Thoughts on a 2-0 Rangers win

Rangers 2, Angels 0

• Joey Gallo was back in the lineup after missing last night’s game. We are glad he’s back.
• How about that Kolby Allard? Making his second start of 2020, Allard gave the Rangers five shutout innings, striking out 6, walking 1 and allowing 2 hits. The pitch count was higher than you’d prefer — 94 pitches over the five innings — but hey, that’s picking nits.
• Allard has allowed 1 run in 9 innings this season. And he turns 23 this coming week. He could maybe be useful.
• The Rangers used five relievers to get through the final four innings. Edinson Volquez and Jesse Chavez pitched the sixth and seventh. Joely Rodriguez got the eighth, got Luis Rengifo to ground out, then walked David Fletcher, bringing up Mike Trout as the tying run. You might recall that Mike Trout is good.
• Rodriguez got down 3-0 to Trout, at which point I felt they needed to go ahead and walk him intentionally. Instead, Rodriguez got it back to 3-2, then got Trout looking on a borderline pitch. Ian Gibaut, who really needed a solid outing, came in and fanned Anthony Rendon for the final out.
• If Luis Rengifo sounds familiar, he’s the guy the Angels agreed to deal to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Joc Pederson and Ross Stripling when the Dodgers were trading for Mookie Betts. Then the Boston Red Sox didn’t like Brusdar Graterol’s medicals, the deal got delayed for like a week, and Arte Moreno got mad and nixed the trade.
• Rafael Montero pitched a 1-2-3 ninth and picked up the save. He would appear to be our closer, though after pitching yesterday as well, I’d wager someone else will be pitching the ninth if theres a save situation for Texas tomorrow.
• The offense was pretty close to useless. Isiah Kiner-Falefa had a hit. Willie Calhoun drew a walk. Todd Frazier had a pair of hits, one of them a two out single in the sixth that gave Joey Gallo the opportunity to loft to left center that made it over the fence and gave Texas a 2-0 lead. The Rangers didn’t do much offensively, but they did enough.
• IKF, Frazier and Gallo are hitting pretty well this season. Most everyone else on the team isn’t.
• Nick Solak started in center field today, with Rob Refsnyder in left field. Scott Heineman came in for defense in the ninth, with Solak moving to left, and when Heineman in center and Solak in left is your good defensive alignment, well...
• Todd Frazier had EVs of 102.3 and 101.5 on his double and single, while Elvis Andrus registered 101.6 on his 8th inning ground out. Joey Gallo’s homer was at 99.5 mph, as was a Rob Refsnyder ground out.
• Rafael Montero topped out at 95.7 and 95.4 on his fastball, while Ian Gibaut, in his brief outing, reached 95.6 and 95.2. Kolby Allard sat at 91-92, and topped out at 92.6.
• Texas is now a half-game out of second place, and will go for the sweep tomorrow.