The Texas Rangers scored three runs but the St. Louis Cardinals scored five runs.
The bad omens just kept piling up for the Rangers tonight and it ended with them losing for the first time in nearly a week as they saw their season-best five-game winning streak snapped in the finale from St. Louis.
Bad omen No. 1: The Rangers had scored in the first inning to take a lead in three of their five wins during the winning streak. Tonight, however, they trailed after one inning as the Cardinals got a two-out
RBI single that followed a glacial attempt at a potential inning-ending double play.
Bad omen No. 2: Tonight’s starter MacKenzie Gore walked two in the first inning and needed 30+ pitches to make it out of the first frame. In fact, Gore collected his fourth out overall tonight in the bottom of the second inning on pitch No. 41. Ten pitches per out is not what we’d call economical.
The left-hander had a string of solid outings to close out May but was first inefficient tonight and then, ultimately, pretty subpar as overall. Gore allowed four runs on nine hits with three walks over 4.2 innings which took him exactly 100 pitches to wade through.
Bad omen No. 3: The Cardinals kept scoring a run here and a run there throughout the night and it kept pushing Texas’ comeback chances further out of reach but the most frustrating thing was three of St. Louis’ five runs came with two outs. An extra out to squash even one of those rallies could have potentially changed Texas’ fate.
Bad omen No. 4: Despite being mired in a massive slump, former Rangers prospect Thomas Saggese collected two hits, including a triple that scored one of those two-out runs that eventually proved the difference.
All those bad markers layered throughout the game and, despite the winning streak, the Rangers still have a pretty thin margin for error on any given night. Texas got to within a couple of runs late but in the end they finally succumbed to a team from Missouri and now they’ll have to wait for another shot at returning to .500 ball.
Player of the Game: In lieu of a batter, of which no Rangers hitter had more than one hit tonight, how about 26-year old Robby Ahlstrom making his MLB debut tonight and tossing 1.1 innings of scoreless relief? The lefty struck out two Cardinals and didn’t allow a baserunner as he kept the game close after entering in the seventh.
Ahlstrom, who was drafted by the New York Yankees in 2021 but never actually suited up for any of their affiliates, was the second guy in the 2022 trade that sent Jose Trevino to New York. The Rangers have been all that Ahlstrom has known as a professional and after toiling in the Texas system for the last four seasons, he finally got the call earlier this week.
Congratulations, Robby!
Up Next: The Rangers return home to enjoy their first day off in two weeks before opening up a series at The Shed against the Cleveland Guardians beginning on Friday night.
