Thoughts on a 5-2 Rangers win

Rangers 5, Yankees 2

• That was what we were all expecting, right? Jordan Lyles outpitching Gerrit Cole?
• Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Jordan Lyles had problems in the first, leading us all to groan and start speculating if he was going to lose his rotation spot, and then he got things back on track and pitched well the rest of the game.
• Lyles ended up going 6 innings, allowing 6 hits — half of them in the first inning, when the Yankees scored their one run off of Lyles — with 6 Ks against 1 walk. He needed just 85 pitches to do that, and lowered his ERA to 5.93. Yeah, I’m confused, too.
• John King, Josh Sborz and Ian Kennedy combined to finish things off, with the one blemish being a Luke Voit home run off of Sborz.
• Texas scored 5 off of Gerrit Cole, 3 of them coming in a second inning which featured an Adolis Garcia home run, doubles from David Dahl and Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and a Jose Trevino single.
• Willie Calhoun homered in the fifth, to go with a double he hit in the first inning, and to make up for a shot in the second inning that looked like it would be a home run but which curved just foul. Willie had been slumping before last night. He may not be slumping anymore.
• The final run of the game for the Rangers came in the sixth on a two out double steal, with Charlie Culberson breaking from first, Adolis Garcia heading home when the throw went to second, and then the ball going into center field, allowing Culberson to go to third. Garcia was credited with a steal of home, making him just the fourth player in Rangers history to have a home run and a steal of home in the same game.
• The others? Juan Beniquez, Elvis Andrus and Mitch Moreland.
• The other highlight of the game was when Joey Gallo took a ball four, saw that the ball went back to the screen, ran to first, started to make a turn towards second, and then stumbled and did a faceplant. The Yankees threw behind him, but he got back to first base. It wouldn’t have been amusing if he had been tagged out, or if he had gotten hurt (the trainer came out to check on him), but since everything was fine it was funny.
• Joey had no hits but two walks. The Rangers as a team only had seven hits, but five were for extra bases.
• Josh Sborz had the fastest Ranger pitch of the night, at 97.7 mph. Ian Kennedy hit 95.4 in his appearance. Jordan Lyles topped out at 95.0 mph, while John King topped out at 93.3 mph.
• Willie Calhoun had a 106.0 mph exit velocity on his double, and 103.9 mph on his home run. Adolis Garcia had a single at 102.4 mph to go with his 101.7 mph exit velocity home run. Nick Solak had a fly out that was 101.4 mph off the bat.
• The losing streak is over. We can relax a little. Let’s be happy.