Thoughts on a 5-2 Rangers win

Rangers 5, Padres 2

• As fun as it would have been to see Mike Minor make history, I think we can all live with 7 shutout innings of one hit ball and a Ranger win
• Minor took a perfect game into the seventh inning, retiring 19 straight before an Eric Hosmer single with one out in the seventh broke up the perfecto and the no-no. That was the only base runner Minor allowed, as he walked no one and struck out 5.
• Minor had a rough month of May that led to speculation that the Rangers made a mistake in moving him back to the rotation after he excelled as a reliever last year. He’s had a solid June, however, and his ERA on the year is down to 4.64, with a 4.17 FIP and a 4.50 xFIP. He’s still something of a question mark, but there’s reason for a certain amount of confidence that the Rangers will be able to count on him in the rotation going forward.
• The bullpen decided to make it interesting for the second night in a row, with Chris Martin getting into trouble in the eighth, allowing a run, and prompting Jeff Banister to bring in Jose Leclerc for the third straight game. Leclerc’s command was off, and he walked in a run, but got out of the inning with the Rangers up 4-2. An insurance run gave Keone Kela a three run lead to protect, and he closed down the 9th with two Ks and a pop out for his 20th save in 20 attempts.
• The Rangers scattered their five runs over four separate innings, and every Ranger starter got a hit except for Rougned Odor, and even he got on via a HBP. Shin-Soo Choo, Adrian Beltre, Jurickson Profar and Elvis Andrus each had two hit games. Elvis, who has been showing signs of rust since coming off the d.l., had as one of his hits a scorching double that was hit so hard that, even with two outs, Delino DeShields couldn’t score from first.
• Two other slumping hitters had productive games. Joey Gallo, mired in an awful stretch, was 1 for 3 with a double and a walk, and the newly promoted Ryan Rua had an opposite field home run in the eighth.
• And so the Rangers win the series, and yes, they took two of three at home against a bad team, which you’d expect any team to do, but a series win is a series win, and the Rangers are back at 10 games under .500. After a loss to Oakland on April 24, Texas was 8-17, so they’ve been playing more or less .500 ball for the past couple of months. That’s something I will take in a rebuilding year with lots of young players (yes, mostly young positional players) out there.