Texas Rangers: Lack of pitch control to blame during ugly loss to Houston

Hyeon-Jong Yang

Last but not least, Hyeon-Jong Yang also had his own respective struggles on the mound yesterday evening.

Ultimately giving the Rangers a much-needed 4.0 innings of length out of the bullpen, Yang still ended up walking three batters while simultaneously allowing an additional three runs to score. While Yang’s outing wasn’t nearly as disastrous as Benjamin’s and de Gues’, it was still the first time we’ve really seen Yang struggle to find his spots on the mound.

Entering Friday night’s game he had been fairly effective for the Rangers this season, even giving the team a half-decent 3.1 inning start on May 5th against the Twins.

However, his outing against the Astros showed us a different side to Yang as a pitcher. Outside of the walks and the runs allowed, he threw 30 of his 72 pitches for balls – a rather high rate for a guy who is known for his control and location, as opposed to velocity and “stuff.”

The Rangers have already lost their series to the Astros, so now it’s just about spoiling the sweep on Saturday afternoon. With the New York Yankees up ahead in the schedule as well, grabbing a win to boost some morale and confidence moving forward would be rather significant.