Texas Rangers: Yu Darvish’s Dominance Was Not Enough Today

The Texas Rangers fall short today against the Angels, falling to 43-45. As a result, Texas drops to fourth place in the American League West standings. At least Texas is able to wrap their back-and-forth first half of their 2017 season with a series win. It’s been a roller coaster of a first half of baseball for Texas.

It wasn’t a terrible afternoon for the Texas Rangers, but it just wasn’t their day today. The Angels immediately took a 1-0 lead. Things were quiet until the fifth when the Angels made it 2-0. Fast-forward to the ninth, it was 3-0 in the Angels’ favor. This is Texas’ first shut-out loss at home and their second shut-out loss of the season.

Another hard-fought performance for Yu that didn’t end in his favor. He pitched 7.1 innings, allowing three hits, two runs, and striking out six batters, falling to 6-8. For the first time since 2013, Darvish is a four-game losing streak and Texas is 1-8 in Darvish’s last nine starts. Today, Darvish passes Colby Lewis for most strikeouts in franchise history. Darvish is now fifth all-time in Arlington in strikeouts with 937 and he’s two away from tying with Nolan Ryan. On Friday, Darvish agreed to withdraw from the All-Star game so he can pitch today and apparently it wasn’t hard to convince him to skip the All-Star. Seems like Darvish is more concerned about the Rangers than the All-Star and he’s trying to impress Texas so they can re-sign him this off-season.

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Alex Claudio took over, pitching 0.1 innings, allowing no hits, no runs, and striking out one batter. When Claudio entered, the Angels had two batters on base with one out, and Claudio denied the Angels. Jose Leclerc pitched the last 1.1 innings, allowing two hits, one run, and striking out one batter.

Pitching’s ERA of 4.31 places them 15th in the league. Furthermore, they’re 12th in hits with 774, 16th in runs with 415 and 29th in strikeouts with 624. Fielding moves to third in the league in double plays with 96.

Offense finished 2-for-26, striking out six times. Once again, they start the streak of less than eight strikeouts in a game. Seven players went hit-less. The hitting streaks of Rougned Odor and Elvis Andrus both come to an end. Same thing with Adrian Beltre. Nomar Mazara extends his hitting streak to three games. Drew Robinson’s two-game hitting streak is also over. Delino DeShields extends his hitting streak to three games. Making his return from a hamstring injury, Joey Gallo went hit-less.

Texas resumes play next Friday. The Rangers are going to be in Kansas City for a three-game series.