The Texas Rangers didn’t score but the Cincinnati Reds scored two runs.
Kumar Rocker had a wait some tens days to make his season debut and he was immediately greeted with perhaps the worst defensive inning by the Rangers so far this season, and that includes a game in Philadelphia where a dropped easy popup nearly cost them a win.
After a ground out to start the evening, Rocker allowed a hard hit single off the bat of Matt McLain that Josh Jung couldn’t field with McLain moving to second on a wild
pitch. McLain scored the game’s first run when Elly De La Cruz dropped a broken bat single just beyond the reach of Corey Seager before he himself scored from first on a single to right field.
De La Cruz is one of the planet’s fastest humans, and he was moving on the pitch, but the sequence that saw him score seemed like a preventable play as right fielder Brandon Nimmo tossed the ball into second base as De La Cruz just never stopped running.
One batter later, Eugenio Suarez reached via an error by Josh Smith and the Rangers were lucky that the Reds didn’t add to their early 2-0 lead as Rocker got out of the inning with two outs on the next three pitches.
An infuriating start to the game only became an infuriating rest of the game as the leather-aided two runs proved all Cincinnati would need as their own fielders were all doing their best Roberto Clemente and Brooks Robinson impressions with solid plays all over the field to snuff out hard contact from Texas.
In the end, the poor defense cost the Rangers but they also scored zero runs and had a total of four hits. Welcome back to The Shed indeed.
Player of the Game: Despite the loss, Rocker allowed just the two first inning runs on six hits, a walk, and three strikeouts over five innings. While he was only given 80 pitches to work with after sitting around for basically two weeks, Rocker did well in his season debut.
A couple of things in particular that were encouraging about Rocker’s outing include the former first-rounder showing a solid changeup that was eliciting weak contact. And, after McLain reached third with no outs in the top of the 5th, following a single and an error on a steal attempt, Rocker buckled down and made some of his best pitches of the night to keep McLain stranded and keep Texas within bloop-and-blast territory.
Unfortunately, the blast never came and the Rangers have their first three-game losing streak of the season.
Up Next: The Rangers and Reds close out this series tomorrow with Texas hoping to avoid a sweep and with RHP Jack Leiter making his 2026 home debut opposite RHP Chase Burns for Cincy.
The Sunday afternoon first pitch from The Shed is scheduled for 1:35 pm CDT and will be aired on the Rangers Sports Network.
