The Texas Rangers had won eight of their last ten games going into last nights game against the Oakland Athletics. As a fan of any sport, one thing that is hard to remember is that a blowout loss and a close loss still only count as a loss. The blowout losses are hard to sit and watch. The close ones usually hurt more. The blowouts against division rivals are always the worst though.
The Rangers couldn’t get anything going last night either offensively or on the mound. Josh Lindbloom made his first major league start, although he has been a reliever several times at the major league level. He looked in trouble all night, and finally did get into trouble in the middle innings. The bull pen didn’t do much better. Lindbloom allowed four runs in 4.2 innings, which is not good. The pen was actually worse, giving up 5 runs in 4.1 innings. The defense was also suspect and Rangers Nation is beginning to tire of outfielder David Murphy. Murphy is having a very rough season at the plate, and last night he was not exactly stellar on defense either. Murphy is trying, but with Jeff Baker and Craig Gentry riding the bench almost every night, I am not sure how much longer Murphy’s leash will be before he becomes a bench player once again. One of the positive things to take out of last nights game is that twenty year old Jurickson Profar plated the Rangers only two runs on two separate sacrifice flies. So, even though he did not get a hit last night he was able to get the job done, which is a good sign for the young phenom who is destined to be a fantastic major league player one day.
The great thing about baseball is that after a night like last night, there is always a next day. Tonight the Rangers send Yu Darvish to the hill, and so far this season that has been a really good thing. Darvish at home has been close to unstoppable this season, well, he has been close to unstoppable everywhere. The Rangers have a great chance to bounce back and tie this series up tonight.
