Fans were thinking of the flooding in Texas./CARMEN MANDATO
Wednesday, 2 a.m.
Just wondering: What part of Texas is Tropicana Field in?
Gonzalez shows supports for Houston./CARMEN MANDATO
The Trop was the site of the battle of Texas Wednesday night, as St. Petersburg was host to the first of three games between the Rangers and Astros. Texas won easily, 12-2, and moved ahead of the Rays in the AL Wild-Card race.
What's next? Will they move the Alamo to Tampa Bay? Texas Stadium? The Rio Grande?
Texas certainly enjoyed the opening game of the series more than Houston. The Rangers had 14 hits, including four by Elvis Andrus. Shin-Soo Choo had three hits, including a home run, and drove in four for Texas.
Andrus had four hits for the Rangers./CARMEN MANDATO
The Rangers scored four in the third, four in the fourth and three in the fifth.
The game was moved to St. Petersburg because of the flooding from Hurricane Harvey. The game drew just 3,485 fans. It was the fourth time in major league history that games were moved to a neutral site.
The Rangers were scheduled to play in Houston before Hurricane Harvey forced relocation of those games. The Astros simply asked the Rangers to switch the sites of the series, saying they will play three games in Arlington now, but requested that their three scheduled games in Arlington on Sept. 25-27 be switched to Houston.
The Rangers declined, saying it wouldn’t be fair to their fans who have already purchased tickets for the games. The Rangers offered to let the Astros to be the home team this week in Arlington, giving all of their proceeds to them. The Astros declined.
So Major League Baseball stepped in and moved the series to St. Petersburg. It would also allow the Astros to stay put for their series against the Mets which could be switched to St. Petersburg, too.
Choo drove in four runs to lead Texas./CARMEN MANDATO
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