When the Rangers aquired Dustin Nippert from the Diamondbacks at the tail end of spring training, most fans (myself included) were thinking WTF. This was not a name that made you think “Hey, let’s bring him in, he’s so much better than what we have”. His April performances were pretty godawful (6ER in 0.2IP in the first, and 8ER in 2.1IP a few appearances later). He was banished after that, not to appear again for awhile. The guy we saw in this game was nothing like the guy we saw earlier in the year. If THIS was the guy the Rangers thought they were trading for, then hell yeah – that was a decent move.
Granted, it’s just one game, but how can you not get excited about this? Seven innings pitched, ZERO runs scored, no walks, and seven hits and 99 pitches. It was quite the performance, and if this version of Dustin Nippert can be harnessed, this is a great pickup, if a bit delayed in results. OK, I’m a bit jazzed about this, but wow, it’s hard not to be. Was a great pitching performance.
The one run was a sac fly by Milton Bradley, his 74th of the season overall. It came in the first inning – and it held up. That’s the surprising thing. We don’t get 1-0 wins at home very often.
The bigger surprise was the lack of fans in the stadium. OK, it was a weekday 1:05 game. I work – I have just about zero chance for coming out for those (except opening day). But the announced attendance was 12,882, and from several local reports, it was way less than that. My thoughts on why so many empty seats have been chronicled a lot, so I won’t go into it here.
Still, 1-0 is exciting, even if hardly anybody witnessed it.