The final series against the Astros in Houston as an interleague game got underway on Friday night. Right now, the Astros are a bad team. Probably will be for another year or so. It’s not like I expected the Rangers to win 17 or 18 to 3 each night, but I figured we’d handle ’em pretty easily. We did get the win, but it was a slightly odd pitching performance. Robbie Ross got the win, his fifth, but he didn’t start.
Ross came in during the fifth inning, when Feliz couldn’t get out of it. He was out of gas for sure, having thrown 101 pitches through 4.2 innings. The big key here is that Feliz gave up five walks in 4.2 innings. He did pretty good hit wise, only allowing 3. But the walks pretty much killed him. I’m writing this 3 days after the game, and it turned out he was hurt, as he went on the DL on Monday. Still, despite the shortened outing, he wasn’t awful – just one earned run. Way too many walks, but he was just one out away from qualifying for the win. Bummer.
Ross came in, pitched 2.1 innings, and got the win. He allowed just one hit during that time. Koji Uehara & Joe Nathan followed up, each with a perfect inning of relief. Nathan definitely appears to be back, the early season issues he was having appear to be gone. Which is good. If he falls apart, we have some big problems.
Offensively, we were led by Ian Kinsler, who went 3-5. Beltre & Young each had two hits, everyone else just the one. Adrian Beltre had a home run in the 7th – a mammoth home run. Was a total no doubter. Tom Grieve had said “Goodbye” before Beltre finished his swing. Was a mammoth shot over the arches in left center field. Don’t hit too many up there.
Additionally, Kinsler, Beltre, & Young each had doubles. Everything else was a single, so it was a nice mix of power and singles hitting.
Beltre had a good day, double, home run, sac fly.