The Texas Rangers scored one run but the Atlanta Braves scored 15 runs.
When the probables were released and it showed that the Rangers would be facing Chris Sale to open the second half, while countering with Cal Quantrill, the best you could hope for was that they would do what they had been doing through the final weeks of the first half.
Sure, it was kind of embarrassing that Quantrill was all that the Rangers could muster after taking nearly a full turn of the rotation’s worth of days off, but
they’d been MacGyvering games into wins on their way to topping their division. Why not tonight too?
Instead, the smoke dissipated and the mirrors shattered. You won’t find many more thorough ass beatings than this game. Sale has dominated the Rangers to a near George Kirby-ian clip throughout his career and he was never really challenged in this one. Heck, at just 89 pitches, Sale probably only exited after seven innings because they game had already gotten so out of hand.
The Rangers collected two hits total off Sale. They got their lone run of the night when the game was already 12-0 in the top of the eighth. The Braves, meanwhile, after two outs to start the game, had already collected six hits off Quantrill in the next nine at-bats.
Remarkably, the Braves only scored two runs during that barrage but they were far from done. By the time Quantrill’s day finished, he had allowed six runs on 11 hits in just four innings of work. Quantrill provided some much-needed innings in spot starts while ramping up from long relief duties following Jack Leiter’s ankle surgery, but he was probably due for a dud.
After Quantrill exited, the Braves added on another nine runs off the Texas bullpen. It took until Ben Peoples’ one batter outing to end the seventh for a Rangers hurler to make it through an appearance unscathed. He was the only one to do so out of five pitchers. For the final inning, the Rangers turned to Kyle Higashioka to be one of those pitchers. He allowed a home run to the first batter he faced and a couple more runs for good measure.
For a good while now, due to injuries and roster deficiencies, it hasn’t seemed like the Rangers were putting a team with much big league quality on the field each night. That’s why it’s been kind of funny to see them atop the AL West. They’d been getting away with it with some wins over the last month or so.
They did not get away with it tonight.
Player of the Game: So despite not exactly kicking down the door in the minors this year, Emiliano Teodo finally made his MLB debut tonight. On one hand, that’s cool for Teodo. On the other, he’s now sporting an 10.80 big league ERA and has been cursed to remember this particular game for the rest of his life.
Up Next: Good news! The All-Star break ends and the second half of the season begins with a brief two-game series with the Atlanta Braves. In the series opener, LHP MacKenzie Gore will take the bump for Texas opposite RHP Owen Murphy for Atlanta.
The Saturday afternoon first pitch from Truist Park is scheduled for 3:10 pm CDT and you can catch it wherever you get your Rangers Sports Network which has become increasingly difficult to discern.
