The Texas Rangers did not score a run but the Los Angeles Dodgers scored three runs.
The Rangers trailed 1-0 moments into this game and then there really wasn’t much of a reason to continue the charade for nine more innings. Everyone might as well have grabbed their nachos and headed right out.
With another poor performance from the hitters, in conjunction with an electric outing from Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Texas saw their nine-game home winning streak come to an end.
The Rangers did have their chances, though. Not too many, because Yamamoto was very good, but more so than the Dodgers were ultimately afforded until they blew it open in the ninth as Los Angeles did not bat with a runner in scoring position against tonight’s Texas starter Jacob deGrom while the Rangers had four such occasions against Yamamoto with no success.
Perhaps most egregious is Joc Pederson, who is now one at-bat without a hit away from becoming one of just 15 hitters ever have an 0-for-40 stretch. The free agent signee DH again hit third in the lineup, as he has in each game since Wednesday, which has only helped to negate the fact that Corey Seager is Texas’ biggest and maybe only threat at the moment.
When the Rangers got a runners on second and third opportunity following a Marcus Semien single and Seager double in the bottom of the third, it was Pederson that came up and, with two outs already in the frame, meekly grounded out to first base for seemingly the 20th time in the last couple of days.
I presume that manager Bruce Bochy has put Pederson third in his lineup the few couple of nights despite his unprecedented slump as a sign of trusting that Pederson will break out and that, with like 140 games to go, showing that faith in players is more important that potentially weakening the chances of a few games, but I mean, we either paid for our Rangers Sports Network subscription or had to look up how to watch this team so let’s not make it a habit to waste anyone’s time here.
Player of the Game: deGrom looked more like his old self tonight rather than himself, old. Throwing a tad harder, deGrom allowed one run on three hits with one walk and seven strikeouts.
Unfortunately for him, one of those hits came on a 98 MPH shoulder-high fastball that went for a lead off home run off the bat of Tommy Edman. After that moment, deGrom was sterling but these days, especially against a pitcher like Yamamoto, one blemish can be enough to tack a loss on your ledger.
Up Next: The Rangers will look to bounce back with RHP Nathan Eovaldi on the mound opposite RHP Roki Sasaki for Los Angeles.
The Saturday afternoon first pitch from The Shed is set for 3:05 pm CT and hopefully Texas won’t embarrass us on national TV on FOX.
