The Texas Rangers scored four runs but the Pittsburgh Pirates scored eight runs.
The Pirates had five hits off of Jack Leiter and three of those came in their four opportunities with RISP when Leiter was on the mound. All four of their runs off Leiter came with two outs.
The Rangers meanwhile waited until two outs in the eighth to have their first hit with RISP on the night. That seemed at the time like a large one as Jake Burger’s two-out, two-run single tied the game at four runs apiece.
The dream of a comeback victory wouldn’t last long, however.
Just a half inning later the Pirates scored the go-ahead run off of Cole Winn and then Jalen Beeks allowed a three-run home run to Oneil Cruz that not even Evan Carter could catch as it doinked off the top of the foul pole.
The Rangers have had a handful of losses like this where they manage a late comeback but ultimately still fall short. On one hand, that’s frustrating. As sports enjoying is all about expectation management, fresh hope ultimately snuffed out is possibly worse than just assuming they’ll lose and then them cordially honoring that belief.
On the other hand, the last couple of seasons were littered with almost nothing but mid-game give ups where they barely ever scored past like the sixth inning and almost never came back in games no matter how close.
I’ll take feeling let down over apathy, I suppose. It’s a novel kind of disappointment fresh for the 2026 season! And really, it serves the team better in the long run that they know they have the ability to come back.
Anyway, .500 baseball again it is. Hopefully Leiter (5 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 5 K) is fine after he ate shit slipping on the Pirates’ on-deck circle trying to field a terrible throw by Brandon Nimmo that let Pittsburgh score an extra run that, for a few minutes there, seemed important.
Player of the Game: Josh Jung hit the two-run home run that gave the Rangers an early lead. With Corey Seager in need of more time on his trusty ol’ iPad to remember how to hit, and with Wyatt Langford experiencing more aching muscles than impact hits so far this season, Jung has been kind of carrying the lineup with a month of the season nearly in the books.
Up Next: The Rangers and Pirates will close out this series in a rubber match that will feature RHP Jacob deGrom for Texas opposite RHP Bubba Chandler for Pittsburgh.
The Thursday evening finale from The Shed is scheduled for 7:05 pm CDT and you can catch it on the Rangers Sports Network.
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