Thoughts on a 2-0 Rangers loss

Tigers 2, Rangers 0

• Well, Banny looks pretty put out with this team in that photo.
• One of the interesting things about doing this blog and having this photo database with new photos each game is you notice certain trends.  There's lots of happy/celebrating/congratulating Elvis photos.  Lots of intense Beltre photos.  Lots of Yu Darvish photos, doing anything, really...when spring training starts there will be like 30 photos of Yu stretching and jogging and the like.  Joey Gallo making weird faces.  And lots of Jeff Banister as the T-1000 staring balefully out at a pitcher who isn't throwing strikes, or a fielder who made a mistake, or someone who is not doing what Banister wants him to do.  Its like you can hear his internal monologue..."I overcame bone cancer, I was freaking paralyzed and wasn't expected to walk again and then went and made it to the majors, and this guy can't throw a 3-1 pitch for a freaking strike?"
• Anyway.  Cole Hamels faced 34 batters over 7 innings.  17 of them -- half -- reached base, on a team-recording-tying 14 hits plus three walks.  And yet only two runs scored.
• There was a certain amount of praise for Hamels tonight, saying you have to be good to allow that many runners and yet just allow 2 runs, and that's true, I guess, to a certain extent.  Certainly, Lucas Harrell wouldn't have been left out there that long.  Someone without Hamels' pedigree isn't going to be given the amount of rope he got.
• But I really wanted a comeback tonight so I could write "Thoughts" about how this was a miracle of sequencing, and exemplifies in some ways the Rangers season, where they managed to prevail due to luck and sequencing and the like despite being outplayed overall.  But the Rangers offense didn't do shit tonight, so I have to save that for another day.
• Anyway, Hamels did go 7 innings, and thus helped give the bullpen a much needed break.  Keone Kela pitched the final two innings, and I'm starting to think that Banister is looking at Matt Bush and Kela as multi-inning weapons rather than traditional one inning guys.  I'm curious to see how he deploys them going forward...I'm starting to think we'll see them more rarely in back-to-back situations, but more often in longer outings, as they seem to need more time to bounce back between outings but are capable of handling a 25-35 pitch stint.
• In any case...Houston lost, Seattle won, so Texas is up 6.5 games in the West on Seattle and 7.5 games in the West on Houston.
• A.J. Griffin goes tomorrow as Texas looks to bounce back and take the series.  Hopefully, the Rangers will score a run.