What is the story about?
Rangers
5, Dodgers 2
- And the Rangers take the finale.
- For the second straight game, Jacob deGrom gave up a first inning home run, and then didn’t allow any more runs the rest of the way.
- The previous time out, the homer was by the second batter of the game. This time, it was to the first batter of the game. Maybe next time, deGrom will give up a homer to the zeroth batter of the game, maybe in some sort of closed timelike curve, and shatter the laws of physics.
- The home run last time out was to Cal Raleigh. The homer in this game was to Shohei Ohtani. I guess if you’re going to give up first inning homers, at least you want to give them up to guys who are legit.
- Things were more or less under control for deGrom after the Ohtani homer that started the game. The Dodgers had runners on first and second with one out in the third, but deGrom got Kyle Tucker to strike out, and then, with Andy Pages up, there was a mix-up on the bases, with Shohei Ohtani, who was on first, thinking that Alex Call, on second, was headed to third on an 0-2 pitch called for a ball. Call wasn’t going, though, until Ohtani heading to second meant that he had to run, and the result was a TOOTBLAN to end the inning.
- Call and Ohtani ended up on first and second with two outs in the fifth, and Call went to third on a wild pitch, but Tucker once again struck out, and that was that.
- DeGrom generated 15 swings and misses in the game — six on the fastball, five on the slider, four on the change.
- DeGrom went six innings, picking up a Quality Start and keeping the bullpen from having to carry to heavy a load after Jack Leiter left in the fourth inning the previous night.
- Just a really nice outing from deGrom overall.
- Skip Schumaker went to Jacob Latz for the seventh, likely hoping to neutralize the Dodgers’ lefty-heavy lineup while getting a couple of innings from Latz. Latz ended up retiring just two of the five batters he faced, getting pulled for Cole Winn with a run in and a pair of runners on base. Winn fell behind Pages 2-0 before getting him to pop up to shortstop — with all three outs in the inning coming on pop ups to shortstop.
- Speaking of pop ups to shortstop…one of the four hits deGrom allowed came in the sixth inning, when Freddie Freeman hit a routine pop up to the left side of the infield. Josh Jung appeared, on the broadcast, to have been calling it, but then stepped away, apparently expecting Seager to catch it. Seager though Jung was going to catch it, and the result was a single.
- Per Statcast, that single was on a ball with an expected batting average of .000.
- Winn got out of the 8th, though he was not sharp — in all on the day, he threw 12 balls and 9 strikes. Winn walked Alex Freeland with two outs in the eighth, fell behind Dalton Rushing 3-1, got a strike swinging, and then threw a fastball that was called a ball.
- Good thing there’s ABS this year. Danny Jansen challenged the pitch, which was shown to clearly be in the strike zone, and instead of two on and two out with the tying run coming to the plate, Winn was out of the inning.
- Jansen challenged five pitches in all, with four of them being overturned. The final one was on a 1-2 pitch to Alex Call, who led off the ninth against Jakob Junis. The call was overturned, and Call was called out. Junis walked pinch hitter Will Smith on four pitches to alarm us all, but he struck out Ohtani swinging and, after falling behind Tucker 3-0, induced a 3-2 easy fly to end the game.
- The offense showed up, which was good, though there were definitely a lot of opportunities missed in the game.
- Texas picked up 10 hits and 10 walks in all, and you’d definitely expect more than five runs to come from that.
- Unfortunately, Texas hit into two double plays, had a caught stealing, and were 2 for 14 with runners in scoring position.
- Still, everyone had a hit except for Corey Seager, who drew a walk, and Danny Jansen, who drew three walks. Evan Carter homered, Josh Jung was 2 for 3 with two walks and a double, and Brandon Nimmo had a pair of hits.
- The win means that the Rangers remain in a tie in the American League West with the Athletics.
- Jacob deGrom’s fastball topped out at 98.6 mph, averaging 97.2 mph. Jacob Latz touched 95.4 mph with his fastball. Cole Winn’s fastball hit 96.1 mph. Jakob Junis’s sinker maxed out at 92.8 mph.
- Brandon Nimmo had a 104.4 mph single. Evan Carter had a 101.7 mph home run. Josh Jung had a 101.4 mph double.
- On to wherever it is that the Athletics play.
