4-2 - Rangers salvage finale behind deGrom’s dominance

The Texas Rangers scored five runs while the Baltimore Orioles scored two runs.

A neat thing about Jacob deGrom’s second start is that he reminded me of watching the best years from when Yu Darvish was a Ranger. There was just that specialness with a dash of anxiety that it can’t possibly be real.

Over the first four innings of the game, deGrom threw about as well as a pitcher humanly can. He was perfect and was doing wacky things like striking out the side on ten pitches with his 100 MPH heat and wideout slider.

Eventually deGrom didn’t have to worry about blowing up his pitch count with a Perfect Game watch as he allowed a leadoff double in the top of the 5th before needing a Mike Maddux shoulder rub to calm himself down as Baltimore followed with a ground out, walk, fielder’s choice error, and single to tie the game.

deGrom ended his day with a line of 6 IP, 11 K, 2 H, 1 ER, 2 BB on 92 pitches. Very Darvish-esque.

Meanwhile, Texas native Grayson Rodriguez was making his MLB debut for Baltimore and, though he paid the debuting nerves tax by allowing two runs in a shaky first inning, he settled in and looked the part of arguably the league’s best pitching prospect.

Rodriguez went five innings and allowed those two runs on four hits, a walk, and struck out five in his debut. He’s going to be a problem in the American League for a long time.

Ultimately the second deGrom day was way more of a glimpse at what we can dream on than the Opening Day start and eventually, after the Rangers got to the Baltimore bullpen, it led to deGrom picking up what we hope is the first of many wins for Texas.

The victory allowed the Rangers to finish their season-opening homestand successfully at 4-2.

Player of the Game: We know that deGrom was really good for as long as he was in the game but let’s acknowledge Josh Jung for going 2 for 4 and driving in three of the five runs. Jung’s second dong of the year brought home the go-ahead runs that helped deGrom pick up the win.

A week or so into the season and Jung is now slashing .318/.375/.636, which is nice to see after his near season-long injury last year had kind of taken him off the prospect map.

Up Next: The Rangers have Thursday off as they embark on their first road trip of the season beginning with a series against the Chicago Cubs. RHP Nathan Eovaldi is next up for Texas with LHP Justin Steele the probable starter for Chicago.

Friday’s first pitch from Wrigley Field is scheduled for 1:20 pm CT and can be viewed on Apple TV+.