Game 55: Why did you even bother?

After spending a month in Germany, tonight was my first attempt to get back into the swing of things. Of course, it would be the night that Oakland (the worst offense in baseball) scored 12 runs and nearly no-hit the Rangers.

If this game were a plane crash, you wouldn’t even bother looking for the black box. That’s how bad it was.

It was actually a Tale of Two Pitchers. Scott Feldman went 1.2 innings, gave up 8 earned runs on 7 hits and 1 walk. Jarrod Parker surrendered his first hit with no out in the 8th inning.

Aside from Feldman’s performance, Texas didn’t play badly. They didn’t kick the ball around or make boneheaded plays like they have been recently. They just couldn’t get any hits.

From that point of view, I’m not too worried about this game alone. It was a bad game and bad games happen.

What does concern me is that Texas has been a .500 team for a month and can’t seem to handle the AL West right now. Against Anaheim (3-3 record), Seattle (5-5), and Oakland (1-2) the Rangers are a game under .500.

That won’t get it done.

Being even with Anaheim is one thing, but you should feast on your other division rivals, especially when they’re as bad as the A’s and M’s. That’s what Texas did the last two years and it served them well.

Tomorrow is game 2 of a 4 game set and as good a time as any to get things back on track. Sweeping the rest of the series would be huge.

Also of note…

• Feldman nearly went pitch-for-pitch with Derek Holland‘s start from last Tuesday. The meltdown inning went walk, single, homerun, infield single, single, double, single, ground out, fielder’s choice (botched by Feldman), strikeout, single, pitching change, single, ground out. It took 54 pitches to get 5 outs.
• Tom Grieve brought up an interesting idea during the nightmare of a 2nd inning. Since Robbie Ross has sort of acted as a long reliever for the last couple of weeks, why not stretch him out a bit and let him take the 5th spot for the moment? I’m currently kicking off the #freeRobbieRoss campaign.
• The highlight of the game was Craig Gentry pitching the 8th inning. Wash is on record saying he would never use a position player to pitch, but Texas has 6 games in the next 6 days, so some of the ‘pen had to be saved. Gentry gave up 2 runs on 3 hits and a walk. He did look comfortable on the mound, for whatever that’s worth.
• The Rangers managed to avoid their first shutout of the year as Mike Napoli hit a solo homerun in the 9th.
• Did you watch this whole game? If so, why? I had a recap to write. What’s your excuse?

Derek Holland takes the hill tomorrow night in Oakland, hoping to bounce back from his own 8-run meltdown performance. The game starts at 9:05 Arlington time and can be seen on FSSW.

Press on, Rangers fans.

(Leave a comment or find me on Twitter @BleacherSeatsTX. As always, thanks to Baseball Reference for their invaluable resources.)