Game 39: Three Up, Three Down.
A slam dunk is still worth only two points — and an utterly disgusting win is still a win.
Never before has the term “insurance runs” been so painfully accurate.
I’m tired.
Three Up, Three Down from Texas 12, Oakland 11.
Up First.
The difference in this amazingly messy, sloppy-drunk, stomach-turning game can be drilled down to one statistic.
The Rangers were 9 for 20 with runners in scoring position.
The A’s were 0 for 11 . . . until that nauseating ninth.
Thankfully.
Up Second.
Lots of offense and it was one of those days — and this is a good thing — where there wasn’t one obvious star, or even a couple. There were important contributions throughout the lineup.
Guess it’s worth pinpointing Jonah Heim, who’s been such an efficient RBI Hunter the past two seasons; Marcus Semien, who second 3-for-5 effort of the day followed a 4-for-5 yesterday; Nathaniel Lowe, who’s assumed Josh Smith’s role as the steadiest hitter on the team since his return; Ezequiel Duran, who picked up three hits and a walk; and even Adolis Garcia, who still looks like a bit of a mess at the plate but came up with a really big double that got the ultimately crucial scoring started in the three-run eighth. Doli hammered a low-and-in fastball 116.1 mph into the left-field corner, the type of contact that’s been missing lately. That was good.
Up Third.
David Robertson, man.
He was summoned cold in the middle of an at-bat, after Josh Sborz had thrown seven balls out of eight pitches and exited with shoulder tightness. Robertson issued a walk on the inherited 3-1 count, but then got J.J. Bleday to pop out, struck out Brent Rooker, and, after walking Tyler Nevin — in a matchup that included this lovely Laz Diaz call on the first pitch . . .
. . . he punched out Babe Langeliers on a full-count cutter on the outer third to strand three runners.
And then, brought back in the seventh even though he’d already thrown 23 pitches — because even though Texas came into the day with the bullpen in really good shape, Sborz’s quick exit changed all that — Robertson should have made a little history. Because if not for this lovely Laz Diaz call on the third pitch . . .
. . . Robertson would have logged an Immaculate Inning (a nine-pitch, three-strikeout frame).
It took him two added pitches, but he eventually got that third strikeout — and fifth in two innings.
He’s so good.
One Down.
If you saw certain parts of Jack Leiter’s line, you’d be pleased enough: 73 percent strikes . . . zero walks in his four innings . . . an absolutely acceptable 15 pitches per inning.
The problem was the strikes.
Too many fastballs were a baseball or two underneath the top of the zone, rather than a baseball above it. Leiter’s best pitch is his elevated fastball, and he just wasn’t able to elevate it today. And his slider was essentially the opposite much of the time, getting too much of the zone rather than diving beneath it.
The result: seven base hits, two leaving the yard. With Leiter, the homers are going to happen. But when they come with men on base, as both Langeliers’s 454-foot shot and Tyler Soderstrom’s 421-footer (in the catcher’s first big-league game of the season) did, they’re obviously not so tolerable.
The defense — including Leiter’s own — betrayed him as well. In the third inning, just after Texas had scored four to take a 5-2 lead, he failed to glove a relatively easy comebacker, and after a flyout, he allowed a Rooker single. Then Seth Brown grounded a ball to Lowe, who made a bad decision to throw to second base — bad for three reasons:
Rooker would have had beaten the throw, meaning Langeliers was going to come up with the bases loaded
The throw was wild and went into left field, allowing a run to score that wouldn’t have otherwise
If Lowe had taken the out at first base (Leiter was ahead of Brown in the race to the bag), there would have been two outs and men on second and third — which would have meant the Rangers could have intentionally walked Langeliers and forced backup catcher Kyle McCann to beat them
Instead, Langeliers beat out a potential double play, which not only brought home a second run in the frame — it also cost the Rangers their one challenge, which would loom large in the seventh.
(In that inning, with Texas clinging to a 7-6 lead, Heim and Duran were on base with one out when Leody Taveras grounded to shortstop and clearly beat the second baseman’s relay throw, but first base umpire Mike Estabrook blew the call and awarded Oakland an inning-ending double play. Had the call been correctly made — or had the Rangers still had their challenge to play with — the insanely hot Semien would have been up with men on first and third.)
Anyway, Leiter’s day ended with six runs (four earned) on his ledger, but only three strikeouts. An inability to move the fastball above the zone and the breaking ball beneath it was a problem that major-league lineups aren’t going to let him get away with. And Leiter is probably going to be needed in the Guardians series at home next week.
Two Down.
None of the Pitching JL’s had a particularly encouraging day.
After Leiter’s day was done, Jacob Latz relieved him and had a very different issue: just about every fastball he threw was elevated . . . about a foot over the zone. Somehow he finished without allowing a run, despite giving up a double, walking two, and missing his spots more than he has at any time this season.
After Sborz left the mound with the trainer and Robertson shoved, Jose Leclerc came in and most of his 10 balls in 24 pitches were non-competitive. (Credit to Pico, though, for wiggling out of a walk-double sequence to start the inning and allowing just one run, by coaxing a groundout to first and then fanning both Rooker and Nevin, with Langeliers looming on deck.)
Though the Rangers had Kirby Yates warming, once Texas scored two more in the top of the ninth to take a 12-7 lead, Owen White was entrusted with the ninth so Yates could stay down before tomorrow’s day off.
Alas.
Single.
Single.
Single.
White out, Yates in.
Balk (run).
Strikeout.
Sacrifice fly (run).
Single (run).
Double (run). It was 12-11.
Yates then intentionally walked Rooker to load the bases. If Nevin were to reach base next, either Oakland would have walked off a victory or Langeliers would have been up with his own chance to do that.
Nevin flew out.
Despite a 16-hit, 12-run assault by the Texas offense, nothing was easy in Game 2.
Nothing.
And hey, the Mariners lost, so the Rangers are now one game up in the West, half a game short of the biggest lead they’ve had this year.
Totally feels like it after that one, right?
Three Down.
Due Up.
A much-needed day off. Much needed.
Just don’t bring up tonight’s game in the Mailbag.
Please.
I was for the Grossman trade until I saw who we gave up. And please no more hype about Leiter
That MASH unit, quality 6-man rotation is sad...
however -- TX is in 1st place by a game with that circumstance while Houston, facing similarly difficult injury issues, is in last place, 8.5 GB.