What is the story about?
Rangers
4, Rays 1
- The road trip is off to a good start.
- Cal Quantrill went out there and outdueled Griffin Jax, who is a member of the Star Wars Name All Stars.
- Quantrill had seven strikeouts in the game. Seven! That’s 18% of his season total.
- He allowed just two hits in 5.1 innings! And just one walk!
- Yeah, I have a hard time believing it, too.
- The one time he got into trouble was in the bottom of the fourth inning, when he allowed a one out single to Jonathan Aranda, followed by a Junior Caminero double.
- Cedric Mullins then swung at a pitch, very clearly hit catcher Austin Wynns’ glove, and ended up reaching on a catcher’s interference.
- However…Mullins didn’t run to first on the play. If he had, he probably would have been safe, and a run would have scored, since you can simply take the result of the play rather than the catcher’s inference go-to-first result.
- Still, that loaded the bases, and bad things seemed to likely to take place. Texas, which was up 2-0 at the time, seemed in great danger of losing the lead.
- Chandler Simpson hit a comebacker, though, resulting in the always fun 1-2-3 GIDP, which ended the inning.
- In case you are interested, that was the third catcher’s interference this season by a Ranger catcher.
- The one run Quantrill allowed — and that the Rays scored — was the result of the one walk he issued, to Yandy Diaz. Diaz was the last batter he faced. Peyton Gray entered the game and, after a 1-3 groundout that saw Diaz advance to second, he gave up a single to Caminero.
- Well, it should be scored a single, but officially it was scored a triple. Wyatt Langford went for the ball like he thought he could try to make a play on it, went into a slide, and didn’t come close to catching it, with the ball bounding past him and having to be tracked down by Evan Carter.
- Still, Caminero was stranded, so no harm done, and Tyler Alexander, Jakob Junis and Jacob Latz each threw an inning to finish out the win with just the one Rays tally on the board.
- The Rangers bats weren’t exactly beating up on the Rays pitchers, but they scraped together some runs somehow. A couple of sac flies, an RBI single, an Austin Wynns home run that was down the left field line and just deep enough to get out.
- Wynns also had a couple of successful ABS challenges. Between those and the home run, he made up for the catcher’s interference.
- Fun fact: per Statcast, the Rangers had a .129 xBA in the game. With 31 at bats in the game, that equates to 3.999 hits, on average.
- Though we can probably round it up to 4.
- The Rangers registered 7 hits in the game, exceeding their expected total, which is pleasant.
- I thought it would be the Rangers’ lowest xBA in a game this season, but it is not.
- The Rangers had a .107 xBA in this game, a 2-1 walkoff loss in Anaheim where Jake Burger’s home run accounted for the only run, and Reid Detmers struck out 14 batters and allowed just the Burger hit in eight innings of work. The Rangers had three hits in the game.
- The Rangers had a .106 xBA in this game. It was also against the Angels, but at home, in an 11-1 loss, where Kyle Higashioka’s pinch hit eighth inning home run was the only Rangers run. The Rangers, weirdly, also struck out 14 times in this game, and also had just three hits. More weirdly, Alejandro Osuna recorded one hit in both this game and the Detmers 14 K game.
- The Rangers did not lose this game, unlike those other two matches discussed above. So that’s a difference.
- Cal Quantrill topped out at 95.4 mph with his fastball, averaging 93.7 mph. Peyton Gray reached 95.3 mph with his fastball. Tyler Alexander touched 93.2 mph with his fastball. Jakob Junis’s sinker maxed out at 93.5 mph. Jacob Latz hit 95.3 mph with his fastball.
- Wyatt Langford had a double that was 107.0 mph off the bat. Joc Pederson had a 105.7 mph single. Nicky Lopez had a 104.7 mph groundout.
- One down, five to go.
