Season Record: 8-7
Week Record: 4-2
Series Record: 3-2
GAME 10: 2-1 WIN VS SEATTLE MARINERS
GAME 11: 3-2 WIN VS SEATTLE MARINERS
GAME 12: 3-0 WIN VS SEATTLE MARINERS
GAME 13: 7-8 LOSS @ LOS ANGELES DODGERS
GAME 14: 3-6 LOSS @ LOS ANGELES DODGERS
GAME 15: 5-2 WIN @ LOS ANGELES DODGERS
The Rangers had a much better week with a sweep of the Mariners at home and preventing a sweep by the Dodgers on the road.
As I said last week while it’s too early to really scoreboard watch, it should be noted the Rangers are back on top of the division (tied with the Ahtletics who they start a four game series against tonight.) while Seattle just completed a four game sweep of the Houston Astros who are on an eight game losing streak and now in last place in the west.
Texas was still swing happy,
especially against the Dodgers, but in Sunday’s game they also showed patience, walking 10 times. A good takeaway from the Dodgers series, other than them not getting swept, is all three games were fairly close. The back-to-back reigning World Series champs didn’t blow the Rangers out of the water and with Texas now three games into a 10-game-in-10-days roadtrip, taking one of three feels good.
The other takeaway I got from Sunday’s game was the Rangers use of ABS challenges. They don’t seem to be very confident to challenge as hitters, however on Sunday, Danny Jansen challenged five times and won four of them. Before that, the Rangers only had six challenges as fielders. Three of the challenges changed the outcome of the at-bat to a strikeout.
It’ll be interesting to see if Jansen just had an excellent understanding of the strike zone in this particular game, he also walked three times, or if this is just the beginning of seeing Jansen’s confidence throughout the season and the bigger influence he can have behind the plate.
I’m going to go ahead and knock on wood before I say this next observation. *pause to knock* Texas seems to have a new closer in Jakob Junis. This week he had three save opportunities and and got all three, two against Seattle and Sunday’s win against the Dodgers. In those three innings, he’s walked one and hit a batter but he has yet to allow a hit.
It’ll be interesting to see if Skip continues to use him as a closer (I don’t know why he wouldn’t because why mess with something that’s working) or if this is a move for the time being to get Chris Martin and Robert Garcia in less high leverage situations, get more confidence, and then move them back to later innings.
Before this week, Junis has two saves in seven opportunities in his career.
