Texas Rangers: Team Wins First Series Of The Season

The Texas Rangers’ 8-1 victory today against the Oakland Athletics gives them their first series win of the season. After starting 0-3, Texas could not afford to lose two consecutive series to start a season. Texas is now 2-4. However, due to Seattle losing, Texas is no longer last the American League West standings. Still a long way from reaching first place.

Excellent pitching today. The pitching corps perhaps played their best game so far this season. Batting lineup wasn’t bad, but they could’ve played a lot better. But the bottom line is that the Texas Rangers won their first series of the season. On a positive note, it was against a division rival.

Martin Perez stepped on the mound today, looking for his first win this season. He pitched 5.1 innings, allowing six hits, surrendering no runs, and striking out six batters, thus earning his first victory of 2017. Bullpen managed to prevent Oakland from attempting a comeback. Bullpen allowed just two hits, surrendered one run and struck out a total of five batters. Sam Dyson came into the ninth inning to close out the game. He allowed no hits, surrendered no runs, and struck out one batter. Texas’ pitching corps forced Oakland to leave 11 plays on base. Several times Oakland was in a perfect position to inflict damage, but today’s pitching found a way several times to avoid it.

More from Texas Rangers News

• Early 2023 MLB mock draft has Texas Rangers selecting an Ohtani-lite
• 3 Texas Rangers outfield trade targets not named Bryan Reynolds
• Did Jacob deGrom really mean what he said at his Texas Rangers press conference?
• Martin Perez accepting the qualifying offer looking like solid deal for the Rangers
• 4 outfielders the Texas Rangers can still pursue this winter

Offense finished 7-for-33 and struck out a total of 12 times. Obviously not very explosive, but it was enough for today’s big win. Joey Gallo and Robinson Chirinos combined 4-for-7 with eight RBIs with Gallo hiting his second three-run homerun of the season and having fourth multi-hit game on the main roster. Additionally, his five RBIs are a career-high. Gallo, Chirinos and Ryan Rua all had multiple hits respectively. Five players went hit-less. Unfortunately, today we didn’t get to see anything from Rougned Odor and Carlos Gomez. No matter. Some days are slow for sluggers. Mike Napoli struck out a total of three times. Gomez is 0-for-8 in the last two games. In any case, everyone needs to remain calm and focused.

In this series, the batting lineup went 20-for-98. That’s not good at all. They struck out a total of 24 times. That’s not terrible, but only 20 hits on 98 at-bats is terrible. However, it was enough for Texas to win the series. In any case, batting needs major improvement.

Next: Texas Rangers: Injury Update on Adrian Beltre

The Rangers are off tomorrow. Tuesday night, they begin a three-game series against the Los Angeles Angels. The Angels are currently in first place. If Texas can find a way to win this series, it’ll not only help Texas climb higher in the A.L. West standings, but it’s a start having another great season.