Thoughts on a 3-1 Rangers loss

Angels 3, Rangers 1

• And with that, the Rangers finish off a 7 game road trip, and a string of 20 games in 20 days. Texas has played the most games of any team in MLB this season.
• Texas ended up going 9-11 over that stretch.
• Not that anyone necessarily noticed, but Doug Fister pitched a pretty nice game today. he only allowed 4 hits in 6 innings while not walking anyone. He only struck out one, however, and allowed three runs because one of the four hits was a Justin Upton home run, and the other three came in a row in the second, with the third of the three being a two run double.
• Doug Fister now has a 4.13 ERA on the year, which I think we would all take.
• Alex Claudio pitched two scoreless innings for Texas. After a bad start to the season, we appear to have good Claudio back, as he has an ERA around 1 since the start of May, and his ERA on the season is down to 3.68.
• There were also several nice defense plays today, including a great charging bare hand play on a chopper by Isiah Kiner-Falefa that resulted in a throw that Ronald Guzman did his splits on at first base to make the catch.
• Good pitching and solid defense...what will they think of next?
• The offense once again fell short, however. Nomar Mazara homered for the Rangers lone run, Shin-Soo Choo had two hits, and Robinson Chirinos and Isiah Kiner-Falefa each had a hit. The bats have continued their season long trend of being kind of awful.
• In the ninth there was actually a kind of rally. With two outs, Ronald Guzman walked, and then Joey Gallo, pinch hitting for Delino DeShields, drew a walk on a 3-2 pitch that was probably a strike, though it was up and in and Gallo couldn’t have done anything with it anyway so he needed to let it go, and then Choo walked, and the bases were loaded for IKF down 3-1.
• Alas, IKF flew out to end the game, and the Rangers ended their road trip scoring just four runs in three games in Anaheim.
• But tomorrow is a Ranger off day and MLB draft day, so we can spend our Monday thinking of the future, rather than the present.