Thoughts on a 5-3 Rangers win

Rangers 5, Orioles 3

• Well, the Rangers took the finale in Baltimore, keeping themselves from being swept, and of course the Rangers won the game that A.J. Griffin started, and not the Cole Hamels or Yu Darvish starts, because baseball is wacky.
• Griffin had a 2016 Griffin start, looking really good for four innings, then giving up a pair of home runs to start the fifth, and another home run to start the sixth.  Griffin was lifted with two outs in the sixth, having struck out six and walked none (albeit with a zone that was very generous for all pitchers today), and allowing just five hits...but three of them were home runs.  Griffin is home run prone by nature, and we have seen him struggle in the middle innings, which leads me to wonder again if the Rangers might consider a tandem starter situation in September, with Griffin going three innings and Derek Holland three innings.
• Keone Kela faced a single batter in the sixth, and then Matt Bush, Jeremy Jeffress and Sam Dyson each pitched a scoreless inning.  Dyson had a weird play in what looked like would be the final out of the game...it was a slow chopper down first that looked like an easy play for Mitch Moreland, but which Dyson also had a potential play on.  He ran to it, kicked it, struggled to pick it up, and when he final got the ball and touched the base, he was too late.  It was scored as a hit, but didn't matter, as Dyson got Matt Wieters as the tying run to end the game.
• So solid work by the pitchers, all around.
• Texas got on the board in the second when Jonathan Lucroy hit a solo homer for his first home run as a Ranger.  A second run scored in the third, when Delino DeShields doubled, then was brought home on a pair of ground balls.
• The fifth inning gave Texas the final margin they needed...Elvis Andrus doubled to start the inning, but was thrown out at third on a bad sac bunt attempt by DeShields.  However, a Shin-Soo Choo single, an Ian Desmond single, and a Carlos Beltran single brought a pair of runs home anyway.  Texas then picked up an insurance run in the eighth when Adrian Beltre and Rougned Odor had back to back doubles to start the inning.
• So it was a nice, pretty crisp game, with the bats doing work, the pitching being solid, and everyone working quickly, getting the game done in around two and a half hours.  Well done, everyone.
• Now Texas heads to Houston for a three game series, sporting a 6.5 game lead in the West after Houston lost again to Toronto tonight.  Not bad.