Series Recap: Seattle @ Texas

It was an important series win for the Texas Rangers. After taking the first two games of the series, they blew a late lead in the third game and if they had dropped yesterday’s game, a split would have been hard to take – especially against a team many saw inferior to the Rangers and no competition in the AL West.

They didn’t have to worry about that, however. Michael Young made everyone who wasn’t paying attention forget that the big bats of Mike Napoli, Adrian Beltre and Nelson Cruz aren’t doing much but not offense will be like Seattle’s (although it is still ahead of where it was last year.) Texas will not be able to take 1-0 leads into the fifth inning every game (the first game of the series is notably the outlier.) Not only because the offenses get better than Seattle’s but because you can’t expect great pitching every game. Eventually that is more pressure on the pitching staff meaning more high pressure pitches which means that the Rangers – a team that likes it’s pitchers to run deep into games – may have trouble as the season progresses.

The positive side of this, of course, is that the pitching was the bigger question mark going into the season. The fact that is there, you know that the offense will kick it up eventually. If the pitching can continue dominating, well, there’s a reason most people have the Rangers going to the playoffs and having some success once more.

Win Probability Added (WPA) (Starting Pitchers in bold)

Player	1	2	3	4	TOTAL
Feliz		0.505			0.505
Lewis			0.441		0.441
Holland				0.279	0.279
Adams	0.055	0.134		0.044	0.233
Young	-0.024	-0.108	0.058	0.305	0.231
Ogando	0.106		0.082		0.188
Moreland	0.139	-0.098	0.031		0.072
Snyder			0.07		0.07
Uehara				0.065	0.065
Cruz	0.319	-0.144	-0.029	-0.094	0.052
Beltre	0.024	0.088	-0.058	-0.009	0.045
Murphy	-0.067	0.191	-0.094		0.03
Kinsler	0.009	-0.117	-0.03	0.144	0.006
Feldman	0.004				0.004
Torrealba			-0.075	0.069	-0.006
Gonzalez				-0.037	-0.037
Hamiton	0.055	-0.05	-0.066	-0.056	-0.117
Napoli	0.027	-0.069		-0.077	-0.119
Darvish	-0.137				-0.137
Gentry	-0.009		-0.01	-0.133	-0.152
Andrus	-0.001	-0.022	-0.155		-0.178
Nathan		0.19	-0.665		-0.475

Statistical Breakdown

TEXAS	STATISTIC	SEATTLE
20	Runs Scored	12
.273 (36/132)	Average	.237 (33/139)
0.299	BABIP	0.296
7	HR	1
28	K (Hitters)	31
3-1	Record	1-3

Quick Game Results

04/09 W 11-5

W- Yu Darvish (1-0), L- Hector Noesi (0-1)

04/10 W 1-0

W- Neftali Feliz (1-0), L- Blake Beavan (0-1), S- Joe Nathan (2)

04/11 L 4-3

W- Lucas Luetge (1-0), L- Joe Nathan (0-2), S- Brandon League (3)

04/12 W 5-3

W- Derek Holland (1-0), L- Jason Vargas (1-1), S- Mike Adams (1)

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