Off-day fun, including notes on a preposterous beatdown

Discuss:

• Brian Bannister won again, going 6 2/3 innings and giving up just two runs on five hits and two walks. The Royals are now 6-1 in Bannister's last seven games, and with last night's win, they've pulled even again with the White Sox in their mortal duel for fourth place.
  
  "I think fourth just sounds better than last," Bannister said. "Because when you're in last, you don't really know what place you're in. At least with fourth, you know there are three teams ahead of you."
  
  Sound reasoning.
  
  
• Via Sabermetric Research and following up on a Sal Fasano post, it looks like Time's reported umpire racial bias study is being contested.
  
  
• The Pipeline's Top 20 Royals prospects.
  
  
• By now you've probably heard the Texas Rangers scored 30 runs last night in the first game of a doubleheader in Baltimore, then left the Major League record for most runs scored in one day in the dust by tacking on nine more in the nightcap.
  
  ESPN's Tim Kurkjian had a Suzyn Waldman moment on Baseball Tonight, when he shrieked that "no one's ever seen this. This is 110 years since anyone's scored 30 runs in a Major League game." He duly noted the Devil Rays haven't scored 30 runs in 11 games combined. "The Rangers scored more runs in the last two innings of that game than they did in their last six games! ... The 7, 8, 9 guys went 13-for-19 with 16 RBIs. Are you kidding me???"
  
  Karl Ravech was about to let him go when he squawked, voice cracking, "Is that the only question you're going to ask me?"
  
  "I'll just leave you with this: Wes Littleton got the save! The final score was 30-3 and Wes Littleton got the save!"
  
  More Kurkjian here, where he reports the Rangers' team ERA went from 7th to 10th in the AL.
  

MORE RANGERS-ORIOLES:

• SI.com -- frontpage: "Record Assault"; headline: "Texas Stampede"
• ESPN.com -- frontpage: "Beaten to Punch Line" (nice list of greatest beatdowns in sports)
• Baltimore Sun: "An ugly game at Camden Yards"
  
• Dallas Morning News: "Record rout: Rangers win, 30-3"
• Fort Forth Star-Telegram: "Rangers hang 30 on Orioles"
• Washington Post: "Thirty. That's Something."
• New York Times: "Thirty Runs Later, Rangers Finish Off Orioles" (heavy editing of an AP story here, for the better)
  
• Freakonomics blog: talking about the lack of randomness in the line score.
  
• Box score

The coverage -- to say nothing of the headlines -- was diasppointing, but sometimes the thing speaks for itself.

QUOTES:

"Hard to believe, but the Orioles were once up 3-0. Now they're down by 27."
--MASN announcer

OMFG!
OMFG!
THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE
--Rangers Fan, after Ramon Vazquez's home run put the Rangers ahead 30-3.

me: if you haven't... check the texas-baltimore score
Kinsella: ok

WHAT?
30??
FUCK