Thoughts on a 16-6 Rangers win

Rangers 16, Mariners 6

• Take that, Seattle.
• Andrew Heaney did not pitch well early in the game. John King did not pitch well at the end of the game. In between a bunch of guys pitched well, though.
• Heaney had a rather strange night. Throwing mostly fastballs and sliders, he did a good job getting the Mariners to swing and miss, generating 18 whiffs on 78 pitches. When they made contact, though, the M’s crushed against Heaney, recording an average exit velocity of 97.9 mph on 10 balls in play. To put that in perspective, Aaron Judge has the highest average exit velocity in MLB this year, at 97.1.
• Six of those balls in play went for hits, and Heaney walked four batters. It is fair to say that it wasn’t his best day.
• Josh Sborz came into the game in the fourth inning with the bases loaded, one run already in in the inning, and no one out. Sborz got a K, then induced Julio Rodriguez to hit a grounder that was just too slow to turn a double play on, putting runners on first and third and two outs.
• The third out of the inning came on a play that reinforced the belief that things are going the Rangers way this season. Rodriguez broke for second on a steal. Jonah Heim either faked a throw to second or started to throw then changed his mind. Either way, the ball came out of his hand and bounded out towards shortstop. Jose Caballero, who was on third, broke for home, as one would expect. Except Seager fielded it like a routine five hopper and threw home, nailing Caballero. Crazy play, and a play that is much more fun when you are on the right side of it.
• Sborz has, over the course of this season, thrown about 40% fastballs, 30% sliders and 30% curves. Against Seattle in his two inning stint he threw 12 sliders out of 21 pitches. Jon Gray threw more sliders than fastballs on Friday, as well as in his previous start against Seattle, and said that that is their plan of attack against the M’s. It seemed to work.
• Jose Leclerc threw two shutout innings behind Sborz. The M’s had four Ks, two pop ups, and a hard hit single off of Leclerc. 23 of 35 pitches were strikes. It was a very good Leclerc outing.
• Also worth noting is that Leclerc averaged 95.6 mph on his fastball and 83.7 mph on his slider, compared to 94.6 mph and 82.3 mph, respectively, for the year as a whole.
• Cole Ragans came in to get some work in the eighth and had an easy and efficient 14 pitch inning. John King came in to get some work in the ninth and had a difficult 30 pitch inning with three runs scoring. At least the Rangers had a huge lead at the time.
• The offense mashed once again. Marcus Semien, Corey Seager and Nathaniel Lowe, in particular, led the way. Semien had four hits and was a triple short of the cycle. Seager and Lowe had three hits apiece.
• Every Ranger starter had a hit except for Josh Jung, who drew a walk. Leody Taveras, Mitch Garver and Jonah Heim had two hits apiece. Ezequiel Duran drew two walks, which is almost as remarkable as the final out of the fourth inning was.
• If it seems like the Rangers are boat racing teams on the regular, well, they kind of are. They’ve had a lead of at least 10 runs in 11 of 57 games this year. Kind of crazy.
• Andrew Heaney hit 94.9 mph with his fastball. Josh Sborz reached 97.6 mph with his fastball. Jose Leclerc topped out at 96.7 mph with his fastball. Cole Ragans hit 98.7 mph. John King’s sinker maxed out at 95.4 mph.
• Ezequiel Duran had a 112.7 mph single. Nathaniel Lowe had a 110.8 mph single and a 108.9 mph home run. Corey Seager had a single at 106.9 mph, a line out at 105.7 mph, and a double at 101.3 mph. Mitch Garver had a 105.8 mph home run. Marcus Semien had a 105.4 mph double, a 104.9 mph single and a 104.9 mph home run. Leody Taveras had a 103.9 mph home run. Adolis Garcia had a 100.5 mph fly out.
• Going for the sweep on Sunday. Holla.