Texas Rangers: Griffin Dominates In Last Night’s Victory

The Texas Rangers have snapped their three-game losing streak with a respectable 7-0 win against the A’s last night. This is Texas’s first shut-out victory since September 24th of last season, which was against the A’s. Ironically, it was in Oakland, too. On a positive note, this is also Texas’ first win this season which they’ve scored less than eight runs. They’re no longer at the bottom of the A.L. West standings.

Overall, a great performance by the ball club. Pitching was impressive. Offense didn’t do so great, but played well enough to win in a positive fashion. This sort of win is the way to go for the Texas Rangers to turn things around.

A.J. Griffin stepped on the mound. He pitched 6.0 innings, allowing a season-low of just one hit, surrendering no runs, and striking out a season-high of eight batters, improving to 2-0. Had Griffin struck out two more, he’d of achieved a career-high of strikeouts. His record is currently nine. Griffin’s allowing of one hit is his first time to do so since September 18, 2013. Griffin’s last two performances are very respectable. In any case, he needs to keep it up.

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Bullpen was phenomenal. Alex Claudio entered the game once Griffin was done for the night. He pitched 1.2 innings, allowing  two hits, surrendering no runs, and striking out one batter. Jeremy Jeffress then entered briefly, allowing no hits, no runs, and striking no batters, pitching in just 0.1 of an inning. Keone Kela closed the game, allowing no hits, no runs, and striking out one batter. Definitely a good start for Kela, as he was called up to the majors the same day. Pitching allowed Oakland’s offense to finish 3-for-28 and struck them out ten times.

Offense finished 7-for-33 and struck out a total of six times. Texas is currently first in the league in runs scored with a total of 69 and  third in home runs hit with 20. They also lead the league in RBIs with 67. In this game, Carlos Gomez ended his two-game hit-less streak by registering two hits. Nomar Mazara is now seventh in the league in hits with 19 and he’s eighth in runs with 12. Jonathan Lucroy, Shin-Soo Choo, Jurickson Profar and Joey Gallo all went a combined 0-for-10. Choo had 5 RBIs in Sunday’s game at Seattle, which was his most in a game since the 2010 season. Offense is doing very good.

Next: 3 Takeaways From Seattle’s Sweep of The Rangers

Yu Darvish is stepping on the mound tonight. He’s squaring off against Andrew Triggs who’s 2-0 and has an ERA of 0.00. In any case, Darvish and company need to win to get the winning streak alive and start another series-wining streak.