Rangers Get Revenge In Toronto

The Texas Rangers headed up north to take on the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday and came away with a close victory.

The last and most vivid memory most Rangers fans probably have of the Toronto Blue Jays was the Jose Bautista bat flip heard round the world. It was a dark time in Arlington, perhaps only overshadowed by two World Series losses. However, this is a new year. The Texas Rangers are a new team. And to cap it off, they’ve started 2016 off very quickly.

On The Mound

The Texas Rangers handed the ball to AJ Griffin Monday night n their return to Toronto to take on the Blue Jays. Griffin, who went into the game as one of the top pitchers in the Rangers staff, threw an impressive 6 innings allowing just one earned run on three hits while tying his career high in strikeouts at nine. Following this outing, opponents are now hitting just .180 against him this season and he’s posting a 2.32 ERA.

In relief, Tony Barnette came in for the seventh and picked up the win allowing just two hits and no runs in his inning of work. Sam Dyson and Shawn Tolleson shut down the eighth and ninth innings respectively with Tolleson picking up his league leading ninth save this season.

At The Plate

It was a quiet day at the plate for the Texas Rangers tallying just seven hits and scoring only two runs. Texas did have two players record multi-hit games with Nomar Mazara and Delino DeShields both recording two.

Brett Nicholas got the scoring started by hitting a leadoff homerun in the top of the third innings giving Texas a 1-0 lead. Toronto tied it up in the bottom of the inning and the game remained a 1-1 tie until the eighth inning when Mazara hit a go ahead solo homerun for the Rangers that led to the win.

Stats

WP- Barnette (1-1): 1IP, 2H, 0ER

LP- Floyd (0-2): 1.1IP, 1H, 1ER

SV- Tolleson (9): 1IP, 1H, 0ER

Mazara: 2-4 HR

Nicholas: 1-2 HR

DeShields: 2-3 BB

More from Nolan Writin'

• Framework for a potential Max Fried trade to the Texas Rangers
• Early 2023 MLB mock draft has Texas Rangers selecting an Ohtani-lite
• 3 Texas Rangers outfield trade targets not named Bryan Reynolds
• Did Jacob deGrom really mean what he said at his Texas Rangers press conference?
• Where do Texas Rangers prospects Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker stand after the DeGrom signing?