59-42 - The west remains wild as Rangers lose heartbreaker 10-9

The Texas Rangers scored nine runs while the Houston Astros scored ten runs.

Well that sucked. What more can you say? The Rangers had it all laid out in front of them. The offense scored nine runs to mask a poor outing from starter Jon Gray and took a 9-6 lead into the 7th where Aroldis Chapman was called on to face the top of the Houston order.

It’s everything that I asked for from Bruce Bochy in this very space in Friday’s loss. There’s no second guessing this one. Chapman had been unhittable since coming over to Texas but he gave up a three-run homer, despite the fact that he had not allowed a home run in over a year, which tied the game, which meant we eventually had to wait out the walk-off loss that felt inevitable.

The AL West lead is two games.

Player of the Game: Josh Smith hit one to the upper deck which I did not know was possible.

Up Next: The second game in this series will feature a pitcher to be named (Owen White? Cody Bradford?) for Texas opposite RHP J.P. France for Houston.

Tuesday evening’s first pitch from Minute Maid Park is scheduled for 7:10 pm CT and will be aired via BS Southwest.