Thoughts on a 5-2 Rangers loss

BoSox 5, Rangers 2

• And so it goes.
• Thats eight in a row, if you’re scoring at home, and I have to say…Eight Is Enough!
• And the season goes on, nonetheless, and the Rangers will try to break this losing streak in Houston, which, you know. Houston.
• Why must this team torment us so? Things were going okay there for a while. Not great, but okay. The team was playing some respectable ball. They were winning some one run games rather than losing them all. They had a nice stretch of games where you felt good about things, felt good about watching the Rangers, saw progress.
• And now this nonsense. This malarkey. This bunch of baloney.
• What is there to do? Give up and watch football? Go outside? Go back and look at box scores from 2010 and 2011? Yell at strangers on the street about Ian Kinsler’s Hall of Fame chances and that ball Josh Hamilton dropped against the A’s on the last day of the 2012 season?
• First inning Dane Dunning made an appearance today, though really, Dunning was not good most of the game, but was most not good in the first. Given a 2-0 lead before he threw a pitch, Dunning gave up four runs in the first inning. He gave up another in the second, and then no runs scored the rest of the way, so it was a boring bad game the rest of the way as well.
• There was discussion about whether Dane Dunning can pitch on the road, with reference made to him not having won a road start in his last 20-something road starts. Dunning has pitched better at home than on the road the past two years. Coming into today he had a 3.24 ERA at home and a 5.25 ERA on the road.
• Weirdly, though, the spread between his AVG and OBP allowed is basically the same at home as on the road, and he has allowed a higher ISO at home than on the road. But coming into today he had allowed a .304 AVG on the road and a .223 AVG at home. That is in part because his K rate is a little better at home, and in part because of a .263 BABIP at home and a .351 BABIP on the road.
• Also, the “can’t win on the road” thing ignores that Dunning doesn’t win at home, either. Dunning has three wins all season. In thirteen home games, he’s only won three games, and two of those were in August. The Rangers are 8-18 in games Dunning has started this year.
• The main reason the Rangers haven’t won with Dunning on the mound is that they’ve largely failed to score runs when he’s started. Dunning made six starts in June, for example. The Rangers lost all six. Dunning had a 3.74 ERA in 33.2 IP in those six outings, but the Rangers scored a total of 11 runs in those games.
• Anyway, the problem today was that Dunning was bad. But he also didn’t get run support.
• John King, newly activated today, got to pitch. He needed just 31 pitches to go three shutout innings. Maybe he’s good again.
• Leody Taveras had two hits today. That represented 50% of the Ranges hit total for the day.
• Dane Dunning topped out at 91.6 mph, averaging 90.6 mph. John King maxed out at 93.8 mph. Jonathan Hernandez hit 99.4 mph.
• There were 14 100+ mph balls in play in today’s game. The Rangers had three of them. Boston had four in the first inning alone. Nathaniel Lowe had a 109.0 mph single. Jonah Heim had a 107.7 mph lineout. Marcus Semien had a 100.3 mph line out.
• Looking forward to a laborious effort from the Rangers on Labor Day tomorrow. Yee haw.