Rangers Avoid Royals Rally, Complete the Sweep

This Easter afternoon the Texas Rangers completed a three-game sweep against the Kansas City Royals. This was another offensive clinic by the Texas Rangers but they almost gave the game away in the ninth.

Pitching:

C.J. Wilson picked up his third win of the season in this one going seven innings. In an evening similar to Holland’s on Friday night, Wilson allowed some hits but was carried by the offense. Through seven he allowed eight hits and four earned runs. A standard complaint against CJ has been the amount of walks that he allows in a single game, today…only one walk and ten strikeouts.

The trouble came in the ninth inning, after pitching well in the eighth inning Brett Tomko found his way into trouble in the ninth. After two strikeouts to start the inning, Tomko allowed two runners to get on base and then a three-run homer from Mike Aviles making the score 8-7. Ron Washington then pulled Tomko to bring in Arthur Rhodes, who forced Melky Cabrera to ground out. Rhodes earned the save in the ballgame with only one out.

Rangers Offense:

Everyone for the Rangers had a hit on the game except for Mitch Moreland (Mitchy did find his way on base twice after being walked.) Mike Napoli and Adrian Beltre each had home runs on the game. Andres Blanco playing for Elvis Andrus picked up his first home run of the season. Napoli had another RBI in the game and Michael Young continued his hitting streak with an RBI single.  After a base clearing double David Murphy picked up three RBIs in the game. It’s refreshing to see the bats moving after their recent slump, hopefully they can carry this throughout the home-stand.

Up Next:

Starting tomorrow we get a four-game series against the Toronto Blue Jays, a team who has played the Rangers very well in recent years. The rookie from Victoria Texas, Kyle Drabek takes the mound for the Jays against a recently struggling Colby Lewis. Game time is 7:05pm.

-Jonathan