The Rangers finally dropped a game. We all knew there wasn’t going to be a 162-0 season. I’d say it’s a safe bet we weren’t going 120-42 either. We’re losing a bunch, so it might as well be to a team that’s started the season as hot as we did. I just didn’t think we’d lose quite so convincingly.
Sometimes when you lose, and you know you’re gonna lose, it’s a game with a score like 22-1 or something like that. This was different. We only lost 5-0, but it felt like more. That was mostly due to the Orioles starter Zach Britton. Much has been written about how Showalter has turned around the Orioles. But even the best manager of all time can’t do jack if his players don’t play. We keep hearing about how Baltimore has a bunch of young arms, and we ran into one in the first game of the doubleheader on Saturday afternoon. Britton looked great. Kept us off balance, and while he didn’t punch out a lot of guys, we never got much going. We had just five hits in all. Four of them off Britton, and never more than one in an inning. In fact, it took till the 8th inning for us to get two guys on at the same time. Despite our futility, we had the first ban on multiple innings, but had three of them wiped out by double play. Was a great team effort there. Britton was lifted after 7.2 innings when he allowed two men on base for the first time. He had thrown 103 pitches at this point, and I thought was still looking good, but Showalter must have seen something. He got a nice standing O by the O’s fans there, so that was good to see, even though it was at the Rangers expense. Britton’s season ERA after this game was 0.66. Quite nice. He’s 2-0 now, too.
Colby Lewis was far more pedestrian. Six innings, six hits, one walk, but two home runs. That accounted for the four earned runs he allowed (one unearned, too). He wasnt’ awful, but wasn’t going to scare anyone this night.
Mason Tobin pitched the final two innings, and was pretty good. Two innings, just one hit and a walk. 21 pitches to seven batters total. Good appearance there for sure.
The Rangers streak of not playing the bottom of the ninth continues. Seven games in, and we still haven’t needed that. See what happens when they play the bottom of the ninth in the final exhibition game, and they didn’t have to? :)
So much for repeating the 30-3 score in the first game of the last doubleheader played in Baltimore. :)