Shawn Tolleson Fails Again, Rangers Lose 4-3 Thursday

Coming off of a 1-2 series loss to the Mariners, the Rangers were looking to get a much needed win against Hector Santiago and the division rival Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 4-3 late Thursday night.

The Texas Rangers are so far one of the more interesting teams in baseball this year. Their bullpen was raved as being one of the best in the league, before getting hammered in each of the past three games, allowing 13 runs in a total 7 innings this season. Their offense was also being lauded as one of the best in the league as well. So far, no one on the squad has hit above .213, and the Rangers seem to get more runs walked in than hit in. Derek Holland got the start Thursday, and allowed 3 runs over 5 innings of work. He looked solid, though he lost his fastball command as the game progressed.

Tom Wilhelmsen came in the 6th, getting through a clean inning with two hits allowed but no runs. Keone Kela came in the 7th, and retired all the batters he saw. The 8th inning is where it got interesting. Kela came back out, faced one batter who got a hit, forcing Jeff Banister to call in Sam Dyson. Dyson, notorious for being a great ground ball pitcher, allowed an Albert Pujols infield hit, mainly caused from the ball hitting the dirt and bouncing straight up 100 feet in the air. The next batter, CJ Cron, hit a swinging bunt, too close to home plate fr Adrian Beltre to get a good play. So now it’s bases loaded with no outs. Sam Dyson gets Kole Calhoun down on strikes, then gets Andrelton Simmons to ground into an inning ending double play. Pretty clutch, right?

The 9th inning, Dyson came back out and allowed a hit and got one out before getting pulled. Jeff Banister calls in Andrew Faulkner, who promptly gets out and walks the first batters he sees, and intentionally walks Mike Trout to load the bases with two outs. In comes Shawn Tolleson. Tolleson threw two pitches: One, a ball that arguably was a strike. And two: A fastball down the middle of the plate that Albert Pujols drives to the left field wall, ending the game with an Angels victory.

Not much to say about the bats today. The only good thing I saw was Elvis Andrus hitting a clutch fly out to right field to score Ian Desmond from third base, tying the game at 3-3 in the 7th inning.

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