Thoughts on a 5-3 Rangers win

Rangers 5, M’s 3

• How about that Lance Lynn? Three quality starts in a row, and in his last five starts, he’s gown 34 innings and given up 12 runs. One disaster start in Oakland aside, he’s been very good this year.
• Lynn threw 6 shutout innings, with 3 hits and 0 walks, and it seemed he would be done, but Chris Woodward sent him out to protect a 3-0 lead in the 7th. Lynn walked Dan Vogelbach, gave up a single to Edwin Encarnacion, and then gave up a rocket to right field to Omar Narvaez that looked like it would be gone, but instead hit the top of the fence, making a potential game-tying homer instead a 1 RBI single. A sac fly brought home a second run, and then Lynn struck out Tim Beckham and J.P. Crawford swinging to end the inning.
• Jose Leclerc came in for the 8th with a 1 run lead. He needed 7 pitches to get a K and two routine fly outs. He was so good one had to wonder if he would get the opportunity to pitch the 9th and get the save, especially after the Rangers added a pair of insurance runs.
• Instead, Woodward went with Shawn Kelley, just activated off the injured list after throat surgery, and with stitches that kept him from being able to turn his head all the way up if there was a pop up, he said. Kelley retired two, gave up a home run to Narvaez because we aren’t allowed to relax with a lead, and then got a fly out, picking up the save.
• Texas first got on the board in the 2nd, when Joey Gallo led off with a double, and scored when Ronald Guzman laced a two out double to right. Another run scored in the fourth, on a Nomar Mazara double, a Nomar steal of third (yeah, it was weird), and a sac fly where Mazara was initially called out at home, but had the play overturned on replay. In the sixth, Nomar doubled home Hunter Pence for yet another run.
• The coup-de-grace was in the 8th, when, clinging to a 3-2 lead, Roenis Elias gave up a single to Nomar, and then a laser shot line drive home run to Gallo, ripped into the right field corner. Joey Gallo home runs, of all varieties, are things of beauty.
• The four hardest hit balls today were by Nomar Mazara, Nomar Mazara, Joey Gallo, and Joey Gallo.
• Opportunity to sweep tomorrow, with Jesse Chavez opening. Yay!