Thoughts on an 8-5 Rangers loss

Angels 8, Rangers 5

• I don’t feel like talking about Kyle Gibson today.
• Stupid sexy grand slams.
• If we don’t talk about Kyle Gibson, and the 8 runs he gave up in his four innings of work, including a grand slam, the pitching was pretty positive. Jimmy Herget, Demarcus Evans, Nick Goody and Jesse Chavez each worked one scoreless inning. That’s good.
• Gibson will, presumably, have one more start this year. Hopefully it is better than this one was.
• Only seven hits today for the Rangers, though one was an Isiah Kiner-Falefa home run, and another was an Isiah Kiner-Falefa single, which is good to see. IKF has cooled down, but him showing some pop and getting on base twice is encouraging.
• Nick Solak, who also hasn’t been tearing it up lately, was 3 for 4 with a double. And Anderson Tejeda had a double. Those are guys who could be meaningful parts of the future, so, you know, better for the hits to be from them than from, say, Derek Dietrich.
• Oh, Derek Dietrich homered.
• Leody Taveras had a walk and a stolen base, which may not seem that important, but the walk was after getting down in the count 0-2. Taveras isn’t hitting a ton, but he’s shown a good approach at the plate and some pop, and has looked better than you’d expect from a guy who just turned 22 and who had barely played before A ball before a month ago. It remains to be seen what the Rangers have in him, but in watching him, you can see why the organization is high on him.
• Anderson Tejeda had fly outs with EVs of 104.1 and 103.0. Joey Gallo had a 101.9 mph pop out. Jeff Mathis had a 104.1 mph fly out. The only 100+ mph ball the Rangers hit all game was Dietrich’s home run, at 101.6. IKF’s homer was 98.9 mph off the bat.
• The grand slam Jared Walsh hit off of Gibson had an expected batting average of 1.000, per Statcast. You almost never see that.
• Jimmy Herget had a two seam fastball clocked at 96.3 today, the hardest thrown ball of the game. Demarcus Evans topped out at 95.0, and generally was around 93-94 mph today.
• Now to Arizona for the final two road games of the season. The road has not been kind to the Rangers so far.