After a road trip full of late heartbreaks and near-misses, it was time for a little home-cookin’ with a three-game weekend series on tap with the Texas Rangers. Well, the near-misses and heartbreak didn’t stop tonight, as a comeback ended up all for naught with a 5-4 loss on Friday night.
Jack Flaherty, who has had more question-marks lately than a defective typewriter, started for the Tigers. In his previous start in Cincinnati he gave up six runs in two innings and didn’t come out for the third.
But, for a pair of starts earlier in April, he was looking really good. Which Flaherty would we see tonight? And would it change from inning to inning?
Facing Flaherty and the Tigers tonight was MacKenzie Gore, in his first season with Texas after three fairly solid seasons in Washington. Curiously, he led the National League the previous two years in wild pitches, but not walks (despite logging quite a few innings). Coming into tonight he’d walked 15 batters in 31 innings, which is quite a few when you really think about it.
The Rangers got on the board in the first inning with a single, productive groundout, and a Josh “Not Jace” Jung single to left field to score Brandon Nimmo for a 1-0 Texas lead. Flaherty settled down nicely for a 1-2-3 second inning, including a pair of strikeouts… but then Danny Jansen crushed a long home run to lead off the third for a 2-0 Texas lead.
Q: Could Flaherty prevent the spin-out high-damage inning to which he’s fallen victim so often?
A: Nope.
After Jansen’s home run, the yips returned and he couldn’t find the strikezone, walking the bases loaded. He gave up another run on a single and another on a sacrifice fly (the first out of the inning) and the Rangers were up 4-0. An infield popup and a strikeout limited any further scoring, but still, sheesh. He’d carry on into the fourth and get the first two outs, but at that point his pitch count was 91 and some lefties were coming up, so that was that. Enmanuel De Jesus, who came up from Toledo when Casey Mize went on the Injured List, came on and struck out Evan Carter on three pitches. Flaherty’s final line: 3 2/3 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 3 BB, 4 K.
In the bottom of the fourth, Jahmai Jones led off with a double, and with one out Riley Greene hit a tricky popup behind third base on which Jung whiffed. Matt Vierling then struck out, but Spencer Torkelson walked to load the bases with two outs. Wenceel Pérez then stepped to the plate and stung a single into left, scoring Jones and Greene to narrow the lead to 4-2. Hao-Yu Lee dropped a perfect little flare of a single into right to score Torkelson for a 4-3 score.
That was the end of Gore’s day, and righty Cole Winn was brought in to face Gleyber Torres who struck out swinging to end the inning. But hey, the Tigers were back in this thing.
In the bottom of the fifth, Kerry Carpenter (pinch-hitting for Jones) walked, and took second on a wild pitch in the dirt. He moved up to third on a perfectly-placed bloop single on the ninth pitch of a Dillon Dingler at-bat, putting runners on the corners. Greene followed with a shattered-bat ground ball that was too slowly-hit for an inning-ending double play, scoring Carpenter and tying the game.
Brenan Hanifee took over for De Jesus to start the sixth; De Jesus nicely calmed things down for 1 1/3 innings, only allowing a walk. He allowed a leadoff single, and then after a bit of a bunting exhibition by Texas, the inning ended with no damage.
In the bottom of the inning Pérez advanced to third after getting aboard via a fielder’s choice, stolen base and a throwing error, but Torres flew out to centre to end the inning and Pérez was left stranded 90 feet (27 432 mm) from home.
Brant Hurter took over for Hanifee — B.H. for B.H., neato — and with the help of a nice play a third by Lee on a scorcher of a ground ball, a hit-by-pitch was stranded on the bases.
Old Friend™ Tyler Alexander made an appearance for Texas in the seventh, and he got some defensive help by Ezequiel Duran, diving to grab a Carpenter fly ball near the right-field corner.
Burch Smith didn’t have quite as much luck: Rangers hitters got aggressive against Smith and didn’t miss too often, making hard contact and hitting a pair of doubles to retake the lead 5-4.
Greene led off the bottom of the eighth with a single against Alexander, but didn’t advance as the next three batters were retired. And in the ninth against Jacob Latz, who has been mostly lights-out for Texas so far this year, the Tigers went 1-2-3 and that was the game.
Final score: Rangers 5, Tigers 4
Numbers and Celebrations
- Both starting pitchers tonight wore single-digit numbers. I don’t agree with this. It looks dumb.
- Coming into tonight’s game, Jack Flaherty had 22 walks in 25 1/3 innings. So, three walks in 3 2/3 more innings? Unfortunately, that didn’t change the overall rate much, if at all. What am I, a mathematician?
- Today is International Workers Day, otherwise known as May Day, and is celebrated as Labour Day in the vast majority of the world’s countries (but not in Canada, the United States, Jamaica, Japan, Australia and New Zealand). It’s meant to celebrate the achievements of the labour movement around the world, including the eight-hour work day, health and safety rights, and countless other gains for workers.
