What is the story about?
Rangers
3, Mariners 2
- A big win for your First Place Texas Rangers.
- Yes, that’s right…with the Astros and Angels losing, the Rangers are currently alone in first place in the A.L. West, a half game above Houston and Anaheim.
- Also, weirdly, they have the third best record in the American League right now. The only other A.L. teams above .500 are the 8-2 Yankees and the 7-5 Guardians.
- The Rangers, having run through a bunch of relievers the day before, needed innings from Nathan Eovaldi. And Nathan Eovaldi gave the Rangers innings.
- Six of them, to be precise. Six rather good innings.
- The first pitch of the game didn’t go well, I must admit. Brendan Donovan took the first pitch out of the park.
- That said, he didn’t exactly crush the ball. With a 94 mph exit velocity and a 34 degree launch angle, its a ball that Statcast says turns into an out 95% of the time.
- Unfortunately, Eovaldi experienced the 5%, and the Rangers were immediately in a 1-0 hole.
- Eovaldi ended up allowing a pair of runs, the second coming on a single-wild pitch-walk-single sequence. Cal Raleigh’s RBI single came on an 0-2 pitch that he flared into center field. Raleigh didn’t hit it well, but he was able to muscle it into that no man’s land in the outfield where weakly hit flares fall for hits.
- Eovaldi had his stuff going on, though. Seven strikeouts in the game, and a whopping 22 swings and misses generated on 93 pitches. He relied heavily on his splitter and his cutter, using them almost a third of the time, and generated 8 whiffs apiece off of those two pitches.
- The Donovan homer was off his fastball, and maybe not surprisingly, Eovaldi threw that pitch just nine more times after that.
- Jacob and Jakob finished things off, with Latz providing two shutout innings and Junis allowing two baserunners to start the ninth, scaring everyone, before finishing things off and getting the save.
- The offense wasn’t good, generating just six hits and no walks, with two GIDPs to boot. George Kirby had the Rangers’ number once again.
- But they strung hits together when they needed to, all at the start of the fifth inning.
- Joc Pederson started things off with an infield single, advancing to second on a bad throw to first, and scored on Evan Carter’s single.
- Then Kyle Higashioka, who led off the third with a blast down the left field line that looked like it would be a homer, but which drifted maybe a foot foul, crushed a Kirby pitch into the left field seats for a home run. And just like that, it was a 3-2 Rangers lead.
- Kirby retired the next 12 Rangers hitters in order, but it ultimately didn’t matter, as the three runs the Rangers put up ended up being enough.
- Nathan Eovaldi topped out at 95.3 mph with his fastball, averaging 94.4 mph. Jacob Latz’s fastball maxed out at 94.4 mph. Jakob Junis hit 93.8 mph with his fastball.
- Kyle Higashioka’s homer was 107.1 mph. Brandon Nimmo had a 104.4 mph ground out. Wyatt Langford had a 102.6 mph ground out. Ezequiel Duran had a 102.2 mph ground out. Jake Burger had a 101.2 mph ground out. Evan Carter had a 100.5 mph single.
- Now to finish off a sweep on a Wednesday afternoon and head into the off day with us all being happy.
