Texas Rangers: Arihara struggles, Gallo and Guzman stay hot

The spring training game between the Texas Rangers and Chicago White Sox in Glendale, AZ on Tuesday afternoon may have finished in a 5-5 tie, but don’t let your eyes deceive you: a lot happened during this sunny, spring day.

Kohei Arihara pitched in his first professional game stateside (yay!), recording his first ever out as a big leaguer against White Sox’ All-Star shortstop Tim Anderson (even bigger yay).

However, he also received a rude welcome to the majors from slugger Andrew Vaughn, who smoked a three-run homer into left field off the Japanese righty (not so yay).

Kohei Arihara’s first Texas Rangers start was turbulent.

All in all, it was a rocky debut for Arihara, who needed both of his innings rolled in order to complete the two frame outing, facing 11 batters in total.

Arihara wasn’t too happy with needing his innings rolled:

"“The reactions aside, for me personally it’s not acceptable that I wasn’t able to finish the innings.”"

Aside from Vaughn’s blast, however, the 28-year-old did notch his first two strikeouts. As expected, the righty will have an adjustment period to endure as he makes the transition to the big leagues, so expect many ups and downs throughout spring training.

At least manager Chris Woodward was encouraged by his new righty’s performance on Tuesday:

"“He threw strikes, I felt like he made some quality pitches… He was all around the zone,” manager Chris Woodward said. “Overall, I thought he was fine. I thought he threw the ball pretty good.”"

On the offensive side, the bats woke up in sunny Glendale, as Joey Gallo and Ronald Guzman each continued their early torrid paces with a home run a piece.

For Gallo, he has now hit homers in both spring games he’s appeared in.

Joey Gallo’s power is emergent so far for the Texas Rangers.

Gallo’s spot on the Opening Day roster looks pretty safe, we think.

As for Guzman, his two plate appearances resulted in a home run off White Sox’ ace Lucas Giolito and a walk as he continues to show off his new swing in hopes of reclaiming his starting first base job.

The Texas Rangers have to start looking at Ronald Guzman more seriously.

It looks as though the Condor’s off-season work is paying early dividends, which could make things legitimately turbulent for Nate Lowe as he also seeks the starting first base job.

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His shorter stroke is resulting in more barrel action, which translates into hard contact and outcomes like doubles and home runs.

Oh yeah, and top prospect Josh Jung hit an RBI single in the game, a potential sign of what’s to come in the near future.

All we can say is get used to seeing the names “Josh Jung” and “RBI single” together quite frequently in scoring plays.

In another major storyline from this game, the Texas Rangers and Chicago White Sox truly exploited the “rolled innings” rule to avoid treacherous circumstances, doing so a combined four times (twice per team!) in the six frame contest.

They see us rolling and they might in fact, hate it.

This is just how it’ll be when you face Chris Woodward’s Texas Rangers squad this spring, so buckle up.