The Texas Rangers scored seven runs while the Toronto Blue Jays scored one run.
Last night’s loss felt deflating but the Rangers had another crack at a similar game with the stakes still elevated and they made sure to take advantage of the second chance by earning a big series-opening victory.
After getting the better of Sonny Gray before falling late to Boston yesterday, the Rangers were again tasked with taking on another of the league’s top starters with their own pitching setup in question. On
paper, you wouldn’t like the odds of Dylan Cease vs. Kumar Rocker for Texas. We’ve learned quite well that unless you’re like 65 years old and playing Strat-O-Matic, baseball isn’t played on paper.
Turns out, Cease was not at his best and the Rangers capitalized. Despite the fact that Cease has been perhaps the American League’s best non-Cam Schlittler pitcher this season, Texas saw a Cease that had reduced velocity and substandard control. It really is about when you face someone rather than who you are facing, ain’t it?
Despite coming in looking like a potential grim reaper for this season for Texas, Cease left after collecting just eight outs, which required 74 pitches. The AL strikeout leader K’d just three Rangers and walked six in his 2.2 innings of work. When he made his early retreat, it was 4-0 Rangers after Texas got to him for four runs (though only one earned) in the bottom of the second.
Similarly to how the Rangers tried to ambush Gray last night, small ball pressure was placed on Cease but he just kept walking guys so Skip Schumaker couldn’t even give away as many outs as he’d like.
Meanwhile, the Rangers got four comfortable innings out of Rocker before his control also abandoned him in the fifth. The Rangers have relied heavily on a shaky bullpen of late, and that bit them bad in last night’s late defeat. Considering the stakes, however, Texas couldn’t afford to let Rocker try to work his way through it and lifted him after just 4 1/3 innings and 76 pitches.
Unlike last night, the bullpen didn’t buckle thanks largely to a surprising, four-inning scoreless appearance from Trevor Williams. A latecomer to the ‘pen, Williams came on and pitched through the middle innings after Tyler Alexander cleaned up the final couple of outs following Rocker’s fifth inning flareup. Suddenly, with Williams still in the game, it became the late innings and he just kept getting outs until the Rangers had 27 of ‘em.
Another way in which the Rangers solved their issues from last night’s defeat is they didn’t take the foot off the gas. After scoring three runs in the first two innings in last night’s loss, they barely even got on base the rest of the way. Tonight, after scoring four runs in the second, the Rangers padded their lead with a run immediately following Toronto’s lone run in the fifth, and then another single run tally in both the sixth and eighth innings for a little extra insurance for Williams.
The victory helps the Rangers ascend back to the .500 mark with both the White Sox and Astros losing tonight to allow the Rangers to grab a game back off both teams ahead of them in the two avenues to October. The Rangers are again tied with Houston in the AL West (but without the tiebreaker advantage) and now a game back of Chicago for the final AL Wild Card spot. In addition, Toronto fell a game back of Texas in the Wild Card hunt.
Player of the Game: Other than Williams’ big night in relief, Wyatt Langford seemed like a pretty big thorn in Cease’s side as he drew three walks on the night, singled, scored twice, and drove in a run. In addition, Langford also reached via an error to reach base in each of his PAs this evening.
Also, shoutout to oft small ball whipping boy Nicky Lopez for also putting Cease through some tough battles and also coming up with some stellar defensive plays in the early goings when the game was still in question. Lopez
Up Next: The Rangers and Blue Jays are back at it tomorrow an hour earlier with staff ace Cal Quantrill set to take the bump for Texas opposite RHP Jose Soriano for Toronto.
The Saturday evening first pitch from The Shed is scheduled for 6:05 pm CDT and will aired on the Rangers Sports Network.
