Thoughts on a 4-0 Rangers loss

Guardians 4, Rangers 0

• Well that was bad.
• The Rangers starting pitcher had zero command, the Rangers offense could do nothing, and there was a rain delay at the start of the game and the middle of the game.
• If this game were ice cream, it would be pralines and ass.
• Dane Dunning was bad — he couldn’t locate his sinker or his slider to save his life, with his sinker being left up in the zone where it could be pounded and his slider either ending up in the middle of the zone or not close enough to the strike zone to get a batter to chase.
• The result was that the Guardians teed off on Dunning — out of the 20 batters he faced, he gave up eight balls with an exit velocity of at least 100 mph. That’s bad.
• After the lengthy rain delay in the top of the fifth, neither Dunning nor Guardians pitcher Shane Bieber came back out, so Dunning ended up going just four innings. He was being hit hard enough that I’m not sure he would have been left out there much longer — even in his scoreless fourth inning, he allowed outs with an EV of 105.8 and 104.7, plus a 94.2 mph single and a 96.9 mph flyout — although he was only at 64 pitches.
• The low pitch count was helped by him not walking anyone and striking out just one batter. Dunning did generate seven swings and misses, which isn’t bad for 64 pitches, but only one of those was on his slider, which is supposed to be his out pitch. Three came on changeups, two on his cutter — which he only threw four times — and one on his sinker.
• The bullpen did good work, at least. Brock Burke went two scoreless, and Matt Moore and Matt Bush each threw a scoreless inning. Too bad the offense couldn’t make that matter.
• It appeared the Rangers may have caught a break with the rain, since Bieber, who faced the minimum through four (with the help of a Nathaniel Lowe caught stealing after Lowe singled in the second), had to turn it over to the bullpen after sitting for the lengthy rain delay. Adolis Garcia and Nathaniel Lowe had each singled during the downpour before the tarp came out, so the Rangers got to face reliever Eli Morgan with two on and one out in the fifth, and a chance to get back into the game.
• Instead, Adolis Garcia was picked off and Ezequiel Duran struck out, and that was that for the rally.
• The Rangers’ only other chance came in the seventh, when Garcia singled and Jonah Heim doubled with two outs, but Lowe grounded out to end the inning.
• Blah.
• Dane Dunning maxed out at 90.0 mph on his sinker, and his 89.3 mph average for the game was 0.9 mph below his season average, another indicator he wasn’t quite right. Brock Burke reached 97.3 mph on his fastball. Matt Moore touched 95.5 mph on his fastball, while Matt Bush hit 97.6 mph.
• Nathaniel Lowe’s fifth inning single in the rain was the hardest hit ball by either team, at 110.0 mph. Jonah Heim’s double was 100.0 mph. Corey Seager and Adolis Garcia had 104.9 mph exit velocity balls, Seager’s being a ground out, Garcia’s a single.
• Dammit, and there’s an off day on Thursday, which means wallowing in this craptacular loss another day. Dammit.