Game 84: 3 Hours I’ll Never Get Back

Sorry if this recap comes off as overly negative, but I had a less-than-stellar day and just capped it off with a less-then-stellar baseball game.

I’ll include a disclaimer right here and now: I have very little good to say about what just happened in Arlington, so the tone that follows won’t be particularly bright or sunny or cheery or any other words that you might find in a thesaurus.

Just as in yesterday’s game, Texas needed a super-human effort from their starting pitcher to even have a chance of winning. Just as in yesterday’s game, 2 earned runs in at least 6 innings wasn’t enough to secure a win.

Martin Perez took the hill for his 2nd big league start and did not disappoint. At times he had trouble finding the zone, but he did mix his pitches well.

A 1-out walk in the 3rd resulted in a run and then an error by Mike Napoli resulted in 2 more. That would be all the Twins needed, as the Texas offense managed to score only once.

All in all, tonight’s effort was 9 innings of uninspired ball. At no point did it seem that the Rangers were ready to make a come back.

Not much of anything to get excited about.

Also of note…

• Perez is the one positive that I took away from this one. He should have gone a full 7 innings, but he had to throw another dozen pitches (at least) to work around 2 errors.
  The 21-year-old hurler gave up 6 hits, 4 runs (2 earned), walked 3, and struck out 3. A good showing, but not good enough.
• Tanner Scheppers gave up a solo homerun to Justin Morneau in the 7th, which resulted in the 5-1 final score. Yoshinori Tateyama and Michael Kirkman each pitched a scoreless inning (in the 8th and 9th respectively).
• On the other side, Texas made Francisco Liriano look like…some pitcher that’s way better than Francisco Liriano.
  They managed only 5 hits and 1 run in his 6.2 innings of work. They struck out 6 times, but also walked 6 times.
• Napoli probably had the worst night of anybody, which is saying something. First there was his error in the 3rd, in-which he misjudged a pop fly and then fell down and then didn’t catch the ball and then 2 more runs scored before the inning was over.
  At the plate he went 0-for-3 with a strikeout and a walk. He also ground into a 6-4-3 double play with two on and no out. His double play came after the first (and only) Ranger run had scored, effectively smothering what could have been a big inning.
• Josh Hamilton also had an error, then came out of the game with back spasms. He expects to be day-to-day, but seems to think he’ll at least be able to play in the All-Star Game…which, y’know, is a huge relief……what with the game counting towards something that will matter to only 2 of 30 Major League clubs.
• Here’s some stats that I compiled for you…
  In July (5 games) the Ranger offense is averaging 1.8 runs per game. If you take out Roy Oswalt‘s start against Chicago, Ranger starters are giving up 2.75 runs per game (in 4 games).
  I never like to waste a good pitching performance, but you usually won’t get far by putting up less than 2 runs a game for a week straight, even if your starters are coming to play.

Derek Holland will try to right the ship tomorrow night at 6:15 Arlington time on Fox (not FSSW, regular ol’ Fox).

Press on, Rangers fans.

(Leave a comment or find me on Twitter @twbbg. Per usual, thanks to Baseball Reference for their invaluable resources.)