Thursday Morning Links

Morning, all!

Max Scherzer pitched like a guy that hadn’t pitched in over a month, but he’s not going to beat himself up over it and instead focus on the things he did well. For instance, an 0-2 cutter he threw Yordan Alvarez had sufficient lateral break to miss Alvarez’s front foot and make solid contact with the back one. It also had enough velocity to put him on the ground for a bit.

Josh Jung observed of his first taste of playoff adversity “this isn’t the first game we’ve lost this season.” Although, maybe I shouldn’t say Jung faced any adversity because he hit two 2 run homers.

The Rangers aren’t going to win it all if Jordan Montgomery and Nathan Eovaldi are the only starters than can win any games and Josh Jung can’t be 90% of their offense.

Given the Rangers’ lack of pitching depth, they’re going to need a much better Max Scherzer than we saw last night if they hope to go all the way.

The DMN has a story about Ranger fans with children hoping to experience some rare Ranger playoff success with their kids.

Ian Kinsler wore an Israeli National team jersey to throw out the ceremonial first pitch last night to Derek Holland, who wore his own number 45 Ranger jersey which is much less pregnant with significance.

Evan Grant’s takeaways include an observation that much of the damage to Scherzer was a result of two poorly executed pitches, and that their game plan was to not chase Cristian Javier’s slider so he beat them with the fastball.

Tim Cowlishaw thinks having Max Scherzer pitch last night was a bad idea, but he probably also would have thought any of the other less than ideal options was a bad idea.

Evan Grant, on the other hand, observes that Nathan Eovaldi and Jordan Montgomery can’t start the rest of the Rangers’ postseason games and maybe last night knocked some of Scherzer’s rust off.