ANAHEIM, Calif. — Out here in the land of Disney, the Angels have always been really good with promotions. But they may have outdone themselves with their Harry Potter Night experience Tuesday.
They put a curse on the whole game.
How else but wizardry but to expect how the team ranked in the top three in baseball in fielding, baserunning and pitching metrics – the Rangers – would come up with the kind of performance to make fans effectively shout “Gulping Gargoyles!”
In an 8-5 loss to the Angels, the Rangers were sloppy in the field, sloppy on the bases and charitable on the mound with it all contributing to runs for Los Angeles. It all added up to the most predictable of outcomes for the Rangers: A road loss when the opponent started a lefty. They couldn’t chase Yusei Kikuchi early enough and are now 2-11 against lefties on the road.
Rangers
“It was a game like I haven’t seen in a long time,” said Rangers spark plug Sam Haggerty, who had some misfires on the bases and in the field. “And it’s one you just want to forget.”
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The specific record only heightens awareness of what the Rangers don’t do well:Play on the road or against lefties. They have the worst road record (22-32) among clubs with winning overall records and the second-worst record overall against lefties (9-18).
But this was a game lost on some kind of witchery. Even the things the Rangers do well fell under a hex. A few examples:
— The Rangers made the first out of the game at third base, when Sam Haggerty, the club’s best baserunner got overly aggressive too early, trying to go first to third on a shallow single. The inning then melted away.
— They allowed the first two runs of the game, made from a recipe of walks and a fielding error. It was charged to Adolis García for an aggressive throw to first behind a runner, but might really have been on Ezequiel Duran for failing to catch a catchable throw.
— The Angels scored a third run on a triple that should have been a double and a dropped pop fly that hit off García’s glove as both he and Marcus Semien converged on it. Haggerty, playing left field couldn’t corral Jo Adell’s leadoff double and it squirted away to start things.
— After the Rangers still managed to take a brief lead, the Angels conjured up more demons in a four-run sixth that started with a pair of walks by Jon Gray and included two balls that got by outfielders to account for runs. Wyatt Langford couldn’t make a sliding catch in center on a sinking liner by Travis d’Arnaud and Haggerty had to chase it down. Two batters later, Haggerty went to plant while cutting to a another sinking liner and lost his footing, then had to run to the warning track to fetch the ball.
We’ll stop here for a moment to catch our breath and to include Rangers manager Bruce Bochy throwing himself under the bus.
“It was not our best game or my best game,” said Bochy, who thought he left Gray in too long. “It was a tough night for us.”
But wait there’s still more skullduggery
— And after all the wildness finally seemed over, the demons even conjured a bench-clearing incident in the bottom of the eighth, though it could hardly be considered a brawl. Rangers reliever Shawn Armstrong lost command and hit consecutive batters, the latter being Mike Trout, and Angels interim manager Ray Montgomery came out of his dugout gesturing at the Rangers’ dugout. The benches cleared, but nobody threw a punch and nobody was ejected.
Bochy was not thrilled with Montgomery’s gesticulations and accusations even though the Rangers did issue a total of four hit batters during the game. It broke a kerplunking tie between the teams. The Rangers have now hit Angels seven times this year; the Angels have hit Texas hitters three times.
“He started to yell, and that was enough,” Bochy said. “That was the last thing we were trying to do. We brought him in to keep from scoring a run. But I guess if we hit somebody it’s intentional, but if they hit Seager it’s not. So, I just thought that was enough.”
The miscues outnumbered the highlights, which included García going three feet above the right field wall to steal a two-run homer and Southern California native Kyle Higashioka hitting two homers in his first game back after missing a week with hamstring issues. Apparently, the doctor ordered him to trot only.
The recipe all led to the Rangers losing a game on Houston for the first time in a week and falling five back in the AL West race as the club officially reached the two-thirds point of the season. The Rangers have 54 games to play. They went 26-28 in the first third and 30-24 in the second. They will need to play at least that well over the final third to return to the postseason.
First they must shake off the spell that has gripped them in Orange County where they have lost the first two games of an important road trip.
“I don’t even know how to describe that game,” said Rangers starter Patrick Corbin. “I feel like most games we’ve played here this year, something strange has happened.”
Blame it on the wizardry.
But if it was all due to Harry Potter and the Curse of the Angels, can somebody in the spirit of the evening buy Bochy a butterbeer?
Watch: Adolis García keeps Texas Rangers in game against Angels with home run robberyWhat we heard about Rangers’ trade deadline plans Tuesday: Texas eyeing several relievers
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