ARLINGTON, Texas — It didn’t take long for the good feelings of two sweeps in a row to go away, as the Los Angeles Dodgers came into town and slapped Texas around a bit. Each game was every bit the offensive dogfight that was to be expected but with Los Angeles ruthlessly figuring out the soft underbelly of the Texas pitching staff.
Both teams’ biggest needs were highlighted over the course of the series, though Texas showed that they are able to brush off two really bad games to continue to fight with the win in the finale.
Game 98: Los Angeles 11, Texas 5 (W: Brasier, 2-0, L: Speas, 0-1)
Game 99: Los Angeles 16, Texas 3 (W: Miller, 6-1, L: Dunning, 8-3)
Game 100: Los Angeles 4, Texas 8 (W: Perez, 8-3, L: Sheehan, 3-1)
-Three Up
Perez calms down – Sunday’s finale started out looking like it was going to result in a sweep for the visitors. Martin Perez could not throw quality strikes to save his life to open the game, throwing inside and outside the zone, nibbling as he does, trying to induce weak contact. But the strikes he did throw resulted in some hard contact from the Dodgers, and very quickly, within the span of five batters, Texas was down 4-0.
There was no time to pout, however. The Rangers were able to overcome that deficit and give Perez a lead to work with by the end of the second inning. Perez was able to halt the nibbling and just threw to the bottom of the zone where he was getting strikes and weak contact.
With a new lease on life because of the relentless Rangers’ offense, Perez went efficiently through the Dodgers over the next five innings. His biggest moment came in the 3rd. After Texas had just taken the lead, Perez walked the hottest hitter on Earth right now – Freddie Freeman, who went 8-for-12 in the season – and then had a fortunate bounce for an automatic double off the bat of Will Smith.
With two men in scoring position and no outs, Perez got Chris Taylor to fly out to shallow left field, struck out the Grand Slam hitting Max Muncy, and got rookie James Outman to ground out to end the threat. The Dodgers were stifled at the plate for the rest of the afternoon.
Bats bounce back – After being held to just eight runs over the first two games of the series, Texas had a raucous run in the first four innings of the finale. The offense, absent Corey Seager, on the IL, and Adolis Garcia, out with a sore hand after being hit by a pitch on Saturday, put up eight runs off of rookie starter Emmet Sheehan, scoring in each of the first four innings.
Everyone in the lineup reached base, and Texas collected two-out RBIs from Josh Jung, Nathaniel Lowe, Jonah Heim, and Ezequiel Duran. Getting knocked down 4-0 in the first inning could take the wind out of their sails, but Texas kept going to ensure that they gave their starter enough support to pitch confidently.
The winning pieces – If there is a blueprint to using a bullpen, Bruce Bochy followed it to a T on Sunday afternoon. With Perez able to overcome the first inning Grand Slam and give Texas six full innings, Bochy was able to deploy his winning pieces with extreme success. Brock Burke, who has allowed one run all month, and since May has been one of the Rangers better relievers, pitched a clean 7th.
Aroldis Chapman came out in the 8th, had a lengthy battle with Will Smith that ended in a pop-up, allowed a double to Chris Taylor, but then struck out Max Muncy on a 100-MPH Fastball and pinch-hitter Yonny Hernandez on a 103-MPH Sinker, the new hardest thrown pitch recorded in team history.
Texas co-closer Will Smith faced the minimum in the 9th, ending the game on a double-play grounder. Even though it wasn’t a save situation, the Rangers took no chances. If Bochy could use those three every game, there would probably be a few more victories in the win column for Texas.
-Three Down
Misplaced Trust – Unfortunately, Bochy does have to use people other than Burke, Chapman and Smith, and he tried to do so in the opening game. With Andrew Heaney unable to give the team even 80 pitches on the night, Bochy had to turn to Jose Leclerc in the 6th to try and keep the game tied at 4-4. That strategy worked to an extent, as Leclerc was able to record two outs, but loaded the bases, prompting the one-out appearance of Burke, who induced a pop-up to hold the score.
Texas would take the lead in the bottom half of the inning, however, and Bochy opted for Alex Speas to make his second career big league appearance. At first glance, it seemed to make sense. Speas had struck out three Tampa Bay All Stars just two games ago, so why not have him try to retire some Los Angeles Dodgers All Stars?
That didn’t work out as planned, though, as Speas would walk Mookie Betts, intentionally put Freeman on base, allowed a single from Will Smith and then walked in the tying run. Cody Bradford, who has been effective lately, came on to relieve Speas, and retired his three batters, although one ground out allowed LA to take the lead.
The floodgates then opened in the next inning, as Grant Anderson came in after one out and allowed three runs to score, then allowed two more in the ninth. Anderson was sent down the next day, as Bochy had exhausted five arms in the loss on Friday night – none of whom were Chapman or Smith.
Dunning dud – Dane Dunning had some season benchmarks on Saturday, none of which were positive. The righty went the fewest innings that he has gone in any start this season, only pitching three frames. They were hard-working innings too, as Dunning totaled 79 pitches in those innings. He also gave up the most runs in any outing, allowing five Dodgers to cross the plate on seven hits.
Dunning rare poor showing included two homers, one off the bat of Freeman and one from Muncy, a common theme in this series. Perhaps the outing can be chalked up to simply a bad day at the office for Dunning, who has only had two other bad days at the office. With the wipeout start, Dunning’s ERA went above 3 for the first time all season, and now sits at 3.18.
Seager goes down – The other bad news from this series is the fact that Corey Seager is going to need some time on the injured list again. Sliding into second base head first in the 8th inning on Friday night, when the score was 9-5, Seager hurt his thumb. The shortstop immediately left the field and headed down to the clubhouse with a trainer.
It was announced the next day that Seager had suffered a sprain. The good news is that he isn’t expected to miss much more than the minimum 10 days. The bad news is Texas faces division rival Houston starting on Monday. In the time between when Seager was last on the IL with a hamstring injury back in April until now, he had slashed .348/.402/.647 with 14 homers and 54 RBI as he performed as one of the best players in the league.
With the homestand complete, Texas travels a few hours south to Houston, holding just a 3.0 game lead over their in-state and in-division rivals. At the start of this homestand, out of the All-Star break, that lead was 2.0.
A lot more ground could have been made up, but all in all, the Rangers went 7-2 on this homestand, and while the two losses were blowouts, they were still just two losses. Texas ended the homestand on a high note and next aim to put more distance between themselves and the Astros.
Do you think the Rangers can trust Martin Perez after his rebound performance? Share your thoughts with Matt on Twitter @FisherWritesMLB.