Game 13: Three Up, Three Down.
We're Going to Be Friends.
With Jack White on hand (and a few thousand other fans allegedly there with him), the Rangers played perhaps their most complete baseball game out of what is now a MLB-best nine wins.
Three Up, Three Down from Texas 6, Chicago (NL) 2.
Up First.
This was the guy that Texas paid to rehab for nearly half of a two-year, $22 million contract.
Tyler Mahle had two opportunities to deliver shutdown innings today, and this is how those innings went:
First inning, staked to a 1-0 lead: flyout, walk,* flyout, strikeout looking
Fifth inning, staked to a 5-1 lead: flyout, strikeout swinging, pop-out
The second of those was especially savage, following a lengthy fifth-inning uprising with a brisk, 14-pitch (10-strike) bottom of the inning that probably didn’t last five minutes.
Perhaps because of how clean the inning was, Mahle was sent out for the sixth for the first time as a Ranger despite having thrown 79 pitches— and proceeded to get through that one in five pitches (four strikes), further demoralizing the opposition after a mere two minutes of action.
Even with those six frames and 84 pitches under his belt — and with Corey Seager’s second homer padding the lead further — Mahle’s outstanding day was not done. Back out for the seventh, he disposed of Michael Busch on four pitches (strikeout swinging) and Dansby Swanson on three (strikeout swinging) and Nico Hoerner on three (grounder to the mound).
It was Mahle’s longest outing since June 14, 2022, and his command visibly got better and better as the 40-degree day progressed. The 30-year-old punctuated it by demonstratively stabbing the Hoerner comebacker to end his own day, and I loved that a lot.
Seven innings, two hits (on back-to-back hitters in the fourth inning), one “walk.” Just a tremendous start from the 30-year-old.
Up Second.
Seager, whose obsessive attention to the details of his swing is borderline-legendary, showed up in the top of the first inning with a new stance, narrower and more closed off than usual and with slightly more motion in the load.
The absence of in-game smiles from Seager is equally the stuff of legend, but we got one as he completed his 360-foot journey around the bases after depositing a 3-1 Shota Imanaga fastball through the thick, dense air into the first row of seats behind the fence in left-center field in that first frame.
The opposite-field Seager blast — after only five of his 63 home runs in 2023 and 2024 went the other way — was especially welcome given that it was sandwiched between hard-hit warning-track shots off the bat of Marcus Semien and Josh Jung that found gloves.
Incidentally, it was a second straight well-struck baseball for Semien, dating back to his final at-bat last night, the grounder that Swanson played into an exceptional 6-4 fielder’s choice in the ninth. Semien then walked today in the third, and scalded a 102.4-mph liner that Swanson couldn’t corral in the fifth. Encouraging.
Seager’s second at-bat against Imanaga, though it was a shallow lob for a routine out, was also hit to the left side. But his fourth trip, not so much: a line drive blasted to right for his second homer of the game.
All things considered, I suspect the tweaked Seager mechanics at the plate will stick around for a bit.
Up Third.
For all the talk of the Rangers needing to see 2023 Semien and 2023 Adolis Garcia show back up in 2025 after a down year, man, let’s offer a tip of the cap to the early look we’re getting from Jonah Heim. Fewer innings behind the plate seems to be working.
Heim (now hitting .310 with a .931 OPS) crushed his third homer of the season — his first from the right side of the plate — turning with authority on an elevated Imanaga fastball in the fifth to score Kevin Pillar and untie what was a 1-1 game.
Pillar’s single and Heim’s bomb kicked off a really refreshing inning for the languid Texas offense, which had started to come to life a bit in Tuesday night’s loss:
Pillar: infield single
Heim: two-run home run (3-1 lead)
Leody Taveras: strikeout
Semien: single
Seager: strikeout
Jung: RBI double (4-1 lead)
Garcia: RBI single (5-1 lead)
Jake Burger: flyout to right center (106.6 mph)
A really good-looking inning, with five base hits — several destroyed, one legged out, one dumped — and a flash of the pressure that this offense, when right, is capable of putting on opposing pitching staffs.
One Down.
It’s probably worth noting that Garcia, after going .357/.471/1.000 (1.471 OPS) without a strikeout in his first five games (17 plate appearances), he followed with a hitless 19 trips over his next five, drawing one walk and fanning four times.
He’s had a single in three straight games since, but still sits at .190 with a .682 OPS, all of which is to say it’s unwise to overreact after a great five games — or a bad five. Texas does need more out of Garcia, though, especially after a .684 OPS in 2024.
Two Down.
Taveras flubbed Seiya Suzuki’s fourth-inning liner into a triple — the first hit Mahle allowed on the day — and it meant Suzuki was on third rather than second with one out. The Rangers then brought in the infield in, and if Burger had been at normal depth, maybe Busch’s ensuing grounder that eluded Burger to his left would have instead been gobbled up for the second out, and Suzuki wouldn’t have scored in the inning.
Three Down.
Umm.
Hmm.
You got anything?
OK, how’s this: Robert Garcia has been really good after a couple shaky efforts in the season-opening series against Boston, and his eighth today was excellent before a bit of an uneven ninth.
But the thing I want to point out here — and it’s not necessarily a negative, as players are wired differently and get the job done in different ways — is that Garcia does not seem to have a slow heartbeat. I hope to never have to think about that again.
If you can do better for Down No. 3, hit me up in the Comments, I guess.
Due Up.
A day off, and then the first of three in Seattle:
Jacob deGrom.
Bryce Miller.
Temps in the 40s.
Travis Jankowski, known for his glove and hustle, would be a great guy to add right now. I just can’t watch Taveras and his brutal outfield performance (and mental mistakes) any longer.
I much rather have Jankowski (even with his lack of offense) in the outfield. I’ll bet Rangers pitchers would agree with me.
Jankowski apparently just re-signed a minor league deal with the White Sox, but surely a deal could be made. I’d trade Taveras straight up. Dump his bloated salary and get a player here who plays with joy and enthusiasm!
A couple of Langford-less weeks is probably my third "down," even if not unexpected.