Two full days of no baseball … and then this? Thanks to last night's rainout, the Rangers and Orioles played a double dip today. I hope the second half is more inspiring than the first.
Colby Lewis didn't seem to have it together at all. In six innings, he gave up five runs on six hits. I barely noticed that he struck out four because there was so much ugliness surrounding them. One of the runs was unearned due to a fielding error by Mike Napoli. Interestingly enough, the runner reached on a play similar to one in which Naps was called out earlier this season. I couldn't see the play, so I don't know if it was a good call or not. It doesn't really matter. It happened, and that run didn't kill this game, although that 2nd inning was quite a beating.
The Texas offense didn't have much gas either. Nelson Cruz got the team's first hit — a single — in the 5th inning. Yorvit Torrealba had a lead-off double in the 6th, but the team couldn't do anything with it. Josh Hamilton singled to start the 7th, but Adrian Beltre hit into a double play to erase both of them. The Rangers got two baserunners — Cruz and Julio Borbon — in the 8th, but still couldn't find a way to score. So frustrating.
Perhaps having two days off was actually bad for the boys? I'm not willing to blame it on their Friday night tarp slide. That was just too fun.
The winning streak is over. *sniffle* The first loss of the season always hurts a little, and I think it hurts more after two straight sweeps.
KISS: Mason Tobin. He only needed to face seven batters in two innings of scoreless work. He gave the team a chance to rally, but they just couldn't do it.
MISS: It's really hard to give it to just one person, but I'm going with Colby Lewis on this one. He just let the Orioles have too many hits early in the game.
FINAL SCORE
Rangers :: 0 R, 5 H, 12 LOB
Orioles :: 5 R, 7 H, 7 LOB
Game two's match-up
@ Baltimore, 7:05 p.m. CST
Matt Harrison (1-0, 1.29 ERA) vs. Jake Arrieta (1-0, 1.50 ERA)
