5-2 - Rangers ruin Angels home opener with 11-4 pummeling

When you send one 420 ft to Disneyland like this:

And also lead the league in walks:

You’re Joey Gallo and you don’t need to worry about bunting for a piddling infield single or concern yourself with something as antiquated as batting average.

When you score eleven runs against any team, more often than not, you don’t have to worry about seeing your winning streak end.

The Rangers have won three consecutive games for the first time this year and are now 5-2 this season.

It’s pretty wild to consider that even with all the issues with the starting pitching — which continued tonight as Edinson Volquez contributed just 3 2⁄3 innings while miraculously only allowing two runs — the Rangers have won five of the six games since that blowout loss on Opening Day.

In the opposite dugout, the Angels seem to be extremely in-game snakebit so far as they are now 1-6 on the year with a whole mess of things going wrong, mostly at the plate.

For example, Volquez walked four batters and gave up four hits but both runs he allowed were somehow via solo home runs. In total, the Angels left 11 on base and were 0-for-10 in RISP situations.

All of that would maybe be sad if it were happening to any other team. Alas, Angels schadenfreude is top shelf stuff.

Player of the Game: Gallo contributed the most deflating blow to the Angels when he swatted a long three-run bomb just four batters into the home opener in Anaheim but, for me, Ronald Guzman deserves the spotlight tonight after he also homered later in the first inning to make it 5-0 and allowed the Rangers some more breathing room to survive their now trademark dodgy starting pitching.

In addition to the pole-glancing dinger, Guzman also doubled and drew a walk while scoring twice. The book on Guzman throughout his time in the minors was that he perhaps didn’t have the power to be the future at first base. It’s obviously early so far this season, but...

Also, a special PotG commendation to Shin-Soo Choo for collecting his 1,500th big league hit!

Up Next: The Rangers will come back and try to do it all over again tomorrow night with Lance Lynn set to take the mound opposite RHP Felix Pena for the Angels. First pitch from Angels Stadium is scheduled once again for 9:07 pm CT.