What is the story about?
Rangers
3, Guardians 2
- A win, that was.
- That was a win.
- Kumar Rocker started the game by giving up a homer to Travis Bazzana, because that’s sort of the Rangers’ thing now, giving up homers in the first inning, particularly to the leadoff batter.
- After that things went relatively smoothly for Rocker, though. He allowed another run in the fourth, and appeared primed to give up another run in the fifth when Bazzana tripled to lead off the inning, but Rocker worked out of that situation without allowing Bazzana to score.
- That ended up being a pretty important development, when it was all said and done.
- Rocker was fine, generally. He only went five innings, which isn’t ideal, due to a lack of pitch efficiency, which resulted in him needing 94 pitches to get through just 22 batters. He only generated 9 swings and misses, which is part of the reason for the lack of pitch efficiency.
- But we’ll take 2 runs in five innings from Rocker.
- Peyton Gray came in for Rocker to pitch the sixth and ended up getting his second major league win, by virtue of being in the game when the Rangers scored their runs and took the lead.
- Gray called pulled in favor of Jalen Beeks when Bazzana, who was a double shy of a cycle, came up with two outs in the seventh, Beeks struck out Bazzana, and there was rejoicing.
- Oddly, though, that was the only batter Beeks faced in the game. Jacob Latz came in to start the eighth for what ended up being a two inning save.
- There was a worrisome moment in the ninth, when, having walked Stuart Fairchild earlier with one out, Latz gave up a single to Austin Hedges, to put the tying run at second and go ahead run at first.
- Nails were being bitten, anxiety was rising, nervousness permeated the Shed. Were the Rangers going to blow it?
- They didn’t. Latz got a swinging K to end the game on his 35th pitch of the night.
- Hedges, incidentally, had two hits in the game. Bazzana had three hits. Steven Kwan had two hits. No other Guardian had a hit.
- That’s interesting, isn’t it?
- Maybe not.
- The Rangers’ offense didn’t do a whole lot, but they made it count.
- Kyle Higashioka broke up the shutout with a homer to lead off the sixth. Two batters later, Wyatt Langford doubled, and Corey Seager followed that up with a home run to give the Rangers a 3-2 lead.
- The only other hits all game came from Josh Jung, who had a pair of singles. There was only one walk drawn, by Ezequiel Duran.
- So just six baserunners for the Rangers in the whole game. But three of them scored. So it all worked out.
- The Higashioka homer, incidentally, was tracked at 428 feet by Statcast. That’s tied for the seventh longest ball hit at the Shed this year. 11 of the 13 longest balls hit at the Shed this year have come since the start of the Houston series.
- Kumar Rocker’s sinker touched 96.5 mph, averaging 95.2 mph. Peyton Gray hit 93.2 mph with his fastball. Jalen Beeks reached 94.2 mph with his fastball. Jacob Latz’s fastball topped out at 96.9 mph.
- Joc Pederson had a 109.8 mph groundout. Kyle Higashioka’s homer was 106.5 mph off the bat. Corey Seager’s homer had an exit velocity of 105.1 mph. Wyatt Langford had a 103.8 mph double. Ezequiel Duran had a 103.0 mph fly out.
- Next step…a return to .500.
