ARLINGTON, Texas — Realistically, the only thing that would have made this series a worse start to the second half for the Texas Rangers would have been if the Baltimore Orioles would have found a couple more runs to complete a sweep on Sunday.
As it were, the Rangers held off the Orioles in the finale to manage to take one of three from Baltimore, and even then, it was a little too close for comfort as Texas won Sunday’s contest 3-2. Overall, Baltimore outscored the Rangers 19-8 in the three games over the weekend and looked every bit like the contenders that Texas has not.
Coming out of the All-Star break refreshed and aiming to build off the momentum from winning a series in Houston to close the first half was the goal, but Texas once again had issues getting any traction on offense – this time, though, the starting pitching failed them too.
- Game 97: Baltimore 9, Texas 1 (W: Burnes, 10-4, L: Eovaldi, 6-4)
- Game 98: Baltimore 8, Texas 4 (W: Rodriguez, 12-4, L: Scherzer, 1-3)
- Game 99: Baltimore 2, Texas 3 (W: Heaney, 4-10, L: Kremer, 4-6, Sv: Yates, 17)
Ace-less
On paper, having Nathan Eovaldi and Max Scherzer starting out against one of the best teams in the American League would seem to have given the Rangers a fighting chance. Both are top of the rotation pitchers in every sense, and both have a good track record for coming up large against good teams like Baltimore.
Unfortunately, like other aces, they will also have their bad days. For Eovaldi and Scherzer, they just happened to have bad days back to back to spoil the start of the second half.
Eovaldi’s day never started on the right foot, allowing two, two-run homers in the first inning alone. From that point, the Rangers answered with just one run and two hits all evening. Eovaldi would give up another two-run homer in the fifth before his day was done.
Scherzer at least started with a scoreless first inning. The second inning would not go as well, as the Orioles would put together a big inning with four hits and two walks, scoring four runs off Scherzer as he exited with arm fatigue.
Heaney gets the dub
Andrew Heaney’s Win-Loss record does not accurately reflect how well he’s been pitching, but it does perhaps reflect the changes that are happening with starting pitching in today’s game.
Coming into Sunday’s game, Heaney had only been given an average of 3.4 runs of support per game – a career low for the lefty. While the Rangers gave him only three runs to work with in the finale, Heaney and the Rangers’ bullpen were equal to the task.
The three runs came via a Jonah Heim three-run homer in the fourth, a two-out shot that made up the entirety of Texas’ offensive output in the series’ lone win. Heaney, who mentioned afterward that he didn’t feel as though he had his best stuff, was able to hold down the homer-happy Orioles through his five innings of work, with the final out coming as he fought off a Bruce Bochy mound visit to stay in the game and complete enough innings to qualify for the victory.
The bullpen, despite David Robertson allowing a two-run homer to Anthony Santander, was able to keep Baltimore from coming back completely, to help Heaney pick up a rare win.
Lifeless bats
In the ten games leading up to the All-Star break, Texas held a 7-3 record, outscoring their opponents 46-32. The bats were sporting a slash line of .254/.334/.397 during that stretch, certainly not 2023 levels of output, but a far better mark than their overall season slash of .238/.310/.378.
There was some hope that that momentum could be sustained coming out of the break. But Texas only managed two hits total in the first game of the second half. Three of the six hits on Saturday came in the seventh inning and beyond, well after the Orioles had put the game far out of reach.
In the finale, only one of the six hits in the game produced runs – Heim’s three-run homer. The other five were scattered throughout the game and the two runners that were on for Heim’s homer reached via a walk. The offense is still struggling to string together successful rallies against average pitching; against good pitching, like they faced in this series against Baltimore, they don’t seem to stand a chance.
Winning the series finale was perhaps a sign that the team still has some fight in them. However, as the trade deadline draws closer, the Rangers need a good showing against their next few opponents to give general manager Chris Young the belief that this is a team that can play the final two months of the season with a shot at October.
The worst team in baseball, the Chicago White Sox, are next on the docket in what could be the Rangers’ last chance to turn it around.
Do you think the Rangers will put this series loss behind them to close out July strong? Share your thoughts with Matt on Twitter @FisherWritesMLB.
