ARLINGTON, Texas — In a battle between the National League’s worst offense against the best offense in the American League, the old adage of “You never know what you’ll see when you come to a ballgame” never rang truer during a weekend sweep of the Texas Rangers by the Milwaukee Brewers.
While the Brewers’ trade deadline additions were meant to bring pop and productivity to the lineup, the numbers didn’t show that they were providing that going into the series, and it appeared that the suddenly strikeout-happy Rangers’ pitching staff would have no problem against Milwaukee.
Instead, the tenuously first place Brewers showed surprising fight and the first place Rangers had their string of winning series in August broken, while starting a new streak – of losing games.
Game 122: Milwaukee 9, Texas 8 (W: Peguero, 3-4, L: Sborz, 5-5, Sv: Williams, 29)
Game 123: Milwaukee 6, Texas 1 (W: Peralta, 10-8, L: Dunning, 9-5)
Game 124: Milwaukee 6, Texas 2 (W: Houser, 5-4, L: Scherzer, 12-5, Sv: Williams, 30)
Three Up
Going down swinging – The Rangers nearly mounted two comebacks in the series opener. Down 3-0 going into the 4th inning, Nathaniel Lowe hit a two-run homer and Mitch Garver rifled a solo shot down the left field line to tie the game. Adolis Garcia broke through in the 6th with an RBI single to give the Rangers a 4-3 lead, but newly acquired Brewer Carlos Santana did exactly what he came to Milwaukee to do – provide power.
Santana took Josh Sborz deep in the 7th, giving the Brew Crew a 6-4 lead that they did not relinquish despite Texas’ best effort. The Brewers scored three more runs in the next inning, taking a 9-4 lead into the 9th. The bottom of the lineup started a rally that brought the Rangers to within one run of tying the game. They couldn’t complete that comeback, but they didn’t show signs of mailing it in either.
Seager stays sizzling – There’s not much positive to take away from a sweep that was mostly blowout losses, but Corey Seager doesn’t seem to be affected by the offensive dearth. For the series, Seager went 3-for-11 with a homer in the finale. Even though he was hitless in the second game of the series, he still drew a walk, which pushes his consecutive games on-base streak to eight.
Over the entire season, Seager hasn’t gone hitless in back-to-back games. Since returning from the injured list the first time back in May, Seager has 22 homers and 70 RBI. That would be a good season for most players, but that’s just the shortstop’s most recent 70 games.
Scherzer goes to 11 – It was a bittersweet day for the Rangers’ newly acquired ace in the finale. While he only logged 3 ⅔ innings while throwing 99 pitches on Sunday, he struck out four Brewers. In doing so, Scherzer logged career strikeout No. 3,344, putting him into sole possession of 11th place on the all-time strikeout list, passing Phil Niekro.
Still, it wasn’t a milestone to revel in as he took his first loss with the Rangers, while notching his fourth start this season where he wasn’t able to get out of the 4th inning.
Three Down
Early hooks – This time it wasn’t about illness. Even though Andrew Heaney said he felt back to health, after his last start was cut short due to feeling sick, manager Bruce Bochy still pulled the lefty after another start with spotty command. Heaney only ended up going 3 ⅔ innings, surrendering three runs.
With Nathan Eovaldi having another encouraging bullpen session and getting closer to returning from forearm tightness, it would not be a surprise to see Heaney as the next rotation member to head to the bullpen, following Martin Perez.
Perez, meanwhile, followed Dane Dunning, who was only able to go five innings, allowing three runs on seven hits. The five innings was the longest by a Rangers starter all series after Scherzer departed before the final out of the 4th. Scherzer only surrendered three hits, but walked four as three Brewers crossed the plate. Post-game, Scherzer said that he was having trouble putting hitters away with 2 strikes, as evidenced by a 42-pitch 3rd inning.
A hitch in the offense – With both teams being shut out in their respective games prior to the series opener on Friday, the stats pages would have told you to put good money on the Rangers being the team to bounce back and have an offensive explosion. The games, though, aren’t played on paper, and it was the Brewers who ended up putting a nine-spot on Texas on Friday.
After being no-hit into the 8th inning by Angels’ starter Reid Detmer on Wednesday, the Rangers took four innings to answer back to the three runs the Brewers put up early in the opener. The next night, Texas was only able to offer starter Dunning one run of support – even more concerning is they only managed four hits on the night, all of them singles, which ended their streak of consecutive games with an extra-base hit.
Most concerning of all was the fact that they struck out a season high of 18 times throughout the afternoon game on Saturday. The Brewers, who entered the series as one of the least prolific offenses in the big leagues, put up six runs on Dunning and Perez, while Texas scratched across one. In the finale, Texas still couldn’t put much across the plate, despite eight hits. The offense only scored two runs in support of a scuffling Scherzer.
A bad streak – The Rangers haven’t suffered a streak like this since being swept by the Cincinnati Reds and then losing the opener in a series against the New York Yankees. Those three games against the Reds were bullpen losses, but being swept by the Brewers was a result of issues in every area of the game from Texas.
The starters only logged 12 ⅓ innings, by far the worst three games in a row for the starting staff. They gave up a total of nine runs. The bullpen gave up 12 runs. The offense only scored 11 runs total across the series, with 8 of those being in the losing effort in the opener.
The defense also committed three errors in the finale while the team wasn’t able to make up any ground on the second place Houston Astros, who themselves got swept by the Mariners. With both Texas teams swept, Seattle has now entered the division race.
Texas’ incredible run in August came crashing to a halt, as their series winning streak and home winning streak stopped over this weekend. Texas next travels a few states over to face another tough challenge in the Wild Card hopeful Arizona Diamondbacks.
Do you think the Rangers will be able to bounce back from this sweep by Milwaukee? Share your thoughts with Matt on Twitter @FisherWritesMLB.
