-season, he is focused on helping the Orioles earn a post-season berth for the second time in three years. "Its been a blessing. Im happy with the situation that we are as a team," he said. "Thats more important to me. The numbers, at the end of the season were going to look at it. But right now we focus on winning games, and thats what were doing." Steve Pearce and Caleb Joseph also went deep for the Orioles, who are assured of at least a split of the four-game series after winning the first two. Pearce and Cruz delivered solo shots in the first inning and Joseph connected with a man on in the second. It was the third homer in two nights for Pearce. T.J. McFarland (1-1) allowed two runs in a career-high five innings to win his second career start compared to 51 relief appearances. "He pitched as well as we thought he could," manager Buck Showalter said. "He makes our bullpen better, but its nice to know that you have that type of option down there with a guy if you can get the proper rest." Rangers rookie Nick Martinez (1-6) gave up eight runs, six earned, and seven hits in five innings. The right-hander is 0-5 with an 8.10 ERA in seven starts since earning his lone career win at Detroit on May 24. "I feel like I pitched better than what it showed," Martinez said. The Rangers (37-46) have lost 11 of 13 overall to fall nine games under .500 for the first time since they were 9-18 on April 29, 2008. Texas has dropped seven straight on the road, its longest such skid in six seasons. Shortstop Elvis Andrus, who made a key error, said: "As a player I always get mad when Im not enjoying the game, and thats exactly whats happening right now." For the second game in a row, Baltimore homered twice in the first inning. Pearce hit a liner in front of the left-field foul pole that glanced off the glove of Shin-Soo Choo and dropped over the wall. One out later, Cruz smacked a 1-1 pitch over the centre-field wall. Texas pulled even in the second when Adam Rosales hit a two-run double in his first at-bat of the season. In the bottom half, Joseph drove a 3-1 pitch into the front row of the left-field seats for a 4-2 lead. The three homers allowed by Martinez were a career high. The Orioles used three hits, a walk and an error to pull away with a four-run fourth. With the bases loaded, Andrus fumbled Josephs potential double-play grounder to allow a run to score. Nick Markakis followed with an RBI double and Pearce added a sacrifice fly. "It was an easy ground ball," Andrus said. "No excuse about it." Chris Gimenez hit a run-scoring grounder off Ryan Webb in the Texas sixth. But the Rangers went quietly after that in their ninth loss in 10 games against Baltimore, dating to last year. NOTES: Texas designated LHP Joe Saunders for assignment and recalled RHP Miles Mikolas from Triple-A Round Rock. Mikolas will make his first major league start on Wednesday. Nick Tepesch, who was slated to start Wednesday, was pushed back to Friday against the Mets. ... The Orioles activated OF Nolan Reimould (spine) from the 60-day DL and designated him for assignment. The oft-injured Reimold, 30, has played in 56 games since the start of the 2012 season. ... Texas Roughned Odor had two hits to snap a 4-for-29 skid. Warren Moon Titans Jersey . Seth Smith hit a towering drive for a tying homer leading off the eighth and Chris Denorfia singled home two runs to give the Padres a 3-1 victory against the rival Dodgers in baseballs North American opener Sunday night. DeMarco Murray Titans Jersey . I kind of got a taste of being able to pick a suit with the draft lottery, I went with the bow tie.NEW YORK – On this day, at least, it was the King and not the Kings standing at the very top of the castle. Henrik Lundqvist did all he could to keep the Cup from seeing the light of day on Wednesday night, stopping nearly every piece of rubber flung his way in a do-or-die tilt for the Rangers at MSG. Vowing to raise the level of his performance just a day earlier, Lundqvist did that and more, turning aside 40 of 41 shots in a 2-1 Game 4 win. “It was pretty self-explanatory out there,” said Dan Girardi. “He was the King tonight for us, making huge saves when he had to.” Girardis unfortunate broken stick catapulted the Kings to their only goal on Lundqvist, a breakaway marker from Dustin Brown midway through the middle period. It was from that point on that the 32-year-old simply took over, preserving the Rangers one-goal lead amidst an avalanche of incredible pressure from an L.A. squad intent on capturing the Cup for the second time in three years. New York was outshot 15-1 in the final period and an unimaginable 26-3 over the final 31-plus minutes of regulation, completely dominated by the Cup-hungry Kings. Lundqvist turned every shot aside though, rising to every challenge his rivals could muster. “Goaltender was real good,” said head coach Alain Vigneault with a smile, asked how the Rangers managed to preserve a 2-0 lead after failing to do so in Games 1 and 2. “He had to make some huge saves in the second and the third. He got and we got a few bounces. You need those. Maybe the luck is changing a little bit.” Believing the breaks had been against them in the opening three games, the Rangers saw that luck turn in their favour in remarkable fashion on this night. On not one, but two occasions did a puck sneak through the pads of Lundqvist and land squarely on the goal-line, kept at bay by morsels of snow before a Ranger could calmly swat it away – first Anton Stralman midway through the first frame and later Derek Stepan in the dying moments of regulation. “Dont fool yourself either,” said Stepan. “Hank stood on his head. He made some big saves at big times for us. Those are the big plays we need at certain moments to keep the momentum or shift the momentum. DeMarco Murray Womens Jersey. Hank stood tall and hes a big part of why were going back to L.A.” Lundqvist and the Rangers are now 11-2 in their last 13 games when facing elimination, the King entering the night with a .957 save percentage in such situations. “When everything is on the line, you just have to challenge yourself the right way, I guess, as a team and personally,” said Lundqvist, who allowed 11 goals in the first three games against the Kings. “You have to go out there and leave everything out there and be extremely focused. One mistake and the season is over. Youre definitely aware of that. When you go out to these types of games where you know everything can be over after this period or after the next two periods.” Despite relentless waves of pressure over the final period and a half the Kings believed they could do more to disrupt the Rangers Vezina Trophy-winning goaltender. “I think we can do a better job getting to him,” said Anze Kopitar, one of only three Kings without a shot on goal. “I think [there were] a couple of times where we didnt make it tough on him. The pucks were sitting there. But the pucks hes gonna see, hes gonna stop. Thats just how it is.” Despite owning the back half of Wednesdays game, L.A. is now forced to make the long flight back west in hopes of procuring the Cup on home ice. It was two years earlier in the 2012 Final that they raced out to a 3-0 series lead only to drop Games 4 and 5 to the Devils before finally emerging with the first Cup in franchise history at Staples Center in Game 6. “Were going back home, thats where we won it last time, hopefully we can do the same thing again,” said Drew Doughty. The Rangers, meanwhile, were searching for just one win, viewing Game 4 as a best-of-one they had no choice but to capture. Rallying from a 3-1 deficit in the second round against the Penguins, their focus now shifts to bringing the series back to the Garden for Game 6 and hopefully beyond. “Well, we went into this game with the approach that we wanted to win at home in front of our fans,” said Lundqvist. “That was our approach. We got that accomplished. 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