What is the story about?
Rangers
9, Royals 1
- The Rangers won!
- Yeah!
- Woo-hoo!
- And they won by a lot!
- Look, I know that last time they won by scoring a bunch of runs, we thought that things were on the upswing, and then Texas lost their next two. But this time its going to be different.
- Let’s “power of positive thinking” them on a win streak!
- If we all set our minds to it, I bet we can do it!
- MacKenzie Gore recorded a Quality Start, throwing 6.1 shutout innings.
- There have been games this season where we have talked about a pitcher pitching better than the results indicated. This was kind of the other way around.
- Gore threw strikes for most of the game — he hit one batter and allowed one walk, and those happened with the final two batters he faced.
- He wasn’t missing bats, though, putting up just three strikeouts and getting just seven swings and misses. Gore gave up a lot of loud contact to the Royals hitters, and was somewhat fortunate to allow just four hits to the 24 batters he faced.
- The only real trouble he got into was in the first, when a two out single was followed up by a double that was too hard hit to bring the runner home from first. A ground out ended the inning.
- The first inning could have gone a lot worse — the Starling Marte ground ball for the third out was 102.1 mph off the bat, and was still the softest hit ball of the inning.
- Bobby Witt Jr. crushed a line drive to dead center that Evan Carter made a very nice running catch on for the second out. Let’s give some partial credit to Carter for keeping a 0 on the board in the first.
- After the potentially scary first, the Royals banged balls less bangily against Gore, and when they did hit it hard it tended to be at a defender or a ball where a defender could make a quality play, such as Kyle Isbel’s line drive back up the middle in the third that Ezequiel Duran made a great leaping grab of.
- So we are glad of that.
- Tyler Alexander came in for Gore with one out in the seventh after the HBP-walk sequence and needed just three pitches to get out of the inning, thanks to a 6-4-3 GIDP. Jalen Beeks handled a scoreless eighth before Gavin Collyer pitched the ninth, allowing a run to end the shutout.
- We have talked before about Collyer’s ability to pitch in the majors being dependent on his ability to throw strikes. Collyer walked the first two batters he faced in the ninth.
- Collyer now has issued 11 unintentional walks and hit four batters this season. He’s struck out 15 batters.
- When you are allowing as many batters on base via walk and HBP as you are striking out, that’s a problem.
- When you walk the first two batters you face when you have a 9-0 lead, that’s also a problem.
- You may recall a couple of weeks ago, the Rangers brought Collyer in to close out a 7-1 game and he walked the first three batters he faced, and ultimately got pulled for Jacob Latz without retiring a batter.
- Not throwing strikes when you are closing out a blowout is the type of thing that makes you fall out of a manager’s tree of trust pretty quickly.
- Still, Collyer finished things out, and recorded a pair of Ks in the process.
- The offense scored a bunch of runs, so that was fun.
- Four came in the first inning, and as a general rule, when you score four runs in the first, your chances of winning go up.
- Let’s do a compare and contrast. The Royals had a runner on first and two outs in the top of the first inning, had a two out double, held the runner at third base, and then saw the inning end on a groundout.
- The Rangers had a runner on first and two outs in the bottom of the first inning, had a two out double, held the runner at third base, then had Ezequiel Duran single home the two runners.
- What we can learn from that is that it is better to get a hit with two outs and runners on second and third than to make an out. You might want to right that down.
- Clownball from the Royals brought home two more runs, due to an E4 on an Alejandro Osuna grounder that allowed Duran to score, then Salvador Perez throwing the ball into center field on an attempted Osuna steal of second base, which allowed Evan Carter, who had doubled after Duran had singled, to score from third.
- Stephen Kolek, the Royals starter, retired 11 of the next 12 batters, reminding us of the 10-7 win against the Astros where the snowman in the first was followed by batters being mowed down until the late innings.
- A Josh Jung double and Brandon Nimmo homer in the fifth busted that up, though, and added some additional breathing room.
- Continuing our theme of “the Rangers have de-nerfed the Shed,” Nimmo’s homer went 435 feet, per Statcast. It is the farthest that a Ranger has hit a ball this season at the Shed. It is the fifth farthest that anyone has hit a ball this season at the Shed, with the four ahead of the Nimmo homer all coming earlier this week in the Houston series.
- Eight of the nine longest balls in play at the Shed this season, and 10 of the 13 longest, have come this week.
- Joc Pederson also homered for the Rangers, as did offensive catalyst Nicky Lopez. Lopez’s homer was his first hit for the Rangers. Neither of those homered went super-far, and the Pederson homer was down the line in right field and barely made it over the wall, but they still count.
- Pederson is now slashing .244/.356/.437, and has a 136 OPS+. That’s the third best OPS+ on the team, behind Jung and Duran.
- MacKenzie Gore hit 96.7 mph with his fastball, averaging 95.0 mph. Tyler Alexander’s fastest pitch was an 85.0 mph changeup. Jalen Beeks hit 94.1 mph on his fastball. Gavin Collyer reached 99.0 mph on his fastball.
- Jake Burger had a 108.8 mph double. Brandon Nimmo had a 108.1 mph home run and a 100.7 mph home run. Nicky Lopez had a 101.7 mph home run.
- Let us see if the Rangers can keep the vibe going over the weekend.
