Thoughts on an 12-3 Rangers loss

Indians 12, Rangers 3

• Well, that was unpleasant.
• And the Rangers had just gotten their run differential on the season to 0, too.  Now they are back to negative 9.
• On the plus side, they still won the series.  And they went 7-2 on this road trip, which I think we all are happy with.
• On the negative side, the M's won today, so the Rangers are now a half-game back of Seattle.  If the Angels lose, Texas will be tied with LAAAAAAAAA for third place in the West.  If the Angels win, Texas will be in fourth place.
• Of course, the A's lost again today, and are now 17-32 on the season.  So at least we aren't Oakland.
• I didn't watch the game, so I don't have much to say about Colby Lewis's performance, other than the line certainly looks ugly.  Lewis gave up a pair in the second and then 8 runs in the third -- while only retiring two batters in the third -- and pretty clearly, Jeff Banister wanted Lewis to get out of the inning and try to soak up another inning or two in what was looking like a lost cause.  Lewis couldn't get out, though, and has now seen his ERA on the year balloon up to 4.70.
• Colby's been a great story so far this season, and hopefully, this is just a bump in the road for him.
• Anthony Bass went 4.1 IP today, and gave up just a couple of runs.  His work kept Banister from having to use anyone else in the pen other than the newly recalled Jon Edwards.  Bass actually ended up throwing more pitches than Lewis today -- 76, to Colby's 74.
• Jon Edwards gave up a hit and struck out a couple of batters, which is an improvement over his only other major league outing this season, when he walked both batters he faced.
• Let's see...looking over the box score...well, Shin-Soo Choo got a couple of hits.  That's a good thing.  Josh Hamilton got his first hit of the season, a single, although he then got thrown out trying to stretch it into a double.  Robinson Chirinos homered.  Leonys Martin, who entered the game in the bottom of the sixth, homered in the 9th inning, so maybe that will get him going.  But yeah, not a ton of positivity there.
• Banister emptied the bench, sort of, in the bottom of the sixth.  The problem is that his bench is just three players deep, and one of them is a catcher, so emptying the bench meant sending in Adam Rosales and Leonys to replace Elvis Andrus and Adrian Beltre, both of whom have played almost every inning this season prior to today.  He also had Delino DeShields go to second base for the first time this year, and DeShields apparently acquitted himself well.  We'll have to wait and see if he gets a start there anytime soon.
• DeShields will presumably start tomorrow, with Boston bringing up lefty Eduardo Rodriguez to make a spot start.  Rodriguez, 22, was in the back half of the main top 100 prospect rankings this past offseason, and given how lefty-heavy the Ranger lineup is right now, I'd probably try to use as many lefty starters against them as possible, if I were an opposing team.
• It was fun being back at .500 for that one day.  Hopefully, we'll get back there again tomorrow, and at some point get back over .500.  I see this as a team that should play around .500 ball the rest of the way, but hopefully, they'll make me look overly pessimistic going forward.