Rangers 7, Angels 6
- This win — more exciting than it has to be.
- This should have been a blowout, based on the first two-thirds of the game.
- Texas jumped on Reid Detmers early. Nathan Eovaldi was cruising. It was 6-1 after six innings, and you felt like it should’ve been a bigger margin than that.
- Look, let’s not talk about the top of the seventh, okay? Let’s pretend it didn’t happen. Or ignore it.
- Because ultimately the Rangers won. And the rest of the game was quite magnificent.
- For six innings, Nathan Eovaldi was mowing fools down.
- Eovaldi only allowed one run in the first six innings, and even that shouldn’t have happened. After a Wade Meckler single, Zach Neto hit a ball hard down to third that Josh Jung couldn’t handle. It wasn’t an easy play, but it was a makeable play, and could’ve been a double play. Jung had the ball carom off his glove, though, for a single, and when the dust settled, Meckler was at third, and Neto had advanced to second on the throw to third.
- Still, damage limited. Just one run scored. Eovaldi was doing work.
- Eovaldi fanned 10 batters in the game, allowing him to pass Ken Holtzman, Jim Maloney, and Jose Rijo on the all-time strikeouts list. He’s now at #196 all time, with Hoyt Wilhelm, Scott Sanderson and Claude Osteen in his sights.
- He also generated 23 swings and misses, 10 of which came on his splitter, but 9 of which came on his curveball, which was working extremely well.
- So let’s just pretend that he left the game after the sixth. Ignore the catcher’s interference, the walk, and the single to start the seventh that resulted in more runs marring his line.
- And let’s also pretend Peyton Gray was home sick or something. Ditto Tyler Alexander. Let’s move on from their participate in that seventh inning.
- Let’s instead praise the work of Jacob Latz, who recorded outs 22 through 26 of the game for the Rangers. Let’s praise Cole Winn, brought in to face Jo Adell with two on and two out in the ninth, after an 11 pitch walk of Vaughn Grissom by Latz pushed his pitch count north of 40.
- I’m happy to see Adell leave town, by the way. He had a pair of hits on Tuesday, a pair of homers on Wednesday, had a pinch hit single in that seventh inning we won’t speak of to tie the game, and crushed a line drive off of Winn that, fortunately, was right at Evan Carter.
- Brandon Nimmo and his non-existent platoon splits got things started for Texas against Detmers with a weird, opposite-field, line drive home run that seemed like it would be a double but just kept carrying. A Josh Jung double and Jake Burger single made it 2-0.
- Its nice to be the team that scores multiple runs in the first, rather than being the team that is giving up multiple runs in the first.
- Ezequiel Duran added a two run homer in the third. Justin Foscue followed with a solo shot in the fourth, then chipped in a sixth inning RBI ground rule double that would have accounted for two RBIs had the ball not bounded into the stands. The Shed, it is playing less pitcher-friendly of late.
- Justin Foscue is now slashing .367/.466/.796 off of lefties this season. Amazing!
- Not only is Justin Foscue rocking a .398 wOBA this season, he’s got a .371 xwOBA that indicates its not all just random variation and luck dragons.
- Its still a small sample — Foscue has 113 plate appearances, total, for the Rangers this year — but it is encouraging and makes me hopeful the righthanded platoon bat the Rangers have been longing for for so long may have arrived.
- This game was also the return of Wyatt Langford, back off the injured list, starting at DH, and spending the bulk of the game making fans think he should’ve stayed on the i.l. for another day or two, as he was hitless with three strikeouts when he came up to the plate in the ninth inning for his fifth plate appearance of the night.
- Alejandro Osuna had singled to start the inning. Offensive catalyst Nicky Lopez, pinch hitting for Foscue, bunted him over to second.
- And Wyatt Langford, in his return to action, launched a ball to left field that went off the base of the fence. He only gets credit for a single, rather than a double, because Osuna was the winning run, but he’ll take that tradeoff, I’m thinking.
- A game that felt like it was going to be given away late, but that instead resulted in a double-you. The Rangers back in first place by a half game. I’m feeling fine.
- Nathan Eovaldi topped out at 97.9 mph with his fastball, averaging 95.7 mph, a full 1.1 mph over his season average. Peyton Gray hit 93.6 mph with his fastball. Tyler Alexander topped out at 92.8 mph with his fastball. Jacob Latz’s fastball touched 96.8 mph. Cole Winn threw one fastball at 96.6 mph.
- Jake Burger had a 112.6 mph fly out, a 105.5 mph fly out, and a 101.3 mph single. Josh Jung had a 106.7 mph fly out, a 106.7 mph double and a 102.5 mph fly out.. Brandon Nimmo had a 106.0 mph ground out, a 104.4 mph homer and a 104.2 mph single. Alejandro Osuna had a 104.5 mph single. Justin Foscue had a 104.0 mph home run. Ezequiel Duran had a 104.0 mph home run. Kyle Higashioka had a 101.3 mph single.
- Three games against Houston, and then the All Star Break.
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