What is the story about?
Rangers
4, Guardians 2
- Another kind of weird win.
- Wyatt Langford on the injured list. Brandon Nimmo out of the lineup with an injury. Corey Seager in the lineup, only to be pinch hit for immediately because he couldn’t get his back loose.
- No problem, right?
- Jacob deGrom did his thing, despite allowing a two run homer to the third batter he faced.
- deGrom has allowed 16 homers this season. 8 of them have come in the first inning.
- Weirdly, he’s allowed 5 homers in the fourth inning.
- But while he has allowed only 6 runs, total, in the fourth inning despite allowing those 5 homers, deGrom has allowed 17 runs in the first inning of games this year. He’s allowed 20 runs in every other inning, total.
- I usually don’t buy the “you have to score runs on Pitcher X early or else you won’t score on him at all” cliche that announcers often use, but in the case of deGrom, it has been true this year.
- deGrom ended up going 7 innings, striking out 9 and not walking anyone. After allowing a Daniel Schneemann single to start the second, he retired the next 17 batters in a row. Schneemann broke the streak with another single and then stole second, which didn’t matter, because deGrom struck out Gabriel Arias to end the inning.
- With those nine strikeouts, deGrom passed Aaron Nola for 103rd on the all time strikeout list, with 1966, though Nola, who is just three Ks behind him, will likely move back ahead of him in Nola’s next start.
- Ahead of deGrom are Kenny Rogers (1968 Ks), Bob Welch (1969), Al Leiter (1974), Livan Hernandez (1976), and then John Clarkson and Ervin Santana (1978).
- Unusually, the Guardians were on deGrom’s slider — he got just 5 whiffs on 21 swings on his slider. However, he was blowing his fastball past them, getting 10 swings and misses on it.
- Peyton Gray and Jacob Latz handled the eighth and ninth, with Latz getting his 18th save of the season, putting him third in the A.L. in saves.
- deGrom going seven innings is also big in terms of getting most of the bullpen a day of rest, though Latz will likely be unavailable for the series finale on Wednesday after pitching two days in a row.
- The lineup, perhaps not surprisingly, didn’t put many baserunners on, but if you hit homers and time those homers well, you don’t necessarily need to have a lot of baserunners.
- Joc Pederson tied things up with a two run homer in the third after Nicky Lopez had singled.
- Josh Jung homered off of Shawn Armstrong in the eighth for the Rangers’ insurance run.
- Incidentally, Armstrong, whose departure caused such angst this offseason, has a 4.74 ERA and 4.73 FIP this year, with his walk rate almost doubling from 2025 and his home run rate more than doubling.
- Armstrong had a 4.86 ERA in 2024 and a 4.38 ERA in 2022, compared to a 2.31 ERA in 2025 and a 1.38 ERA in 2023. Maybe you should just sign him in odd numbered years.
- As for the third run…man, I’m reluctant to even talk about it, due to the secondhand embarrassment.
- Ezequiel Duran singled to start the seventh, and went to second on an Evan Carter U3 grounder that caused much discussion on the broadcast as to whether or not it should have been called a foul ball.
- Alejandro Osuna then hit a routine fly ball to left field. Cooper Ingle, playing in just his fourth major league game, made the catch.
- Then, apparently forgetting how many outs there were, he started trotting in, and threw the ball into the stands.
- That would have been fine if it was, as Ingle apparently thought, the third out. But since it was the second out, throwing the ball in the stands meant that Duran advanced two bases, scoring the go ahead run.
- The Rangers benefited from that play, but even so, I was cringing. I felt bad for Ingle. I was, honestly, relieved when Jung homered — I didn’t want that play to be the difference in the game.
- Ingle ended up striking out to end the game, as well. Honestly, I feel for that dude right now.
- That Osuna fly out was the only at bat the Rangers had with a runner in scoring position in the game. The Guardians had just two — Kyle Manzardo’s home run off of deGrom in the first inning, and the Arias strikeout after Schneemann stole second in the seventh.
- The win keeps the Rangers in first place in the A.L. West, a half game up on Seattle, two games up on Houston, and four games up on that team in Sacramento.
- Jacob deGrom hit 100.5 mph with his fastball, averaging 98.7 mph. Peyton Gray’s fastball topped out at 93.7 mph. Jacob Latz reached 96.4 mph with his fastball.
- Jake Burger had a 108.1 mph groundout. Evan Carter had a 104.0 mph fly out. Joc Pederson’s homer was 102.7 mph off the bat. Josh Jung’s homer was 101.0 mph.
- Nine down, one to go.
