3-6 - Rangers perform actions sometimes resembling baseball, lose 8-5

I don’t want to sound like I’m whining too much because we all knew nights like these were likely for the Rangers this year, but tonight’s game stunk and not just because Texas lost 8-5 after trailing bit early.

After a nearly 40 minute weather delay that our precious lord in heaven wouldn’t extend for a few hours to free us from this game, the Rangers came out and looked dreadful.

I can take that, though. I watched endless amounts of Rangers games in 2002 and 2003. This is nothing. What’s worse is the game itself just didn’t have any rhythm.

You hear talk of rhythm in other sports as units on teams look to get going but rarely do you hear it used to describe baseball. What I mean is the game was so off-kilter for the first five or six innings that it was barely recognizable as baseball.

The top of the innings would look like Matt Moore throwing 35 pitches without knowing where they were going and the Blue Jays would put up a few runs while the bottom of the inning would look like Marco Estrada plowing through the Texas lineup in a handful of pitches.

It just felt like the two teams were playing two different sports and the Rangers were playing their unidentifiable sport poorly. For every one minute the Rangers were at the plate, it seemed like the Jays were at the plate for twenty. It was ugly.

Moore threw 73 pitches and only 38 of them for strikes, which is kind of incredible. Moore walked four, hit a batter, and was only able to last 3 ¹⁄₃ innings of work allowing six runs, five earned — because, yes, the defense behind him was bad.

On the other hand, Estrada continued his recent mastery of the Rangers and didn’t give up his second hit on the night until the fourth inning when it was already 6-0 Toronto. Ultimately Estrada went six innings and allowed a run on five hits with one walk and seven strikeouts.

Texas rallied for the final five runs on the night to make things appear a little better in the box score but even that felt out of place in tonight’s game. After all, Texas (13) ended up with more hits that Toronto (9) on the night despite having just two hits through the first five innings. Perhaps the offense got in rhythm.

Also, C.J. Nitkowski won’t get out of the booth and let TAG do color for a series and it has made me cranky. My television is sick of being stuck on mute.

Player of the Game: Shin-Soo Choo homered for a third straight game. Tonight’s blast was a solo shot off Estrada to spark the futile rally.

Up Next: The Rangers will try to play something that looks more like baseball tomorrow night against these Blue Jays with Mike Minor on the mound opposite RHP Marcus Stroman of Toronto. First pitch is scheduled for 7:05 pm CT.