Thoughts on a 5-2 Rangers loss

Angels 5, Rangers 2

• A road trip that started off so well for Texas, with the Rangers taking 2 of 3 from Seattle, and then the first of three games against the A's, ends with a five game losing streak, and the team dropping to 35-40, 5 games under .500.
• And we get swept by, of all teams, the stupid Angels.
• We had bad-command Yu Darvish today, the one who can't locate his fastball, and spends the day looking uncomfortable on the mound.  He ended up just giving up five hits in six innings, but two of those were home runs, and he walked 4 batters on top of that, as well as throwing a pair of wild pitches.  It just wasn't a good Yu outing.
• He still has an ERA of just 2.62, though.
• A bizarre play in the first inning led to the first run of the game.  Kole Calhourn walked, and after a Mike Trout fly out, Albert Pujols hit a hard grounder up the middle on a hit-and-run play.  Rougned Odor, who was already shading Pujols up the middle, was breaking to second to cover the bag.  The ball hit the mound and seemed to carom more to the right of second base than it originally appeared to.  Odor stopped and dove to try to make a play on it, but was unsuccessful, with the result being runners on first and third and one out.
• Except Leonys Martin made a terrible throw back into the infield, which got away from everyone, and led to Calhoun breaking for home.  Yu Darvish made a nice throw to Chris Gimenez at home, however, and Calhourn was out by a mile.
• Except Mike Scioscia challenged the call, and the replay officials in New York ruled that Gimenez was blocking the plate before he got the ball.  Nevermind that, from where Yu was throwing it, there wasn't really anywhere else for Gimenez to set up, and nevermind that Gimenez got the ball well before Calhoun got to the plate...the call was reversed, and Calhoun was called safe.  Ron Washington -- who had unpleasant things to say about this crew after the game yesterday and before the game today -- came out to argue, which resulted in an immediate ejection.  The whole thing was ridiculous.  Check out the video here, if you're interested.
• Yu gave up four more runs in the 4th, and at that point, that was all she wrote.
• Shawn Tolleson and Aaron Poreda each pitched a shutout inning.  With the offday tomorrow, the offday this past Thursday, and Scott Baker and Ben Rowen doing most of the heavy lifting on Wednesday and Friday, respectively, the high-leverage guys in the pen should be very well rested for the series with Detroit starting on Tuesday.  I don't believe Joakim Soria has pitched in a week.
• The offense had 9 hits, including 3 doubles and a homer, and 2 walks, but still only pushed two runs across.  They lost two runners on GIDPs, a runner when Elvis Andrus tried to leg out a double and was gunned down on a play where he looked safe to me, and a runner when Leonys Martin was thrown out trying to steal on a pitchout.
• Leonys was 3 for 4 with a pair of doubles, Elvis was 2 for 3 with a walk, and Adrian Beltre was 2 for 4.  No one else did anything of note, other than Brad Snyder, who hit a 9th inning homer to make it 5-2 instead of 5-1.
• Oh, and Snyder didn't start the game, despite the fact that a righthander was on the mound for Anaheim, and Snyder is a lefthanded hitter who has been starting at first base against righties.  That's lead to some speculation that Carlos Pena -- who had a homer among his two hits for Round Rock tonight -- might be replacing Snyder soon.
• Except that Snyder was in the game tonight because Donnie Murphy was lifted because of a knee issue.  So it may be that Pena would be replacing Murphy, should Murphy have to go on the d.l.
• So we had some bad defense, a stupid umpiring call, disappointing pitching, a lifeless lineup, and someone got hurt.  Its the 2014 Rangers season boiled down into one game.