Thoughts on a 4-2 Rangers win

Rangers 4, Yankees 2

• Woo hoo! A win!
• The unexpected excellence of Dane Dunning continues. Seven innings, just two Ks, but only two runs allowed. Dunning lowered his ERA on the year to 2.76.
• Rolling into New York, coming off an off day, one would have assumed that the full compliment of relievers was available. And maybe they were. But if so, the decisions made by Bruce Bochy in going to the pen were rather unexpected.
• When the Yankees, down 2-1, started the 8th inning with a pair of hits, putting runners on the corners with no one out, Bochy turned to…John King. Not who you would anticipate being brought in to protect a one run lead late. And then after King retired all three batters he faced, albeit one coming on a sac fly, Joe Barlow was given the task of pitching the ninth in a tie game.
• Not the late inning combo one would have anticipated. Though Will Smith did come on for the save in the tenth.
• The bats were once again irregular, leaving men on base and having us all anxious feeling over the missed opportunities. Every starter except Marcus Semien got a hit, but stringing together hits was problematic, which is why only two runs were scored in regulation.
• Adolis Garcia came through in the tenth with the homer to relieve that anxiety and provide the margin of victory, so it all worked out. Though it is amusing to me that an extra inning game the Rangers won ends up being by a two run margin, rather than one. Texas still has just 5 one run wins on the year.
• And so Texas just keeps rolling along. Houston and the Angels lost, putting Texas up 6.5 and 7 games over those two teams, respectively. That’s a pretty good-sized lead, I’d say.
• Dane Dunning topped out with his sinker at 92.7 mph. John King’s sinker reached 95.3 mph. Joe Barlow’s fastball touched 95.0 mph. Will Smith touched 93.9 mph.
• Adolis Garcia’s home run had an exit velocity of 111.8 mph, and he also had fly outs at 104.1 mph and 102.1 mph. Corey Seager had a 108.4 mph groundout, a 103.7 mph groundout and a 105.3 mph double. Nathaniel Lowe had a 106.0 mph single. Ezequiel Duran had a 103.2 mph single. Josh Jung had a 102.8 mph line out. Mitch Garver had singles at 101.0 and 100.8 mph. Robbie Grossman had a 100.6 mph double.
• Things are pretty good.