Thoughts on a 4-1 Rangers win

Rangers 4, Angels 1

• Three in a row for the Rangers. Unexpected, huh?
• It’s the first time the Rangers have won three in a row since late June, when they had a four game winning streak.
• Prior to that was a three game sweep of the Astros in Arlington in late May, which was preceded by a 1-9 stretch and followed by a nine game losing streak.
• They also win three in a row in Minnesota in early May and three in a row in Tampa in mid-April. And that’s all the times this year when the Rangers have won three straight games.
• So, yeah, this is pretty unusual.
• You know what is not pretty unusual, though? Dane Dunning pitching well.
• 79 pitches over five innings for Dunning. Three hits, two walks, three Ks, one run. We will take that. Dunning only generated four swings and misses, which isn’t ideal, but he kept the ball down — only two balls made it to the outfield — and kept Anaheim off the board, albeit with the help of an acrobatic play in the field by Andy Ibanez.
• Welcome back to the big leagues, Jimmy Herget. The righthanded reliever, who logged quality innings out of the major league pen in 2020, then was non-tendered, re-signed, waived, outrighted, pitched well out of the pen in Round Rock, and is now back in the majors, needed just 18 pitches two get through a pair of scoreless innings, with 2 Ks for good measure.
• Joe Barlow continued his strong work out of the pen with a scoreless 2 K eighth inning, and Spencer Patton finished it off with a scoreless ninth.
• The Rangers only collected five hits on offense, but two were by Curtis Terry, which is significant because those two were his first two major league hits of his career. Terry pulled an Eli White, starting his career with a long 0-fer streak — he was 0 for 20 when when Monday’s game started. But he snapped that with a line drive double in the third, and also added a single in the seventh that helped fuel a two run inning.
• It was a weird game offensively — not a lot of hits, not a lot of baserunners, but the Rangers were able to capitalize. The first run of the game was set up by the Terry double — Andy Ibanez had reached on an HBP, and he went to third on the Terry double. A two out passed ball then gave the Rangers their first run, and a 1-0 lead.
• Incidentally, distinguishing between a passed ball and a wild pitch is dumb. The distinction should be eliminated.
• After Anaheim tied it up at one apiece, the Rangers took the lead in the fifth with aggressive base running. A one out Brock Holt double followed by an Eli White walk brought up Isiah Kiner-Falefa. IKF hit a grounder that the Angels couldn’t turn a double play on, putting runners on the corners with two out. IKF and Holt then executed a double steal, allowing Holt to steal home and give Texas a 2-1 lead.
• The insurance runs came in the seventh, when the Rangers started the inning with a Jason Martin double and a Curtis Terry single. Brock Holt brought home Martin with a sac fly, and a two out IKF single brought home Terry.
• Chris Woodward said after the game he thought it was probably the Rangers best game all year — which sounds strange since it was a 4-1 win against a middling team in which the Rangers only picked up five hits. But I get what Woodward means...it was a well pitched game where the club played good defense and, as Woody put it, battled at the plate and found ways to score runs.
• And it only took like two and a half hours, so that helps the pace of play!
• Dane Dunning topped out at 91.3 mph on his sinker. Jimmy Herget’s four seamer touched 92.8 mph. Spencer Patton hit 94.2 mph, and Joe Barlow maxed out at 96.4 mph.
• Nathaniel Lowe did one of his trademarked hard hit worm burners, with a 110.7 mph ground out that had a -11 degree launch angle. The Rangers had two barrels on the day, an Adolis Garcia 109.2 mph ball and a Jonah Heim 99.6 mph ball, but each were fly outs. Jason Martin’s double was 108.1 mph. Curtis Terry’s double was 106.4 mph. Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s single was 101.3 mph.
• Twas a good day at the Shed for the Arlington Nine. I enjoyed that game. Hopefully we will see some more like that.