Thoughts on a 4-3 Rangers win

Rangers

4, Guardians 3

• All hail our conquering hero, Joc Pederson!
• I wonder how we would perceive him if his name were Jacques Pederson instead.
• 18 swings and misses by Nathan Eovaldi, including 11 on his splitter, which he threw 44 times in the game. Nine Ks in seven innings. Just one run allowed. Excellent work that seemed to have the team on the path to a win despite once again scoring just two runs.
• Eovaldi now officially has enough innings — 130 — to qualify for the ERA title, and is leading the majors with an ERA of 1.73. After the Rangers’ next game, he no longer will qualify, but at least for one day he’s at the top.
• Hoby Milner, who has done excellent work for most of the season for Texas, has not had a good run over the past week or so. On Sunday, he retired just one of three batters he faced against Toronto, allowing two runs. On Tuesday, against the Royals, he retired none of the three batters he faced, allowing a run. He retired all four batters he faced on Wednesday against Kansas City, but on Friday, in this game, he once again faced three batters and got none of them out, leaving the game with the bases loaded and no one out in the eighth.
• Phil Maton, called upon to escape the jam, struck out three batters, but also allowed a weakly hit double that turned a 2-1 lead into a 3-2 deficit.
• And let’s be honest…with the Rangers down 3-2 in the late innings, no one has any confidence that the game will be won.
• Texas had put their two runs on the board with solo homers by Wyatt Langford and Rowdy Tellez, but otherwise, had just two hits — an Ezequiel Duran double and a Joc Pederson single — heading into the ninth inning. There was some loud contact and bad ball in play luck involved, admittedly, but still…it appeared to be another game that slipped away due to not being able to score any runs.
• But the bottom of the ninth held salvation. A 2-2 double by Wyatt Langford to start the inning. A first pitch line drive single by Corey Seager. And then a first pitch rocket off the bat of Joc Pederson to walk it off.
• See, things can be good sometimes…
• Nathan Eovaldi touched 95.1 mph with his fastball, averaging 94.0 mph. Hoby Milner’s sinker reached 87.9 mph. Phil Maton’s cutter topped out at 91.4 mph. Robert Garcia hit 96.3 mph with his fastball.
• Corey Seager had a 111.3 mph ground out, a 108.5 mph single, a 103.2 mph ground out and a 102.8 mph fly out. Alejandro Osuna had a 107.8 mph ground out and a 105.8 mph ground out. Joc Pederson had a 107.0 mph single and a 104.5 mph double. Wyatt Langford had a 104.1 mph double and a 103.2 mph home run. Ezequiel Duran had a 102.0 mph line out. Josh Jung had a 100.7 mph ground out.
• Maybe this is the start of the team getting back above .500. Maybe?