Road Trip Turning Suddenly Disastrous for Rangers

by user ASwaff

Game 114
Rangers 6
Athletics 7
56-58 (-6.5)

After a promising beginning to a crucial road trip that saw the Texas Rangers win their first two game in Anaheim, the wheels have suddenly fallen off the bus for Texas. They have lost four straight to fall back to two games below .500. A team that just a few days ago was in third place and three games behind the Oakland Athletics has fallen back into a fourth place tie with the Seattle Mariners, 6.5 games behind first place. It would sure be nice to place all of the blame on the pitching, as opponents have scored 33 runs against the Rangers in the last four games, but the truth is that no aspect of the game has really been there for them the last few days.

In the last three games, the Rangers have committed five errors, including two tonight by the normally sure-handed third baseman Hank Blalock. Those errors bring his season total to 11, already tying the number of errors he had last year in 55 more games. The other error tonight was by Ian Kinsler, also giving him his 11th on the season in just 73 games.

But, as with the previous four games, tonight’s biggest story wasn’t the offense or the defense, it was still the pitching. Kevin Millwood, who’s been nails on the road this season, got nailed for five earned runs in six innings pitched tonight. Four of the runs came during the fourth inning, when Nick Swisher hit a three run homer that was followed up by a Jay Payton long ball. I don’t know about you, but their back-to-back work conjured horrible images in my mind of the Vicente Padilla debacle against this very team on April 15th.

Of course that breakout inning came in response to Texas’ four run third inning that chased rookie pitcher Shane Komine from the game. Texas scored their four runs on a pair of two-run dingers from Michael Young and Mark DeRosa. They appeared to be on their way to a blowout, but A’s relievers Kirk Saarloos, Ron Flores and Chad Gaudin kept the Rangers from scoring again until the ninth inning.

For the record, waiting until being down 7-4 in the ninth inning to start a comeback against this team’s bullpen is a bad strategy. The Rangers started to get something going in the ninth by scoring two runs off closer Huston Street to cut Oakland’s lead to one. But, with a runner on first and one out, Oakland got an incredibly unconvential double play to end the game. DeRosa struck out swinging, and then got pinch-runner Jerry Hairston called out at first on batter’s interference to give Street his 26th save of the season.

Call it a lucky break for the A’s, but that’s how things go sometimes when you’re hot like they are; and that’s how things go sometime’s when you’re cold like the Rangers are.

The big offensive performer of the night for the Rangers was Young, who went 3-5 with a homerun, two runs and two RBI. The Rangers will have to work again on that timely hitting and try to avoid losing games where they outhit opponents 12-6, like they did tonight.

I’d like to give an optimistic forecast for the Rangers, but the trip to Oakland closes out tomorrow with Vicente Padilla going against Barry Zito in an afternoon game (2:35 CST). There are two bits of good news and one bit of bad news about this matchup (not including the fact that the Rangers have been getting whomped lately, and have lost four straight games). The first bit of good news is that Padilla has been the Rangers’ hottest pitcher lately, going 6-3 with a 3.47 ERA in his last 11 starts. The bad news is that Zito has been on fire since his dreadful April, going 11-5 with a 2.99 ERA. The other good news is that the stats for these two pitchers basically make the matchup even. Padilla is 1-1 with a 5.40 ERA in three starts against Oakland, and Zito is 1-0 with a 5.40 ERA in two starts against Texas.

You know the Rangers would like to have at least a bit of momentum going into their easiest series on this road trip agains the Seattle Mariners. If they don’t get things going tomorrow and finish this road trip in winning fashion, they will find themselves in a position that would charitably be described as highly unfavorable. Truthfully, they’d find themselves in the cellar without much chance of getting out.

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Date

Tue 08/08/06, 11:04 pm EST