Thoughts on a 4-0 Rangers win

Rangers 4, Royals 0

• Four game winning streak!
• The return of Max Scherzer!
• Some runs scored!
• Yeaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
• The unlikely tag team of Max Scherzer and Jose Urena got the Rangers a shutout. Only two hits allowed. Two! And one walk.
• And the Rangers faced just one over the minimum. Maikel Garcia got thrown out trying to steal on a K/CS double play in the sixth, and Nelson Velazquez hit into a GIDP to end the eighth.
• Scherzer needed just 57 pitches to get through five innings, and I was worried when Urena started warming after the fifth. 57 pitches…he wasn’t getting pulled then unless there was something wrong with him, no?
• Except he was fine, other than the ongoing concerns about the nerve issues with his hand, and, you know, the fact he’s about to turn 40 and there’s always a concern that any pitch could be his last.
• We gotta appreciate every moment of Max Scherzer we get, yall.
• And Jose Urena had a four inning save. It was the 30th save of exactly four innings in Rangers history. The last time it happened was in 2005 — when it happened twice, oddly, once with C.J. Wilson doing it, once by John Wasdin.
• There have only been two saves in Ranger history longer than four innings. In April, 1972, Horacio Pina had a six inning save for the Rangers. And of course, in September, 2002, Joaquin Benoit got a seven inning save in a game against the Baltimore Orioles where the Orioles’ Jerry Hairston broke up a no hitter with a triple to lead off the ninth.
• The Rangers had a lot of hits in this game. Really, looking at all these hits, I’m kind of annoyed the Rangers didn’t get more runs.
• Corey Seager had a pair of hits, and when you look at the 100+ EV numbers below you’ll see he could have had more. Leody Taveras had a pair of hits, including a two RBI single. Nathaniel Lowe had a pair of weird singles, one a Baltimore chop that went so high there was no play at first, one a bleeder the other way that no play could be made on because of how he’d been shifted against.
• Wyatt Langford had an RBI double. Josh Smith homered.
• Every Ranger had a hit except for Ezequiel Duran, who had a walk, and Andrew Knizner, who is Andrew Knizner.
• Max Scherzer maxed (get it?) out at 94.3 mph on his fastball, averaging 93.7 mph. Jose Urena reached 97.3 mph with his sinker.
• Corey Seager had a 110.3 mph single, a 105.6 mph double, a 104.4 mph fly out and a 102.7 mph fly out. Wyatt Langford had a 106.3 mph ground out. Marcus Semien had a 103.3 mph ground out. Josh Smith had a 102.2 home run.
• A road trip. Let’s keep this going, guys.