What is the story about?
Rangers
6, Marlins 4
- This was not a game one was feeling terribly optimistic about beforehand.
- And it was a game that the Rangers lost.
- It was a winnable game. The offense had three baserunners in the first, and the bases loaded with no one out in the second, and scored just one run.
- Combined with the late comeback, which saw Texas bring the tying run to the plate in the ninth, it was an opportunity lost.
- The middle innings were the Rangers’ downfall.
- Cal Quantrill started what was effectively a bullpen game for the Rangers, facing nine batters over two innings and allowing a single run, to former Ranger farmhand, and key piece in the Nathaniel Lowe trade, Heriberto Hernandez.
- Hernandez is one of five former Rangers (or Ranger minor leaguers) who is a member of the Marlins, along with John King, Tyler Phillips, Liam Hicks, and the Accountant, Pete Fairbanks.
- The funny thing about it is that Miami didn’t acquire any of those players directly from the Rangers. Some other team acquired each of those five players from the Rangers, and then the Marlins ended up getting them for, essentially, nothing.
- The Marlins got Phillips from the Philadelphia Phillies for cash. Hicks was a Rule 5 selection, taken from the Tigers. King, Fairbanks and Hernandez were all free agent signings.
- King and Hernandez were traded by the Rangers in trades that worked out very well for Texas, and contributed to their World Series title.
- Fairbanks and Hicks were traded by the Rangers in trades that did not work out for Texas. The Fairbanks for Nick Solak swap was a coup for the Rays, though the Nathaniel Lowe deal more or less balanced that out.
- Hicks was traded, along with Tyler Owens, to the Detroit Tigers at the deadline for Carson Kelly in 2024. The 2024 team finished below .500 and Kelly didn’t play well for the Rangers. That said, the Rangers weren’t going to add Liam Hicks to the 40 man roster that offseason, and so would have been lost to the Marlins in the Rule 5 Draft anyway, unless there was something very Tigers-specific that happened once Hicks got to Detroit that wouldn’t have happened if he were playing the final month and a half of the 2024 season with the Roughriders that prompted Miami to want to select him.
- Hicks has been a very good righthanded hitting 1B/DH/third catcher for the Marlins this season, and you know, the Rangers could use someone like that on their roster right about now.
- That said, I don’t think anyone expected Hicks to hit like he has this year (or even last year, when he had a 693 OPS in 390 plate appearances). Certainly Detroit didn’t, or else they wouldn’t have left him exposed in the Rule 5 Draft.
- I’d probably be more irked about losing Hicks if he’d been with the Rangers when the Marlins took him in the Rule 5 Draft. I’m not sure that makes sense logically, but then, what’s logical about sports fandom?
- Getting back on topic, Quantrill was followed by Jose Corniell, newly called up and making his second major league appearance.
- In Corniell’s first major league appearance, in the final game of the 2025 season, he pitched a scoreless inning against the Guardians, and then gave up a walkoff homer in the next inning, resulting in the Rangers going 81-81 instead of 82-80 on the year.
- Corniell, I regret to inform you, now has two major league appearances and two “L”s. The second batter he faced, catcher Joe Mack, homered off of him, giving the Marlins the lead.
- He then had a Very Unfortunate Fifth Inning. Two outs, a runner at first, Xavier Edwards hits a grounder up the middle that you think is a ball that will be the third out, but instead goes into center for a base hit.
- Thus setting the stage for Owen Caissie to thump a ball over the fence in right field for the most momentum shifting play in baseball.
- At that stage, it was 5-1, Marlins, and the game felt over. Hernandez doubled and Mack singled to make it 6-1, and this felt like the kind of game that would result in double digit runs being given up and Nicky Lopez pitching the bottom of the eighth.
- That didn’t happen, though. Corniell got out of the inning with no more damage being done, allowed a double and got a fly out to start the sixth, and then was replaced by Joe Ross, who went the rest of the way and kept the Marlins off the scoreboard.
- And it almost mattered! The Rangers threatened late, got back into the game, could’ve made Joe Ross a hero!
- Or, at least, the winning pitcher.
- That said, the Rangers played a game in June in the Year of Our Lord 2026, and the three pitchers they used were Cal Quantrill, Jose Corniell, and Joe Ross.
- If you were a time-traveler and came back from the past and looked at the box score and saw that, you’d say…
- But no, someone killed that fish. You know who you are.
- On the positive side, Quantrill, Corniell and Ross allowed the rest of the bullpen to have the day off. Jakob Junis and Robby Ahlstrom were probably not available after pitching the previous two days, and Jacob Latz had thrown 31 pitches the day before and so ideally would not have been used, which meant the Rangers’ pen was pretty thin for the game to start with.
- The offense had opportunities, but did little with them until it was late. An underwhelming 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position. That’s not going to win you many games.
- A pair of singles in the first were followed up by a Brandon Nimmo double play ball. Josh Jung walked to put runners on the corners, but an Ezequiel Duran pop out ended things.
- The second featured an Alejandro Osuna single, a Jarred Kelenic walk, and a Kyle Higashioka bunt single to load the bases with no one out. And with offensive catalyst Nicky Lopez coming to the plate, we were feeling good.
- We were getting hyped. We were getting crunk. We were on fleek.
- Lopez did get a run home, on a U3 groundout that put runners on second and third. Osuna was thrown out at home on a Pederson fielder’s choice for the second out, and Wyatt Langford flew out to end the inning and lead ominous posts about how the Rangers were going to regret their misses opportunities.
- Texas did a whole bunch of nothing until the late innings, after Sandy Alcantara left the game. Brandon Nimmo homered to start the eighth to make it 6-2. Then in the ninth, against the Accountant, whose debits and credits have been out of balance this season, Pederson hit a two out homer, Langford reached on a HBP, and Nimmo tripled…
- And suddenly it was 6-4! And Josh Jung, who has been great this season, was at the plate as the tying run!
- Alas, twas not to be. Jung flew out. The game was over. The Rangers had lost.
- Cal Quantrill reached 95.7 mph with his fastball. Jose Corniell topped out at 95.9 mph with his fastball. Joe Ross’s fastball touched 95.2 mph.
- Brandon Nimmo had a 110.5 mph triple and a 105.9 mph home run. Joc Pederson’s homer was 106.7 mph. Kyle Higashioka had a 103.8 mph groundout. Ezequiel Duran had a 101.6 mph ground out. Josh Jung had a 101.1 mph groundout, a 101.0 mph groundout and a 100.0 mph groundout, with his ninth inning fly out being 97.1 mph.
- Two down, eight to go.
