What is the story about?
Dodgers
6, Rangers 3
- One batter into the game, things were looking good for the Rangers.
- Pretty quickly after that things stopped looking good.
- After looking very good in his first two outings of the season, Jack Leiter hit a speed bump in the first inning against the Dodgers.
- On the positive side, Leiter struck out the side swinging in the first. On the negative side, he allowed a solo home run to Shohei Ohtani to lead off the inning, a line drive single to Will Smith, a walk to Freddie Freeman, and a two out, three run homer to Teoscar Hernandez. The Teoscar bomb gave the Dodgers a 4-1 lead, which ended up being all the runs they would need in the game.
- That first inning cost Leiter 30 pitches. He had an 18 pitch second inning, a 28 pitch third inning which saw him load the bases on a single and a pair of walks (but give up just one run due to getting Hernandez to hit into a GIDP), and then needed 16 pitches to retire two of the three batters he faced in the fourth.
- 93 pitches to get 11 outs is not ideal.
- Tyler Alexander did good work to get the Rangers through the sixth, Robert Garcia threw a scoreless seventh despite issuing another walk, and Chris Martin gave up another run in his one inning of work.
- And the bats? Brandon Nimmo was 3 for 4 with a double and a pair of homers. The rest of the team was 1 for 27 with two walks.
- Texas did still manage to get the tying run to the plate with one out in the ninth thanks to a Corey Seager walk and Jake Burger reaching on an error. Andrew McCutchen struck out, though, and with Evan Carter due up, the Dodgers brought in lefty Alex Vesia.
- It was a rather unpleasant reminder of the problem that the Rangers find themselves in when Carter is due up in a big spot late. An opponent can bring in a lefty to face Carter, and Skip Schumaker either has to take his chances with Carter, who, as is well-documented, has been helpless against lefties in his career, or go to his bench.
- With Wyatt Langford unavailable due to his quad strain, the only hitter left on the bench was Danny Jansen. Schumaker went with Jansen, who struck out to end the game.
- Had the Rangers tied it up, Andrew McCutchen would have had to have gone from DH to the outfield, meaning the Rangers would have lost their DH spot. And the outfield would have been Sam Haggerty, Brandon Nimmo and Andrew McCutchen, which seems…less than ideal.
- Jack Leiter’s fastball maxed out at 98.6 mph, averaging 96.7 mph. Tyler Alexander reached 91.8 mph with his fastball. Robert Garcia touched 95.5 mph with his fastball. Chris Martin’s fastball reached 95.5 mph.
- Brandon Nimmo’s home runs were 105.7 mph and 105.5 mph. Josh Smith had a 104.4 mph ground out. Josh Jung had a 103.mph single. Evan Carter had a 101.5 mph ground out. Jake Burger had a 101. mph ground out.
- Let’s see if they can salvage the finale.
