Rangers 5, Brewers 4
- A one run win for Your Texas Rangers!
- And quite a tag-team effort from the bullpen, in relief of starter Jack Leiter.
- Leiter came very close to giving the Rangers five shutout innings, despite some issues in the first and second, and getting a W, as the Rangers were up 1-0 heading into the fifth. Leiter caught a pair of breaks in the inning, which started with Caleb Durbin barreling a ball that was tracked down in left center for the first out, and then say Joey Ortiz reach on an infield single.
- The first break was when Michael Helman made a leaping catch at the wall, robbing Brice Turang of what would have been a two run homer run. The second was on a Jackson Chourio ball deep into the right center field gap, as it bounded up and over the wall, meaning that instead of a run coming home, the Brewers had to settle for runners at second and third.
- The next pitch, Christian Yelich smoked a ball back up the middle and off of Leiter, for what appeared to be an opportunity for a 1-3 putout to end the inning. Leiter fumbled the ball trying to pick it up, however, and Yelich was safe, making it an RBI infield single and tying the score at 1. Yelich stole second — one of three stolen bases Leiter allowed — and thus both runners were able to score when William Contreras singled, giving Milwaukee a 3-1 lead and chasing Leiter.
- I am curious as to whether Bruce Bochy would have sent Leiter out for the sixth, had he retired Yelich. Leiter was at 86 pitches after the Yelich at bat, and wasn’t exactly dominating, generating just eight whiffs and allowing some loud contact, particularly in that fifth inning.
- But the Contreras single forced Bochy’s hand, resulting in the bullpen being asked to get 13 outs — something they did in a pretty nice fashion.
- Shoutout to Hoby Milner, given an opportunity to redeem himself after back-to-back three run outings. Milner got out of the inning by eliciting Sal Frelick to ground out, then retired the first two batters of the sixth before being lifted after allowing a two out single.
- Luis Curvelo, Robert Garcia, and Phil Maton handled things after that through the eighth inning. Shawn Armstrong made things more interesting than we’d have preferred, allowing a pinch hit solo homer and then a two out single, but a hard hit fly ball by Yelich was snagged by Helman to end the game, and allow everyone to leave the Shed happy.
- It was another game where the offense benefitted from sequencing more than battering the Milwaukee pitching staff. Cody Freeman gave the Rangers the lead with a one out RBI single in the second, though Alejandro Osuna was thrown out trying to advance to third on the play. I don’t blame Osuna for trying to advance — there was one out and it was a really good throw that got him — but it was one of those things that makes you think, hmmm, we may need that one run to hold up.
- And yeah, I was not feeling good about things when the Brewers put that three spot on the board in the fifth. The Rangers offense is still the Rangers offense, the Brewers pitching staff is still the Brewers pitching staff, and I was not real confident about the Rangers scoring several more runs. It wasn’t like I was expecting another big Michael Helman fifth inning home run or anything like that.
- So of course we got a big Michael Helman fifth inning home run. In a remarkable parallel, the Rangers scored four runs in the fifth inning for the second game in a row, and Helman homered in the fifth inning for the second game in a row. It was only a two run homer, not a grand slam, but you know, let’s not nitpick, okay?
- The Helman homer came right after a Jonah Heim one out seven pitch walk which, if I remember correctly, which I very well may not, came right after David Murphy talked about how much he liked Brewers starter Chad Patrick. Patrick was replaced by Aaron Ashby, who I was not familiar with because I don’t know what goes on in Milwaukee and don’t pay attention to the Brewers, but who I assumed was related to either Alan Ashby or Andy Ashby, but who apparently isn’t.
- Ashby allowed a single to Josh Smith, a triple to Wyatt Langford, and a double to pinch hitter Kyle Higashioka, who came in for Joc Pederson because Ashby is apparently lefthanded, which gave the Rangers their four run inning and made it 5-3.
- I felt better after that, for some reason. I guess because it was a 5-3 Rangers lead rather than a 3-1 Rangers deficit.
- The offense decided to save the rest of their scoring for another day after that, picking up just a single and a walk in the 3.2 innings after the Higashioka double, and really, that’s probably for the best. The Rangers have been scoring too many runs in blowouts this year — they are 25-14 in blowouts, and have outscored their opponents in those games by 89 runs — and so we need to spread those runs out a little more.
- The win brought the Rangers to within 2.5 games of the Houston Astros, who took a 3-1 lead into the ninth inning in Toronto, only to see our old pal Bryan Abreu blow the save by allowing a two run single to our old pal Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and then see our old pal Craig Kimbrel allow the Zombie Runner to score in the tenth.
- The Mariners won, and are now a game behind the Astros in the West. Texas is a game and a half behind Seattle, though they are effectively three games back in the loss column given Seattle has the tiebreaker over Texas. Texas is three games back of Houston in the loss column, and if they win one of their three remaining games against the Astros they will have the tiebreaker against Houston. Of course, if they don’t win any of their three remaining games against the Astros, the tiebreaker likely won’t matter because Texas will almost certainly finish behind Houston.
- The Red Sox won and the Yankees lost, so Texas five games back of both of those teams in the Wild Card race. Running either of those teams down is pretty unlikely, but Texas does hold the tiebreaker against them both, so if either of them goes into a freefall, that could be relevant.
- Jack Leiter hit 97.9 mph with his fastball, averaging 96.1 mph. Hoby Milner’s fastball reached 89.0 mph. Luis Curvelo touched 95.6 mph with his fastball. Robert Garcia’s fastball topped out at 96.1 mph. Phil Maton reached 90.3 mph with his sinker. Shawn Armstrong maxed out at 94.8 mph with his fastball.
- Jake Burger had a 110.9 mph ground out. Alejandro Osuna had a 107.0 mph ground out. Wyatt Langford had a 106.4 mph triple and a 103.2 mph fly out. Michael Helman had a 101.5 mph home run. Jonah Heim had a 100.9 mph single.
- Now let’s finish off the sweep on Wednesday afternoon and head into the off day on a high note.
