Well, I had forgotten this was on, and I was starting work. When I realized I missed the start of the game, I put on the MLB Gameday app, as this was one of those “no broadcast” games during the spring. Well, it was being broadcast by the Kansas City broadcasters, and after having listened to them a few times in the past couple of years, I decided to go no audio and have the game on MLB Gameday only. I thought I would have missed a lot more than I did, but then I saw what happened early…
Turned on the game in the bottom of the first, and we were down 4-0 already. Yeah, yeah, third game of the spring, you never want to see your 18 game winner start off giving up four runs in the first, and exiting the game with an ERA of 36.00. Matt had FORTY pitched in the first inning, which was his only inning on the hill. I expect they wanted more out of him than that. Still, it is early, and a quick exit likes that gives some other guys a chance for a inning or so.
Matt was seriously outpitched by former Ranger Luis Mendoza, who went FOUR innings – unheard of for game 3 of the spring. He went four innings, throwing 66 pitches, allowed four hits, a walk, and one run. From the linescore here, he looked pretty good – especially for first outing of the spring.
The rest of the Rangers pitching (eight pitchers total, including Harrison) was mostly decent. The only pitcher to throw more than a single inning was a guy by the name of Nick Tepesch. He did pretty good. Two innings, just one hit and three strikeouts. The other guys all pitched one frame, and Neal Cotts, Josh Lindblom, & Yonata Ortega gave up a run in their innings. Burns, Tateyama, and Nate Robertson had shutout frames. If you take Harrison out of the equation, we did pretty decently. But still, it’s early enough not to be really worried about it.
Offensively, the Rangers put together 10 hits in all, with a healthy percentage of power. They had three doubles (Julio Borbon, Eli Whiteside, & Aaron Cunningham. Leonys Martin had a triple, and Leury Garcia homered, so 50% of the hits were extra base hits. Always nice to see that. The Rangers did actually tie the game 5-5 in the bottom of the sixth, but then gave up single runs in the 8th & 9th to the Royals, to clinch the loss.
That makes ups 0-2-1 in the early going in spring. Still waiting on the first W.