What is the story about?
Rangers
3, Blue Jays 2
- Herbie brought his passport.
- And I will remind you that every time the Texas Rangers have won the World Series, they have swept a four game series in Toronto that season.
- In what has been a recurring theme in this series, Texas took an early lead, had to deal with some bullpen shenanigans late, but still managed to pull it out.
- Fun fact…by my count, there were exactly 15 plate appearances in this series where the game was tied. In every other plate appearance in this series, the Blue Jays were trailing.
- With one out in the eighth inning of this game, Vlad Guerrero, Jr. lined out, and then Kazuma Okamoto grounded out. Those were the only two plate appearances Jays hitters had in the series when Toronto wasn’t losing.
- Kumar Rocker started the game by allowing a pair of singles, and the cries of dismay over Skip Schumaker not going with an opener, as he has in what have been arguably Rocker’s two best outings of the season, could be heard all around.
- The Jays only recorded two more hits off of Rocker after that, though, with Rocker ultimately going six shutout innings.
- After Rocker got out of the first, the only difficulty he really faced came in the bottom of the fifth. With two outs, Andres Gimenez fisted a single into left, then Corey Seager made a bad throw to first on what should have been an easy 6-3 grounder by George Springer to end the inning. Exacerbating things, Elias Diaz followed that up by throwing behind Gimenez at second during Nathan Lukes’ ensuing plate appearance, but hit him on the helmet with the throw, resulting in the runners being allowed to advance.
- Rocker got Lukes swinging to end the inning, however, and had a nice 1-2-3 sixth to end his day.
- 16 swings and misses for Rocker, including 8 out of 16 swings on his slider. Rocker also got 5 whiffs on 9 swings on his fastball, which normally isn’t a big swing-and-miss pitch for him.
- The Rangers needed length from Rocker, since Jakob Junis and Jacob Latz were unavailable after pitching two straight days on Thursday and Friday, Robby Ahlstrom was unavailable after pitching two straight days on Friday and Saturday, and Joe Ross and Peyton Gray were unavailable after throwing 29 and 39 pitches, respectively, on Saturday.
- That left Cole Winn, Tyler Alexander (who threw 15 pitches on Saturday), and Winston Santos, who has never pitched in a major league game, available from the pen.
- Winn handled the seventh, struck out Gimenez looking, allowed a single to Springer, then gave up a bomb on a hanging slider to Lukes.
- At that point, I thought we were facing defeat. And what a vexing defeat it would have been.
- Joc Pederson homered to lead off the game, leading to hopes that the Rangers would do damage off of Shane “Big Brown” Bieber, who was making just his second start of the year and who wasn’t effective in his first outing.
- Texas loaded the bases with one out against Bieber in the first, but a bad swing decision by Ezequiel Duran on a 2-0 pitch he shouldn’t have swung at led to a 5-2 fielder’s choice for the second out, and Evan Carter struck out swinging to end the inning.
- Again, something that has seemed to happen a fair amount in this series.
- The Rangers had the bases loaded with one out again in the sixth, and actually got a run home on a Elias Diaz single, but Alejandro Osuna followed it up with a hard hit ball to first that turned into a 3-2-3 GIDP.
- The Rangers had some bad luck on balls in play in this game — especially Osuna. Osuna had three balls in play in the game, with xBAs of .470, .470 and .530. They resulted in a pair of double plays and a line out.
- The luck dragons owe Osuna one here.
- The home plate umpire also seemed to have a particularly bad strike zone, as well, with the Jays successfully challenging four pitches. The Rangers had several pitches that looked challengeable, but after Diaz unsuccessfully challenged a ball call in the bottom of the first, Texas didn’t challenge the rest of the way, no doubt in part wanting to save their lone remaining challenge for a key late game situation.
- It had all the hallmarks of a gut punch lost, a game slipping away due to circumstances and misfortune.
- And if the Rangers were going to win, they were going to need Winn to get out of the eighth, and then likely have someone throw a scoreless ninth, because the Rangers were unlikely to score off of Jays reliever Louis Varland.
- Varland has been the second best reliever in baseball this year (no one is touching Mason Miller, who has an insane 0.37 FIP to go with his 0.79 ERA and 1.21 xERA). Varland took over the closer role in late-April. Coming into the game, he had allowed 4 earned runs on the season, and was sporting an 0.82 ERA, 1.94 xERA and 1.54 FIP.
- Varland struck out Alejandro Osuna and Joc Pederson to start the ninth, and with Winston Santos and Tyler Alexander warming, I assumed that Santos was coming into the game unless the Rangers took the lead. Such thought was not encouraging.
- But Josh Jung laced a slider down — but not down enough — into the opposite field gap for a double. Jarred Kelenic, the only non-catcher left on the bench after Justin Foscue hit for Evan Carter in the top of the sixth (awfully early, though with one out and two on in a one run game, it was a big spot, but still…) and then Lopez replaced Foscue, pinch ran for Jung.
- Sometimes fortune smiles upon you at the most unexpected time.
- Such it was here when the first pitch from Varland to Corey Seager went about 55 feet, bounced up and off of Alejandro Kirk, and caromed all the way back to the netting on the base side of home plate. Kelenic, running all the way, made it home easily from second, and the Rangers, unexpectedly, miraculously, had the lead:
- Tyler Alexander, summoned to handle a save situation for the second day in a row, had an uneventful ninth.
- And just like that, the Texas Rangers swept the series, had a four game winning streak, and guaranteed themselves no worse than a .500 road trip.
- When the road trip started, I felt that .500, on three city trip with ten games in ten days, would be a successful road trip. After that, the Rangers would have just 31 road games remaining, compared to 44 home games. Split the road trip, play well on the nine game home stand leading into the All Star Break, and let’s go from there.
- With three games in Cleveland coming up now, a .500 road trip would feel like a letdown.
- The Rangers are also in sole possession of first place as result of the Mariners losing. This is the first time the Rangers have been in first place since April 25, and the first time they’ve been in sole possession of first place since April 17.
- Kumar Rocker touched 96.8 mph with his sinker, averaging 94.5 mph. Cole Winn maxed out at 95.9 mph with his fastball. Tyler Alexander’s fastball topped out at 92.6 mph.
- Joc Pederson’s home run was 108.9 mph. Ezequiel Duran had a 106.7 mph single. Jake Burger had a 105.1 mph groundout. Josh Jung had a 104.4 mph single, a 102.0 mph double and a 100.5 mph fly out. Elias Diaz had a 102.2 mph single. Alejandro Osuna hit into a double play on a ball with a 100.8 mph exit velocity.
- Seven down, three to go.
