Thoughts on a 1-0 Rangers win

Rangers 1, Brewers 0

• Good thing the Brewers decided they didn’t need Mike Minor, huh?
• I kind of hope now that Milwaukee loses the division by a game, or ends up in a tie for the division and loses the tiebreaker game, so we can say, gosh, I guess if you’d have traded for Mike Minor you’d have won the division, Brewers.
• Final line for Minor: 8 IP, 4 hits, 1 walk, 11 Ks, 103 pitches. You can argue that he should have pitched the 9th. ERA on the season is now 2.90.
• Coming into today, Mike Minor and Lance Lynn were first and second in the majors in pitcher bWAR. Minor’s lead is going to be extended by a fair amount after today, I’m guessing.
• Scoreless 9th for Jose Leclerc, who retired all three batters he faced, including Yasmani Grandal via strike out to end the game.
• The Rangers offense was pretty terrible. Elvis Andrus had 2 hits, Rougned Odor had a hit, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa had a hit. No other hits today. Texas did draw four walks, including 2 by Shin-Soo Choo, but one of those walks was an intentional walk to Jeff Mathis.
• If anyone tries to defend National League no-DH ball, point out that a set of rules that encourages you to ever walk Jeff Mathis intentionally is inherently flawed.
• Willie Calhoun drew the other walk, and he also scored the one run of the game. It came in the 7th, when Calhoun led the inning off with a walk, Rougned Odor doubled off of first baseman Yasmani Grandal’s glove to put runners and second and third, and then, after Delino DeShields struck out (one of 4Ks for Delino today), IKF came through with a sac fly.
• IKF may not be a major league catcher, other than in spot duty, and he may not be a regular, but he’s a useful guy to have on your team.