Coming into the season, I felt like Martin Perez and Cole Hamels would be fine, and Mike Minor would be good, assuming he could handle the workload for a starting pitcher. That left Matt Moore and Doug Fister, and...well, if one of those two were okay, then I could live with that. Coming out of camp, the reports on Fister were positive, and the reports on Moore were not.
So Moore got his first start of the season today, and made it through only four innings. The plus side was that he fanned 6 Astros, without walking anyone. The down side was that he continued to struggle with command, and was too hittable too often. He showed enough flashes that you can see why the Rangers want to give him a chance to get back to where he was before he was traded to San Francisco, but I’m not sure it makes much sense to have a lot of confidence in Moore at this point.
The bullpen, which was solid the first two games, was not solid today. Nick Gardewine gave up a run, Jesse Chavez gave up three runs, Jake Diekman made his season debut and walked two of the three hitters he faced. It was an all-around unpleasant day for the pitching staff.
The bats were largely uninspiring. Elvis Andrus was 2 for 3 with a walk and a home run, Nomar Mazara was 2 for 4, and the rest of the team was 1 for 25, the one hit coming from Adrian Beltre.
Jurickson Profar got into the game, appearing late for Adrian Beltre, and walked in his lone plate appearance. That’s something.
Joey Gallo, on the other hand, was 0 for 4 with 3 Ks.
Just a wet fart of a game today. At least the folks at the game got a Beltre bobblehead, and got to see an Elvis home run in person.
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