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1-2 - Rangers lose Kluber, then lose finale and series to Rockies

You can take the Rangers out of The Ballpark but you can’t take the Rangers out of the Rangers

By ghostofErikThompson
Colorado Rockies v Texas Rangers
Basically a sasquatch sighting
Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images

Remember when we were all excited about the Rangers acquiring Corey Kluber because it looked like they were really going to try to get creative to win in 2020 and then they didn’t do anything else except sign 64-year-old Todd Frazier after making Kyle Gibson their big ticket item of the winter?

But Kluber! Two-time Cy Young Award winning Texan! And it didn’t even cost that much to acquire him! And today he was making his long-anticipated debut! Looked pretty good after one inning in those powder blues, in fact!

What’s this?

Oh.

How entirely Texas Rangers.

Afterward, the game played out quite similarly to the other games in this series. The Rangers scored two runs — giving them five total for the season — while the pitching wasn’t quite as sharp as the first two days which shouldn’t be a huge surprise considering the bullpen had to cover eight innings. Nevertheless, the Rangers are allowing 2.67 runs per nine so far.

The most noticable difference between them and their opponent was once again the fact that the Rockies seem pretty stellar defensively while the Rangers do not. That doesn’t bode well for how the team is constructed, honestly.

And thus, the Rangers lost 5-2 and are 1-2 with 5% of the season in the books. But, hey, it’s baseball at least.

Player of the Game: The hitting isn’t very good. The pitching is pretty alright. The defense is suspect. Corey Kluber is an unknown injury risk. Starting center fielder and No. 3 hitter Danny Santana is hoping to avoid the fluke label. Rougned Odor is a lightning rod designed to make us yell at each other online. And Joey Gallo is the talent.

These Rangers are disturbingly as expected so far in 2020.

And now Gallo is forever your answer to the trivia question for who hit the first home run at The Shed. Is is as it should be.

Up Next: The Rangers have a day off and then open a two-game set on Tuesday against the Diamondbacks with Gibson set to make his debut for Texas against RHP Merrill Kelly for Arizona. First pitch is scheduled for a mountain time-friendly 8:05 pm CT.