Thoughts on a 5-2 Rangers win

Rangers 5, A’s 2

• Another series win in the books.
• I still don’t know that I’ve fully wrapped my mind around the fact that Jacob deGrom is a Ranger. I mean, I know it intellectually, but it still seems, I don’t know, foreign as a concept.
• deGrom allowed just three hits in six innings, but one of them was a home run after an E6, so he allowed two runs. 11 Ks, 0 walks. Freaky, innit?
• deGrom now has a 1.44 FIP on the season. He has a 3.04 ERA because of a lousy strand rate — almost half the runners he’s allowed to get on base have scored — but that would seem likely to even out over the course of the season.
• Still, the idea of arguably the best pitcher in baseball performing for the Rangers? It doesn’t process. I keep waiting for someone to come and take him away and send him to a team that great pitchers always play for.
• Brock Burke, Jonathan Hernandez and Will Smith to close things out today. Hernandez struck out three of the four batters he faced, including Shea Langeliers, who had the home run off of deGrom. Burke had allowed a one out single before striking out Brent Rooker, who hit for Tony Kemp, who had made a great diving catch in left field earlier in the game to rob Leody Taveras of a double and the Rangers of a run. Langeliers was the tying run at the time, and Bruce Bochy was going to make him deal with the sinkerballer rather than the lefty four seam guy.
• Jonah Heim started again today, in a day game following a night game. I thought that was weird but Nathan Eovaldi is starting tomorrow, and Bochy appears to be matching Eovaldi with Sandy Leon whenever he starts. Leon caught Eovaldi in Boston and Eovaldi reportedly is very comfortable with Leon. So Heim may be catching four out of every five games.
• Robbie Grossman hit a home run in the second to give Texas an early 3-0 lead and quiet the grumbling about today’s choice of second place hitter. He also drew a couple of walks, so yay Robbie!
• I mentioned above that Leody Taveras was robbed of a hit by Tony Kemp. He had singles in his other three at bats. Maybe he’s warming up. That would be a good thing, right?
• Before the series started I wrote about how the Rangers were playing a series at home against a bad team, and Houston was playing a series on the road against a good team, and so this was potentially an opportunity to add some cushion to the team’s lead in the A.L. West. The Rangers promptly went out and farted it up in the first game of the series and lost, while Houston won, because bad things happen sometimes. Texas did take the final two games against Oakland, at least, while Houston swept the Braves. In any case the lead over Houston dropped from 3.5 games to 2.5 games so ignore everything I wrote in that earlier post.
• Jacob deGrom hit 101.0 mph today. Brock Burke reached 95.1 mph on his fastball. Jonathan Hernandez’s sinker touched 99.2 mph. Will Smith maxed out at 93.9 mph.
• For the second game in a row, the high exit velocity came from Ezequiel Duran, who had a 112.8 mph double. He also had a 102.5 mph ground out. Leody Taveras had a 109.5 mph single and a 103.9 mph single. Jonah Heim had a 106.6 mph fly out and a 101.3 mph ground out. Nathaniel Lowe had a 105.9 mph ground out. Bubba Thompson had a 103.9 mph line out. Adolis Garcia had a 103.5 mph ground out. Josh Jung had a 101.6 mph ground out. Robbie Grossman’s home run was 99.8 mph.
• Texas starts a series in Cincinnati tomorrow. I’m not sure when the last time they played at Cincinnati was. It seems like a long time ago.