Filed under: Ranger Losses | Tags: Clutch hitting, Jason Jennings, Left on Base
The Rangers continued their offensive cold streak tonight in the rubber match of their season-opening series in Seattle.
Some of the credit had to go to Carlos Silva, of course, as he held the Rangers to just three hits over 7 innings, while walking 3 and striking out 5 – a brilliant performance any way you slice it, perhaps the best of the three Mariner starters in the series.
But that doesn’t change the fact that the Rangers where a miserable 3-for-23 with runners in scoring position for the series, and 0-6 last night. And hitting like that just doesn’t win ballgames. It’s more than a little disturbing that this seemingly mirrors the way things started off last year when the Rangers where 2-19 with runners in scoring position in the season opening series against the Angels. And that April turned into one of the worst starts in franchise history.
It may be a little soon to start getting too concerned, only three games into the season, but it’s obvious, the Rangers need to start coming up with those clutch base hits. Hopefully they will start to do so a little sooner than they did last year.
The starting pitching this April has at least been much better than last year. Kevin Millwood and Vicente Padilla both turned in quality starts the first two games, and Jason Jennings was fairly solid last night, depsite exhibiting signs of what I like to call ”Kameron Loe-itis”.
Jennings was solid for most of the game, even brilliant, at one point retiring ten Mariners in a row. But he got beat by two mistake pitches, one that Jose Vidro got ahold of for a solo shot in the second inning, but the real gut punch came with two out in the in the 5th. After a shattered bat single by Yuniesky Betancourt, and a base hit by Ichiro, Jose Lopez, who had hit all of 11 home runs in 2007, stepped to the plate. Jennings quickly had him 1-2 in the count, but then missed getting at least one borderline call on the corner with his fastball. With the count 3-2, Jennings lobbed a meaty fastball down the middle, which Lopez muscled out to left field to put the Mariners up, 4-0.
Classic Kameron Loe-itis: a strong outing ruined by a couple bad mistakes. Let’s hope Jennings doesn’t make leaving pitches like that out over the plate a habit, or he is going to get killed at the Ballpark in Arlington.
In other news, as we head into an off-day tomorrow, TR Sullivan says that the Rangers infielders are over the nasty flu bug that had affected Ian Kinsler, Michael Young, Hank Blalock, and apparently Ben Broussard as well the first two games of the series. Apparently it’s true, because after making 4 errors in two games, everything went smoothely last night. Good news there – I have to say, my hat’s off to all of those guys, playing through the effects of that bug, even if they didn’t play particularly well.
TR also notes that 5th starter Luis Mendoza is on track to make his scheduled April 12th start against the Toronto Blue Jays after going on the disabled list with a blister on his right middle finger at the end of spring training.
After tomorrow’s off-day, the Rangers fly down from Seattle for a weekend series with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, right here in my backyard. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to go to any of the games, but I might actually get to watch them on TV – which is always a treat, even if I do have to put up with the insipid commentary of Rex Hudler.
